We’re buried in the chaos of the Christmas holidays and on Wednesday and Thursday we were buried in snow! This was our first real accumulated snow fall and the first has always been my favourite kind — the virgin snow delicately covering our urban landscape like a thick, fluffy duvet. It’s really a perfect backdrop for Christmas and with the company party coming up tomorrow, it’s perfect timing. Hopefully the city mess and dirt will keep at bay so the snow remains perfect for one more day.
Mushrooms have always been a huge favourite at our house, be it fresh, plain button mushrooms or fresh, wild mushrooms like shiitake, portobello, king or cremini, we even have a few recipes for the specialty dried variety. But for this special recipe, I chose fresh wild mushrooms.
I created this vegan recipe (to be enjoyed by all) because I wanted to show-case oven roasting mushrooms because it’s a technique that is relatively new to me (oven roasting vegetables is not new, just oven roasting mushrooms). Oven-roasting mushrooms brings out their sweetness and subdues the strong earthiness that some wild varieties have. Toss in finely chopped, fresh garlic and Extra Virgin Olive Oil from our neighbour’s father’s olive grove in Greece and these tasty fungi make a mouth-watering filling for these classy little tarts. By adding a bit of puréed red lentils AND puréed roasted cauliflower and celeriac mash put these gems over the top flavour-wise and adding a lovely creamy texture that glides into your mouth like a velvet cape.
Vegan Mushroom Tarts
A Kitcheninspirations original recipe.
Makes about 36 little tarts
Ingredients:
- 600 g variety of wild mushrooms (I used a combo of white, King, Portobello and Shiitake
- 20 g garlic, finely chopped
- 50 mL EVOO
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 1/3 cup red lentil purée (click here for recipe)
- 1/4 cup cauliflower and celery root mash (click here for recipe)
Directions:
- Pre-heat oven to 450° F (232° F)
- Toss roughly chopped mushrooms in garlic, EVOO and salt. Spread out in a large roasting pan and roast for about 20 minutes or until the released liquid has evaporated and mushrooms are roasted golden. Turn often so the mushrooms don’t stick to the pan.
- Cool.
- Add mushrooms to a food processor and process until all are relatively small bits. Fold in the red lentil purée and the cauliflower and celery root mash. Season to taste.
- You may freeze the mushroom filling at this point to use later. To use later, defrost first.
- Fill the baked pastry cups with the mushrooms and reheat at 200° F (93° C) for 10-12 minutes or until warmed through.
Vegan Thyme Pastry Cups
Vegan tart pastry recipe from Vegan Baking with minor alterations. The links below for vegan butter and shortening are included in case you feel like experimenting. (This is an EXCELLENT Vegan blog with a lot of instruction and science behind the madness).
Ingredients:
- 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 tsp thyme
- ¾ cup (161 grams) or 1 ½ sticks cold Regular Vegan Butter or non-hydrogenated margarine cut into small pieces
- ½ cup (108 grams) or 1 stick cold Vegan Shortening or store bought shortening, cut into 4 pieces
- ¼ cup cold water
- 3 Tablespoons cold vodka (believe it or not, I did not have any, so I omitted it)
Directions:
- Whisk the dry ingredients together. Cut in the vegan butter and shortening just like you would a normal butter pastry, keeping it as cold as you can.
- Add the cold water and vodka and work lightly until it forms a ball. Make three disks and refrigerate, wrapped in plastic wrap for 30 minutes or overnight (mine was over night).
- Pre-heat the oven to 350° F (177° C).
- Roll out the pastry between two sheets of parchment paper to about 1 mm (1/16″) thick. Cut with your favourite cookie cutter and shape into mini muffin cups. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until lightly golden.
- Use immediately or freeze until required. No need to defrost before re-heating with filling.
Notes:
- To help avoid the pastry getting soggy with the filling, I froze the pre-baked pastry and the filling separately and combined and reheated just prior to serving.
- This pastry is also enough for one 9″ double crust pie. The original recipe serves up a sweet version too. Your should definitely check it out.
Eva, I love a good flaky pastry and your tarts look absolutely scrumptious! Thank you for the inspiration, and happy holidays!
LikeLike
How decadent! Cauliflower? Lentils? I never would have thought of those. So clever. Like you and JT, we LOVE mushrooms! I never thought to bake them and now I can’t wait to try. 🙂
LikeLike
Just yesterday, Eva, I watched a TV chef make a similar dish, though hers lacked the lentils and celeriac. She didn’t use pastry cups either, preferring to serve hers more like a dip. I thought I’d like to give hers a try but I think I’ll shelve it in favor of yours. Your presentation is far superior and I bet the lentils and celeriac provide a far better texture, too, not to mention better taste. They’d be perfect for a holiday party. As for the snow, we’ve been lucky so far. Like you, I greatly enjoy the first one, maybe even the next one or two, but come January 2nd, I’m so over it. The only good thing about it is that the really large spiders hate snow. 😀
LikeLike
These look really yummy, Eva and we love mushrooms in this house too. I’ve never added vodka to pastry before! Like you, I also didn’t have any vodka in the house and I needed the tiniest bit to mix with some gold dust to decorate some Christmas cakes. I had to beetle out to the shops and buy a whole bottle and I used about a teaspoon! xx
LikeLike
I haven’t oven-roasted mushrooms either. It sounds like an excellent method. The tartlets look really cute and ready for party season 🙂
We don’t have snow lying on the street (or trees) every year, but I have been seen snow on the mountains from my window for quite a long time now… I must say I prefer it this way 😉 Far away…
LikeLike
I love mushrooms of every shape and variety and your mushroom tarts would be a real treat. The tart shells sound wonderful too. I’ve never oven roasted mushrooms but I’m eager to have a go at this.
LikeLike
I’ve gradually grown to appreciate mushrooms and I bet these tarts are a hit.
LikeLike
This year again is quite warm over here….too much rain. I guess we won’t have a snowy Christmas. These mushroom tartlets look very tempting! The filling will be great to use for crostini too.
LikeLike