Vegetarian Wellington

Vegetarian Wellington with 3 layers: mushroom and sage, roasted squash and garlic greens. This recipe was made at Food Cycle’s Pie in the Sky Community Cafe as a Christmas dinner centrepiece for our bunch of fantastic volunteers to enjoy. Give it a go and let us know your thoughts!

We have made this recipe with both shop bought puff pastry and homemade shortcrust. Both work well – the puff pastry is best if you want to make one large wellington while the shortcrust works well for individual servings.

Serves [6]

Ingredients

Pastry: if making your own shortcrust

• 450g plain flour

• Pinch of salt

• 220g cold butter

• Cold water

  Or

• Two sheets of ready made pre-rolled puff pastry

Filling 1: mushroom and sage

• 2 tablespoons olive oil

• 2 medium onions, chopped

• 2 cloves garlic, crushed

• small handful of parsley, chopped

• 2 tablespoons fresh sage, chopped

• 1 tablespoon fresh thyme, just the leaves

• 1 kilogram mushrooms, chopped into small squares – any kind will do, a variety is best!

• salt and pepper

• 200 grams breadcrumbs (fresh or dry)

Filling 2: roasted squash

• olive oil

• 1 medium squash/pumpkin, peeled, de-seeded, chopped into medium chunks

• salt and pepper

• 2 medium turnips, peeled and chopped into medium chunks

• 1 large potato or sweet potato, peeled and chopped into medium chunks

• 150 grams cheese (strong cheeses like stilton will work, or you can use a soft cheese like cream cheese or ricotta)

Layer 3: garlic greens

• 1 kilogram fresh greens (kale, spring greens and chard work really well)

• 6-8 garlic cloves

• olive oil

• salt and pepper

  To assemble

• Dijon or whole grain mustard

• Beaten egg

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200 celsius.

2. To make the shortcrust pastry: place flour and salt in metal bowl. Rub in cold butter, being sure to keep hands light in movement to not allow the butter to melt. Once mixture looks like breadcrumbs, begin to add in cold water a few tablespoons at a time.

3. Work the mixture into a dough – this usually take about 12-16 tablespoons of water. You want the dough to just come together, but not be sticky or wet. Once the dough comes together, knock it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead it into a smooth dough.

4. Wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

   To make filling 1

5. in a saucepan, sautee onions in the olive oil for about 5 minutes, until softened. Add in garlic, parsley, sage and thyme and cook for a further 5 minutes, until garlic is softened and herbs become fragrant.

6. Add the mushrooms and cook on a low heat until the mushrooms release some juices.

7. Remove mushroom mix from heat and stir in breadcrumbs. You want the mixture to be like a thick paste.

8. Set the mixture aside.

9. You can make this mixture the day before, it keeps well in the fridge.

   To make filling 2

10. Place the chopped squash or pumpkin in a large roasting tray, toss with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast in the preheated oven until squash is soft, about 35 minutes.

11. Place the turnips and potato chunks into a pot of water and bring to the boil. Boil until veg is soft enough to mash. Drain and put back into pot.

12. Add the roasted squash and cheese to the potatoes and turnips and mash together. You can either have this mixture smooth or leave some chunks for texture. Set mixture aside.

13. You can make this mixture the day before, it keeps well in the fridge

    To make filling 3

14. Chop your greens into strips.

15. In a large saucepan fry off the garlic in olive oil and add

16. the greens. Season with salt and pepper and continue to toss until greens have cooked down and softened. Set greens aside.

To assemble your wellingtons

Individual ones

1. Take the pastry out of the fridge and place on a lightly floured surface. Roll out the pastry to about 5mm thickness. Using a cookie cutter or a bowl, cut circles out of the pastry – you will need two circles per person so the size of the circle depends on how big you would like your wellingtons to be.

2. Take one circle and brush with mustard (Dijon or wholegrain). Using a normal sized spoon, spoon out a layer of mushroom mix 1 followed by squash mix 2 and finally the greens 3. Make sure to leave about two fingers of pastry all around. Brush the pastry border with a beaten egg and place another circle of pastry on top. Using a fork, press down edges of pastry together so they are sealed. Brush beaten egg on top of each finished wellington.

3. Place uncooked wellingtons on lined baking tray and bake in the oven for about 25 minutes.

One large one

1. Take one sheet of pre-rolled puff pastry and brush with mustard. Leaving a border of pastry about two fingers wide, begin to layer mix 1, 2, and 3. Be generous with your layers!

2. Brush beaten egg around pastry border. Take second sheet of puff pastry and place it on top, pressing down edges of pastry together.

3. You can now trim away any excess pastry with a knife and press down edges with a fork. Brush with beaten egg and lightly score the top.

4. Bake in oven for about 30 minutes.

Recipe provided by Food Cycle.

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