Day 14: Celeriac, Wild Mushroom & Garlic Wellington

inspired by The Modern Pantry

I worry I’m becoming a coronavirus cliche.

The joy (and danger) of social media is not only that you can stay connected with loved ones…. but you can also see how everyone you know is spending their lockdown.

And it’s then you realise that it’s looking a lot like your lockdown…

Baking your own bread (tick), digging a mini allotment in your garden (tick), taken up running (tick), having a veg box delivered (tick), started a new project (you’re reading it).

I even started a sourdough mother this morning.

Honestly I am a loaf of banana bread away from the full set of lockdown bingo.

I’ll hold my hands up and say the bread baking is definitely down to the quarantine. I have never been fussed about baking. Until about two weeks ago when suddenly I became obsessed with finding yeast. I think all my anxiety was channeled into those little sachets of gold dust.

But everything else? That’s just us. Lockdown or no lockdown!

Well OK not the running… that’s new too.

But the veg box. That’s not! We’re trying to make a bit more of an effort to be eco friendly. Only small steps but we now have our milk delivered in glass bottles, we have our weekly Oddbox full of surplus produce. Until our own veg grows that is!

And it was not wanting to waste veg that lead me to this recipe.

Some days deciding what to cook is easy. When I do the weekly shop I already have a lot of dishes in mind for this blog. Usually the restaurant comes first, not the ingredients.

But now I’m looking in the fridge at half a celeriac, a few (almost past it) wild mushrooms, a bit of leftover red cabbage and half a beaten egg (see yesterday’s post)

I’m pretty good with leftovers. But it’s that bit harder when you are also trying to link your dinner to a restaurant dish. Can’t just keep making soup….

And thankfully after a little searching (OK and hour and a half, but who’s counting!) I discover this dish from The Modern Pantry.

“Celeriac, wild mushroom & garlic Wellington, Winter greens, hazelnut, Shaoxing & verjus dressing”

I love The Modern Pantry. I’ve eaten there a few times. They do amazing brunch but dinner is equally impressive. Everything that comes out of the kitchen is surprising. But not in a crazy, what the hell is that?! kind of way. It’s all just really good cooking with some twists and a few unusual ingredients.

So it wasn’t an obvious choice for a leftovers recipe (hence the 90 minutes online!) but it hits the brief!

I won’t even attempt to dressing (verjus? anyone?), and it will have to be winter red (cabbage) rather than greens. I suppose there’s spinach in the freezer…

Things quickly escalate and before you know it I’m freezing butter to make my own rough puff pasty. I used a Paul Hollywood recipe which was pretty straightforward.

I’m pretty happy with the end result. Seeing as I had never made puff pastry, never made a wellington and was completely making it up as I go along.

As soon as restaurants open again I’m going to Modern Pantry to see what it should actually taste like! And to find out what the hell verjus is….

Celeriac, Wild Mushroom & Garlic Wellington

A vegetarian wellington packed with roasted celeriac and wild mushrooms

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 40 mins

Cook Time 40 mins

Total Time 1 hr 20 mins

Course Main Course

Servings 2

Ingredients

  

• ½ celeriac
• 100 g mixed wild mushrooms
• 1 shallot
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 tbsp pine nuts
• 1 sprig thyme
• 1 tbsp dill, chopped
• 1 tbsp dried porcini mushrooms
• 1 tbsp breadcrumbs
• olive oil
• 300 g puff pastry (see link above if you want to make your own)
• ½ beaten egg
• splash milk

Instructions

 

• Preheat oven to 200°C
• Soak your dried porcini in boiling water
• Peel the celeriac and cut into cubes. Put on a baking tray with olive oil, salt, pepper and three unpeeled garlic cloves. Put in the oven to roast
• Finely chop the shallot. Peel and finely chop the remaining garlic clove. Add some olive oil to a small frying pan on a low heat and gently sweat the onion and garlic for 10 minutes
• Roughly chop the wild mushrooms and add to the pan. Pick the thyme leaves and add. Season and let the mushrooms gently cook down for 10 minutes
• After 20 minutes in the oven check your celeraic and turn them. Remove the three garlic gloves and put to one side
• Once cooked take the mushrooms off the heat and leave to cool slightly. Then stir in the pine nuts, dill and breadcrumbs
• Take the celeriac out of the oven when soft and golden. Cool and then add to the mushroom mix. Squeeze the roasted garlic cloves and add the soft garlic to the filling.
• Take the porcini out of the soaking liquid and finely chop. Add to the filling. If it's looking a little dry add a splash of the soaking liquid.
• Put a piece of parchment paper on a clean surface. Roll out the puff pastry on the parchment sheet into a square, about 25cm by 25cm.
• Add your filling to one half of the rectangle – leaving a 2cm gap around the edge.
  
• Mix a splash of milk into your beaten egg and brush the edges of the pastry. Using the parchment paper fold the other side of the pastry over the filling and press the edges to seal. If you like you can press the edges with a fork and use a knife to add a criss cross pattern to the top.
  
• Brush the wellington with the egg/milk mixture. Transfer the baking parchment to a baking tray (you can cut away the excess paper if you like). Put the wellington in the oven for about 35-40 minutes until it is crisp and golden.
  

Notes

This has quite an intense mushroomy flavour. You could swap out the fresh wild mushrooms for chestnut or portobello if you prefer. Or if that’s what you have in your fridge!

Keyword celeriac, garlic, mushroom, puff pastry, wellington, wild mushrooms