Recipe Wild Mushroom Coulibiac

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This is another of our special occasion mushroom recipes that is great for Christmas Day. It is extravagent, so get decent mushrooms. It isn't are you'll make often so make the most of it. And if you like garlic and thyme, add more. Whole cloves of roasted garlic or even black garlic would be wonderful in this dish, as would extra thyme...

The recipe is vegetarian, not vegan but I reckon for a special meal, it is one that at the very minimum is worth making/buying same proper vegan butter for rather than using margarine or oil, if you're not confident making your own vegan butter. My version, here (Recipe - European Style Cultured Vegan Butter) is excellent with mushrooms and would be worth making. Substituting oil will not work in this instance. The recipe also uses parmasean and again a vegan alternative would be worth the expense and there are a few decent ones available made from rice. It also utilises a couple of eggs in the filling, one as a binding agent and the other as a glaze. It is possible the recipe would work without, but i've not tried it. However, the eggs in the brioche would need thought and either an egg- replacement or a case of swapping the brioche out completely for shortcrust/ puff or fillo pastry.
I wasn't vegan last time I made it and it was only the current recipe challenge ingredient that made me think of it again.

Ingredients - brioche
400g plain flour
I tsp salt
2 tbsp caster sugar
2 tsp fast-acting dried yeast
3 eggs, beaten
150g butter, softened
2 tbsp warm milk

Ingredients - filling
20g dried porcini mushrooms
4 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
3-4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1_2 tbsp chopped fresh thyme
225g risotto rice
600 ml vegetable stock
50-60g sun-dried tomatoes in oil, drained & sliced
1 egg, beaten
50-60g vegetarian parmesan, grated
350-400g mixed wild & cultivated mushrooms
100g fresh spinach, leaves only
salt & pepper
beaten egg, to glaze

Method

1. Sift the flour and salt into a large bowl, stir in the sugar and yeast and gradually beat in the eggs. Work on the butter and the milk to form a soft- dough and knead on a lightly floured surface for about 5 minutes. Place in a lightly oiled bowl, cover and leave to rise in a warm place you 45 minutes.
2. Soak the dried porcini mushrooms in about 150 ml of boiling water for 20 minutes or so. Drain, reserving the liquid and chop the porcini.
3. Meanwhile, heat 2 tbsp of oil in a pan and add the auan, garlic and thyme and cook for 5 minutes until golden taking care not to burn the garlic.
4. Add the rice and stir fry for 1 minute. Gradually add the mushroom liquid and then the vegetable stock a little at a time, stirring frequently for 25 minutes until the rice is tender but not liquid logged. Cool slightly, before stirring in the sun-dried tomatoes, eggs, parmesan and season.
5. Heat the remaining oil in a frying pan, add the chopped porcini and the fresh mushrooms (roughly chopped if large) and cook over a medium heat for 4-5 minutes. Strain off any mushroom juices adding it to the rice mixture, but reserve the cooked mushrooms.
6. Preheat the oven to 190°C (375F/Gas mark 5). Knead the dough for about 2 minutes then divide into ⅓ : ⅔. Roll out are third on a floured surface to make a rectangle about 20×30 cm and immediately transfer to a greased baking tray. We found it easier to roll it out directly onto baking parchment and to slide the baking tray under the parchment.
7. Lay ½ of the spinach leaves along the middle of the dough, spread ½ the rice mixture on to the rice, top with all of the mushroom. Now add the remaining rice and finally lay the remaining spinach leaves on the top.
8. Roll the remaining two thirds of the dough in to a rectangle about 1½ times larger than the base (so roughly 30x45cm). Quickly use it to cover the filling, dampening or using egg to firmly seal the edges. Press together fromly or use a pastry cutter to get a decent seal and trim (if not using a pastry cutter). Use any trimmings for decoration - reshape as desired. Brush the trimmings with beaten egg to get them to stick and finally brush the entire thing with egg to glaze.
9. Bake for around 40 minutes until golden.

The original recipe gives nutritional data and frankly, a single serving is, well, calorie laden to say the least at around 770 calories a slice. As I said, it's a Christmas Day meal... One option avaiable if the dough is too much for you either in culinary terms or in calorie terms is to swap it out with shortcrust pastry (750g is given in the original recipe) or even a phyllo (fillo) pastry which would save a lot of calories (I'd suggest using a pyrex lasagne dish or similar to assist with the shaping and carefully turning it out onto the baking tray before cooking. Do a decent thick layer of phyllo pastry sheets!

Sadly my recipe from the long since discontinued BBC Vegetarian Good food magazine comes with no image (I didn't save it) but it will look like a golden bread which when cut into should show 5 layers with the mushrooms in the middle and rice above and below and a layer of spinach between the rice and the brioche.