Savory Porcini Mushroom Pie

The porcini season has started at last. Our forests are harboring so many delicious mushrooms at the moment, and we are so fond of looking for (and picking) them! And our favorites are the porcini, or penny buns, or cep (in Dutch their name is eekhoorntjesbrood, which means 'bread for squirrels'...). At this time of the year we use them every day of the week for cooking a great risotto ai funghi, baking them for accompanying the meat, making gorgeous omelets with them, or we dry them on the warming plate of the Aga for later use.

Today, I have made a great savory pie.....
This recipe is based on puff pastry. And because I dislike the deep frozen ready to use puff pastry you can buy in the supermarket, I always prepare some myself. Not the difficult way, but so-called rough puff pastry. This is how I do it:

 Ingredients:
- 250 g wheat flour
- 250 g cold salted butter
- 125 g ice cold water
- 4 g salt

Method:
Mix the flour with the salt and mix in the butter, which has been cut in small cubes (let the butter become ice cold for this: put it in the freezer for half an hour or so). I use my KitchenAid for this. What a perfect machine that is! When the mass is transformed to a substance that looks like bread crumb, you can add the water and transform it into a ball of dough. Don't knead it! Wrap it in plastic and put it in the freezer for at least half an hour.
Put your dough on a lightly floured working surface and roll it out to a 10 x 30 cm rectangle. Fold the end which is closest to you over the dough for one third and fold the other end over it. Now you end up with a perfect(!) square. Turn the dough 90 degrees and repeat this process. Don't expect that this is an easy job! The dough will become better to handle later on...
Wrap your dough in plastic again and put it back in the freezer for at least half an hour.
Once the pastry has rested follow the rolling and folding process again; after half an hour in the freezer the pastry is ready for use. Now the moment has come to make your pie.

Ingredients:
- 100 g peeled and chopped walnuts
- 3 chopped shallots
- 2 chopped cloves of garlic
- 200 g bacon in small strips
- (at least) 500 g sliced fresh porcini
- a splash of olive oil
- a bunch of fresh thyme, finely chopped
- a bunch of chopped parsley
- 4 eggs
- 150 g heavy cream
- pepper (and perhaps some salt)

Method:
Heat the olive oil in a large skillet on the hot plate and cook and stir the shallot in it until tender. Add the bacon and after a few minutes the garlic and the mushrooms. Now transfer your skillet to the simmering plate and let it cook until the mushrooms are reduced to about half. Season to taste with pepper (and perhaps some salt). Now put the mixture in a mixing bowl, add the walnuts and in case the mixture is very wet, poor most of the moist in the skillet again and let it reduce on the hot plate. Add the reduced moist to the mixture again and let it cool down a bit.

Now put the puff pastry in a 24 cm spring form pan (greased and floured) and line bottom and sides. Beat the eggs with the cream and the herbs, mix it well with the mushroom filling and poor the mixture in you pan. Use some left over pastry to make a nice looking pie and brush it with some egg. Put the pie high in the baking oven for an hour at least, until the crust is golden. Very often I keep it in the oven for an hour and a half and cover the surface with a sheet of aluminium foil, to prevent it fromm getting too brown.

Klik hier om dit recept in het Nederlands te lezen.