Mushroom and Bacon Pie with Blue Cheese and Creme Fraiche Sauce

For more recipes by Finy, check out my website: www.finysfood.blogspot.com.au/

Dinner (2274) Healthy (1888) Family (1525) Mushrooms (190) Pie (83) Buffet (57) Blue Cheese (16) Creme Fraiche (9) Mixed mushrooms (1)

mixed,mushroom,pie,with,a,blue,cheese,and,creme,fraiche,sauce

I wanted to use different mushrooms for this pie as mushrooms have different tastes, however I could only find Shiitake mushrooms at the supermarket, as the rest were not grown in Australia.

They were very expensive so I only bought 100 grams, however you could really taste these in amongst the pie.

The sauce was melted and poured over the sliced pie. It was rich, creamy with a hint of blue cheese, and teamed very well with the mushroom taste!

Preparation Time: 30 minutes
Cooking Time: 55 minutes plus time in fridge
Makes: 5 - 6 servings

Ingredients
2 sheets puff pastry
1 egg, beaten
750 g button mushrooms
100 g shiitake mushrooms
2 onions, finely chopped
1 tsp thyme leaves
2 garlic cloves, crushed
8 rashers shortcut bacon
1 tbsp parsley, chopped
50 - 75 g blue cheese, crumbled
150 ml creme fraiche

Method

Defrost the puff pastry and leave the dividing paper on it.

Lay one sheet of the puff pastry on the dividing sheet, or alternatively flour a board and roll it out to about 30 x 25 cm.

Put it on a baking tray with baking paper and prick this sheet only. Brush it with some of the beaten egg.

getting,puff,pastry,ready,for,mushroom,pie

Make the remaining pastry slightly larger than this base by rolling it out.

Place on another tray and chill both for about 30 minutes.

Chop the majority of the mushrooms roughly and then put in a food processor, and process till fairly small pieces, but not totally blended.

Put the onions in a wok or saucepan and fry in a bit of oil for about 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms and thyme leaves and cook on a low to medium heat.

The mushrooms will release liquid, and when this starts to happen, turn the heat to higher and cook until the liquid dries out -this was about 10 minutes for me.

Add some salt and pepper, and then put on a tea towel or paper towels to get any last liquid drained away.

Melt a bit of butter in the frying pan over a high heat and when this is hot, add the shiitake mushrooms and the garlic. I added the few ordinary mushrooms I had left to this. Fry for a minute or two, and season with a bit of salt and pepper.

Drain on paper towel or tea towel.

Remove the two pastry sheets from the fridge. Add the parsley to the button mushroom mix and spread this along the centre of the smaller base pastry (this is the one that has been pricked). Make sure you leave some space around the edges (about 2 cm).

Spoon the shiitake mushrooms mixture on top.

Put the bacon pieces on top of this to cover, and slightly overlap them.

Fold the remaining pastry sheet loosely in half from the long side and cover the mushrooms.

Using a sharp knife, cut lengthwise strips at the fold - about 1 - 2 cms apart, once again leaving about a 2 cm border uncut.

Brush round the base of the pie.

Unfold the top piece of pastry and brush with the beaten egg.

Seal all round the edges by pressing together, or using a fork. The cuts in the top pastry will release any steam and also make the pie look very attractive!

Chill for 15 minutes or so, and while doing this preheat your oven to 180° fan forced, or 200° ordinary oven.

Brush pastry with more egg and bake for about 30 minutes, until crispy. Half way re-brush with more egg to give it a nicer finish.