Field mushrooms, gruyère, thyme, store-bought puff pastry, thirty minutes. The dinner you make when the day got away from you.
Why you should cook this
The mushroom tart on a sheet of frozen puff is the great bluff of midweek cooking. You serve it on a wooden board with a green salad and a cold bottle of something white, and a guest will tell you you have outdone yourself, and you will accept the compliment without disclosing that the pastry came from the freezer aisle of Coles in Marrickville at 5.43pm. Frozen puff is the only convenience food that has never been beaten by anything homemade you would actually have time to make on a Wednesday. The Carême brand at Harris Farm is the all-butter version and the one to use; the standard Pampas in the orange box at Coles will work but lacks the structural ambition of the Carême sheet, which puffs up like it has been waiting for this moment.
The mushrooms are where the dish lives. Mix the cheap and the slightly fancy. Button mushrooms for body, swiss browns for depth, an oyster mushroom or two for the look of the thing. Saute them hard in a wide pan with butter and a heavy hand of salt; you want them to give up their water, then re-absorb the seasoning in the dry stage, then take a final ten seconds of garlic and thyme. The gruyère gets grated into the mushrooms while they are still hot in the pan, and the whole thing goes onto the pastry sheet in one generous spreading move. Fold the edges up about a centimetre to form a crude border. Brush with egg wash. Twenty-two minutes in a 220°C oven. Done.
What to drink with it
A Yarra Valley pinot noir, light, slightly cold from a fifteen-minute fridge sit. The earthy fruit and bright acid mirror the mushroom and cut the gruyère. A Mac Forbes RS3 at $32 from Vinomofo is the everyday move. If pinot is not on the shelf, an unwooded Margaret River chardonnay does the same job from a different angle.
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Defrost the puff pastry in the fridge overnight, not on the bench. Bench-defrosted pastry sweats and goes flabby and you cannot bake the flab back out of it. Saute the mushrooms in batches if the pan is crowded; crowded pans steam, dry pans brown, and you came here for browned. Salt early, stir less than you think. The mushrooms need time on the surface to caramelise; if you stir them like a worried parent every twenty seconds they will release their water and you will end up with mushroom soup on your tart, which is a different thing entirely. Egg wash the pastry edges only, not the centre, or the mushroom layer will slide off the slick top during the bake.
Two things that go wrong
Soggy bottom
Too much mushroom water on the pastry. Drain the cooked mushrooms in a sieve for 60 seconds before assembling. Or, pre-bake the empty pastry sheet for 8 minutes before topping. The pastry needs a head start.
Pastry refuses to puff
It defrosted too early or got warm. Pop the assembled tart in the fridge for 10 minutes before baking. Cold pastry, hot oven, that is the deal.
Variations worth knowing
Goat’s cheese
Drop the gruyère, add little dabs of soft goat’s cheese on top of the mushrooms before baking. Tangier, lighter.
With caramelised onion
Spread a layer of slow-cooked caramelised onion under the mushrooms. Adds an extra 40 minutes upfront, worth it on a slow Sunday.
Truffled
A teaspoon of truffle oil drizzled at service. Restrained, please. Truffle oil is the cologne of the kitchen.
Leftovers and make ahead
Reheats in an oven at 180°C for eight minutes, comes out almost as good as fresh. Do not microwave; the pastry turns into something that has been crying. Cold leftovers cut into squares are excellent for lunch the next day with a leaf salad and a small jealous look from the colleague at the desk next to you.
The recipe
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Ingredients
Method
- Preheat oven to 220°C fan-forced. Line a baking tray with baking paper.
- Place the puff pastry sheet on the tray. Score a 1cm border around the edge with the tip of a knife, not cutting all the way through.
- Heat butter in a wide pan over high. Add mushrooms in a single layer, salt heavily. Do not stir for 3 minutes. Then stir, cook another 6 minutes until well browned.
- Add garlic and thyme, cook 30 seconds. Drain mushrooms in a sieve to release residual liquid.
- Spread mushrooms evenly over the pastry, inside the scored border. Scatter gruyère over.
- Brush the pastry border with the egg wash.
- Bake 22 minutes until the pastry is deeply golden and the cheese is bubbling.
- Rest 4 minutes. Cut into squares. Serve with a leafy salad.