Creamy Miso Mushroom & Blue Cheese Spelt Pasty, with ‘Neo-Geisha’ Salad
This is the perfect combination of healthy spelt, hearty mushroom, cheesy winter comfort, and something you can easily eat on the go. Tamara's food journal: http://on.fb.me/1qsIOlY
About this dish
I have included the recipe for my spelt pastry, but if you want to buy store-bought go right ahead! I’ve also included a pretty specific salad recipe but it’s not necessary…the witch in me just got very excited when I saw purple carrots and Black Crimean tomatoes at my local organic grocery store, and immediately thought up a kind of gothic Japanese-inspired salad to go with the pasty. If you can’t find the ingredients, a simple salad with the vinaigrette I have suggested would work just as well.
Ingredients
Pastry ingredients
- 2 cups wholemeal spelt flour
- 1 cup white spelt flour
- 1 tsp salt
- 200g Nuttelex (or other non-dairy margarine/butter)
- Small bowl of water with ice cubes
Filling ingredients
- 4 large portobello mushrooms (seeking out local or organic ones is so worth it, the supermarket variety lacks in richness of flavour)
- vegan blue cheese (I use Vegusto), but if you can’t find any vegan blue cheese in your area you can just add 1/4 cup of nutritional yeast to the spelt flour
- 1 tbsp miso paste (white is best but I have used red and it works nicely too)
- 1/2 large brown onion, diced and fried in olive oil until translucent
- 2-3 cups hot vegetable stock
- 3/4 cup Nuttelex (or other non-dairy margarine/butter)
- 1 cup white spelt flour
- juice of 1/2 a lemon
- salt & pepper, to taste
‘Neo-Geisha’ Salad ingredients
See below for ‘Neo-Geisha’ Salad ingredients and method
Method
Pastry method
1. First combine your two types of spelt flour and salt in a medium mixing bowl. Then add half of your non-dairy margarine to the bowl and begin rubbing it into the flour between your fingers, to achieve a bread crumb-like consistency. Keep adding the rest of your margarine until you have no dry flour left, and it is all a bit like damp sand.
2. Add just a little of your ice water at a time, stopping to mix it through well frequently. You only want to add just enough to be able to create a pliable dough. It should be able to be rolled into a small ball, which you then need to wrap in cling-film and place in the fridge for 30 mins, or longer.
3. Now you make your filling!
Filling method
1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius.
2. Slice just the stalk off the mushrooms, then pop them on a small oven tray and bake for just a few minutes – you don’t want to cook them, just soften them a little so not totally raw.
3. Dissolve the tablespoon of miso in the hot vegetable stock, and leave to the side.
4. Melt the non-dairy margarine in a small pot on the stove, over a medium-low heat. Once it has melted, add the flour (or flour/nutritional yeast mix) and stir constantly to completely combine the ingredients and make a ‘roux’. Keep stirring frequently for 5 minutes, or until the grainy, floury texture has gone from the mix.
5. Begin to add the lemon juice, and then the vegetable stock/miso 1/2-1 cup at a time, mixing it through the roux thoroughly to form a creamy beschamel-like sauce. The desired consistency should be just slightly thicker than a beschamel, and when ready you will need to season it with salt and pepper to taste. I put quite a lot of pepper in mine, as the sharpness works nicely with the super creamy sauce. For the final touch, add the diced, cooked onion, and mix through.
6. To construct the pasty, you just need to roll out half of your dough and cut it in half so you have two rectangle shapes. Place several slices of blue ‘cheese’ in the middle of the bottom half of the rectangle, leaving enough space around the slices to be able to seal the pastry when folded over. Pop one of the portobello mushrooms on top of the slices, gills up, then fill the top of it with the creamy miso mixture. It should be thick enough to mold it into a flat shape and to place small pieces of it around the mushroom so the whole filling has a square shape. Then simply fold the top half of the pastry over the top to cover the filling and match the edges of the bottom half. Use a fork to press the edges of pastry together to seal, and slice a few vents in the top of the pasty. Brush with melted margarine, and they’re ready to go in the oven!
7. Now, as I’ve mentioned before my oven is TERRIBLE. So I would say just put them in the oven until they start to get crisp and brown on top – about 30 mins. Check on them after 20 mins and see how you go from there. That’s it! So easy, and soooo good. I paired mine with the below salad.
‘Neo-Geisha’ Salad ingredients and method
- 2 Black Crimean tomatoes, sliced into quarters, then sliced into quarters again
- 1 purple carrot, julienned
- 1/4 beetroot, peeled into strips and roasted with olive oil and salt to create ‘crisps’
- 1 radish, sliced super thin
- Several sprigs of lemon thyme for garnish
- A drizzle of Japanese vinaigrette – the juice of half a lemon, 2 tbsp Nama Shoyu soy sauce, 3 tbsp Rice Wine Vinegar, 1 tsp agave syrup, and a tiny tiny TINY pinch of wasabi all whisked up together
Enjoy!
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