Porcini Mushroom Stuffing/ Loaf/ Patties

 

This is a Nigel Slater recipe - just slightly tweaked.

Oven 200 deg. C :  400 F :  Gas 6 
Cooking time: approx. 30 mins.

Ingredients:
40g. (1.3/4 ozs.)  dried porcini mushrooms
300ml. hot water from the kettle
250g. (9 ozs.) chestnut mushrooms - white ones are fine too.
150g. (5ozs.) pre-prepared cooked chestnuts
1 x 400g. (14ozs.) flageolet or haricot beans - rinsed and drained
1 large egg
3 tbls. honey or maple syrup
3 tbls. soy sauce
100g. (3.1/2 ozs.) fresh breadcrumbs
2 tbls. groundnut/sunflower oil plus extra for greasing
small amount of lemon zest - to taste
Seasoning to taste.
(The original recipe has kale and also macadamia nuts - but I didn't use these)

1. Grease a baking tray.
2. Soak the dried porcinis in the 300 ml. of hot water - for about 10 mins.
3. In your food processor add the chestnut mushrooms and beans and blend till you have a rough paste with a little texture.
4. Reserving the liquid**, drain the porcini - add to the food processor and briefly whizz again.
5. Tip the above into a large bowl and add, the egg, honey and soy and finally the breadcrumbs.  Stir well to mix.  Taste for seasoning.
6. Either shape into patties and place on to a greased tray or bun tin, or roll into a loaf shape (using Klingfilm, then remove Klingfilm).
Place loaf on a greased tray, cover with foil and bake for approximately 1/2 hour - it's better to slightly undercook this than let it go dry by overcooking.
You can either completely wrap this in foil or just cover it - - remove the foil near the end of cooking.

** if using Kale you can cook the kale in the porcini liquid, or just save it to use in a  mushroom sauce or soup.  The Kale is served alongside.

I love cold stuffing, and this quantity is large enough (usually) to have some extra leftover to keep in the fridge.  This keeps pretty well - and you can keep grazing on it :o)

Apologies - I forgot to take a photo, and it disappeared pretty quickly anyway!

Chestnut Mushrooms

Porcinis in a jar!