Morel Pie is a modern British recipe for a classic pot pie of morels in a velouté sauce base baked in a puff pastry topping. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic British version of: Morel Pie.
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Morels need to be thoroughly cooked before eating or they can cause stomach upsets. This pie ensures they're properly cooked whilst making the most of their flavour. The chambered heads of morels also require thorough cleaning. Any type of morel: morels, black morels, common morels or even semifree morels (or a mixture) can be used in this recipe.
Ingredients:
For the velouté sauce:
75g butter
20g plain flour
500ml vegetable or mushroom stock
salt and freshly-ground black pepper, to taste
For the Pie:
400g morel caps
2 tbsp olive oil
3 garlic cloves, peeled and thinly sliced
2 shallots, finely chopped
2 celery sticks, finely sliced
1 leek, cut into thin rounds
3 carrots, peeled and diced
2 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
125ml Madeira wine
250g package puff pastry
1 egg beaten with 1 tbsp milk, to glaze
Method:
Pre-heat your oven to 180C (Gas Mark 4).
For the velouté sauce, melt half the butter in a medium-sized saucepan over low heat. Scatter over the flour and beat into the butter with a wooden spoon to form a roux. Continue cooking, beating constantly for about 3 minutes until the roux starts to darken in colour.
Take the pan off the heat then whisk in half of the stock (this ensures the sauce will be smooth and free of lumps). Now mix in the remaining stock. Season to taste, return to the hob and bring the mixture to a simmer. Cook for 10 minutes to thicken then strain by passing through a fine-meshed sieve. Set the sauce aside to cool as you prepare the filling.
Melt the remaining butter with the olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Use to fry the garlic, shallots, celery, leek and parsley for 5 minutes. At this point add the morels and cook for 2 minutes more. Deglaze the pan with the madeira, bring to a simmer and continue cooking until the volume of liquid has reduced by half.
Pour in the cooled velouté sauce and mix to combine. Divide the mushroom mixture between four individual pie dishes.
Lightly roll out the puff pastry then cut from it four disks that are large enough to cover the tops of the pie dishes. Use the pastry as lids for the mushroom mixture. Brush the tops of the pastry with the eggwash to glaze then cut two steam holes in the pastry.
Sit the pie dishes on a baking tray then transfer to the centre of your pre-heated oven. Bake for 45 minutes, until the filling is piping hot and the pastry top is nicely puffed and golden.
