Tag Archives: mushrooms

Another savoury dish with puff pastry


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If I was going to have to name this dish then it would have to be called Mike… for all of you new to my naming system I name things alphabetically after people as I am bored of naming things after cooking methods.

Ingredients
1 pack pre rolled puff pastry
1/2 – 1 jar caramelised onions (or make your own from 750g red onions)
400g mixed mushrooms – roughly chopped up
8 slices of smoked streaky bacon – roughly chopped
100g butter
blue cheese

Method
1 hour in advance
1 – over a high heat, melt the butter and then fry off the bacon until starting to colour.
2 – throw in the mushrooms
3 – cook until the mushrooms, stirring regularly until they have reduced in size by ½.
4 – leave to cool

½ an hour before dinner
1 – Preheat the oven to the temperature recommended on the puff pastry packet. This is normally 180-200 degrees Centigrade.
2 – Take the puff pastry out of its packet and cut into whatever size portions you want. You can even leave it whole if you want to.
3 – Place each portion on a baking tray and cut a border about 1-2cm from the edge (pressing down to half way through the pastry with your knife). The edge is the bit that is going to puff up in the oven so the amount of border is up to you.
4 – Spread the caramelised onions into the centre section, then pile on the cooled mushroom mixeture.
5 – Crumble blue cheese all over the top.

6 – Bake in the oven for 15 – 20 mins until golden brown.


Madeira sauce for fillet steak


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Every Sunday, my mother does a roast dinner for anywhere between 4 and 8 people. This is a nightmare for her back as standing doing the vegetables causes her back pain, yet, week after week she does this meal. This week, there was only the three of us, which meant that I got to do dinner. I am not a fan of vast amounts of washing up so I declined to do a roast and instead did steak, rosemary roasted new potatoes, broccoli and cauliflower gratin and steamed carrots. The sauce for the meal is the reason for my post today; it was stunning and got compliments from all concerned. So here it is:

Madeira Sauce

30g butter
1 shallot – finely diced
250ml Madeira (I use the cooks 250ml bottles that you can now pick up from supermarkets)
250ml beef stock
100g of sliced mushrooms
2 tsp wholegrain mustard
100ml double cream

To do in advance
On a low heat, sweat the shallot off in the butter. When the shallot is translucent, turn up the heat, and then add the Madeira and stock. Reduce the mixture down to about a third of the original volume. This can take up to 15 minutes but keep an eye on it.
After cooking the steaks
Throw the mushrooms into the pan that the steaks were cooked in and turn the heat back up. After about a minute (just as the mushrooms start to colour) add the mustard, stir briefly then pour in the stock mixture prepared earlier. Stir until it starts to bubble and pour in the double cream.
Taste the sauce at this point, it may need salt, pepper or even more cream but I will leave that decision up to you.
When you have decided that the flavor is perfect; serve.