Here’s a recipe we made for Xmas dinner recently that went down a treat. Nicked from UKTV Food, but reproduced here in full in case they take it down….

by Nadine Abensur from Good Food Live
(with minor modifications by me!)

For a truly splendid vegetarian meal try Nadine Abensur’s tasty pastry parcel, filled with a rich mushroom and nut filling

* Servings: 12-16
* Level of difficulty: Intermediate
* Preparation Time: 40 minutes
* Cooking Time: 1 hour 20 minutes

Ingredients

* 500g Puff pastry
* 60ml sunflower oil
* 675g Onions, chopped
* 4 garlic clove, crushed
* 450g chestnut mushrooms, left whole
* 2 tbsp chopped tarragon
* 4 tbsp soy sauce or tamari, (replace 1 tbsp with Marsala or sherry if wanted)
* salt and fresh ground black pepper
* 320g broken cashew pieces
* 175g fine breadcrumbs, freshly made, white or wholemeal
* 320g ground almonds (we didn’t find any, so we used pine nuts instead which tasted great!)
* 1 egg, beaten
* roasted root vegetables, to serve
* creamy mushroom and chive sauce, to serve

Method

1. Roll out the puff pastry into two rectangles, each 30 x 23 cm, and set aside in the fridge to rest.

2. Meanwhile, make the filling. Heat the oil in a large, heavy-based frying pan. Fry the onion and 2 crushed garlic cloves over a low heat for 20 minutes, stirring now and then. Set the fried onion mixture aside.

3. Add the chestnut mushrooms, remaining garlic and half the tarragon to the frying pan and cook over medium heat, stirring, until the mushrooms have softened, about 10 minutes.

4. After 5 minutes of frying add in the soy sauce or tamari and Marsala or sherry is using. Season with salt and freshly ground pepper. Strain the mushrooms and set aside, reserving the mushroom juices.

5. Blend the cashews and the reserved liquor to a smooth paste, adding a little water if necessary. The original recipe says to use a food processor, but we don’t have one, and besides, we wanted some texture, so we just chopped them fairly small, which worked fine.

6. Add the fried onions and mushrooms. Again, the original recipe used a food processor here, but I wanted to retain some texture, so we just sliced the mushrooms fine. I reckon next time I’d actually go further and even leave them a bit chunky.

7. In a large mixing bowl mix together the cashew paste, onion and mushroom mixture, breadcrumbs, ground almonds and remaining tarragon.

8. Preheat the oven to 220°C/ Gas 7 and remove the pastry from the fridge.

9. Place half the filling mixture onto the middle of one of the rectangles and shape into a sausage with your hands.

10. With a sharp knife, starting on the left side, make a 45 degree angle cut on the top-left of the filling to remove a triangle of pastry. Place this at one end of the filling. Now, mirroring the first cut, make a series of parallel cuts on the same angle, but 1.5 inches lower each time down the left-hand side. Repeat the process on the right-hand side. You should end up with a triangular piece of pastry at each end of the filling, and the remaining pastry on either side cut into diagonal strips that slope towards you, as roughly shown in the pathetic ascii diagram below.


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11. Fold in the pastry ends first and then cross over the pastry strips from alternate sides.

12. When the mixture is well-wrapped within the pastry, glaze the pastry parcel with the beaten egg.

13. Repeat the process with the remaining pastry rectangle and filling.

14. Place the parcels on a floured baking sheet and bake for 35-45 minutes until golden brown.

15. Serve with roasted vegetables and a creamy mushroom and chive sauce.