Hermione's Pantry

I can not believe it has been 12 days since my last post. I’m not quite sure where the time has gone! One thing I know that took up some time was enjoying catching up with lots of my friends this weekend. Once a month me and a group of friends meet up and have dinner, we call ourselves the Dishy Diners. Each month we choose a different country for the food to be from and everyone brings something. This month the country was France, as I am the only vegetarian in the group I made the vegetarian main. Trying to find a classic French recipe for vegetarians is very hard so I decided to use a bit of creative licence and made a chestnut and red wine en croute. I chose this as chestnuts are widely used in French cooking and are a brilliant ingredient that is rarely used in British cooking.

I usually make this during the winter months as I always associate chestnuts with winter. This recipe is really good for a vegetarian sunday dinner or as an alternative for Christmas dinner (I know 11 months to go but it’s worth remembering!). I find it hard to write up my recipes at times as I am the type of cook who adds things as they go along and measures by eye rather than with scales and measuring jugs but I have made this so many times I know this one off by heart. It is a is a very simple recipe but looks very impressive and tastes great.

Chestnut and Red Wine En Croute

Ingredients (serves 4-6 depending on how hungry you are!)

• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 x 415g tin unsweetened chestnut purée
• 100g bread crumbs
• 100ml red wine
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 x 400g packet puff pastry
• 1 egg (for the egg wash)

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 190C/375F.
2. Fry the onion in olive oil until softened, add the garlic and cook for a further couple of minutes.
3. Take off the heat and add the chestnut purée, wine, breadcrumbs and salt and pepper.
4. Roll the pastry out and cut it in half, put the chestnut mixture onto one of the halves, leaving a 2cm gap around the edge.
5. Place the other half over the top and crimp all of the edges tightly so the filling doesn’t escape and the pastry come apart. Using a pastry brush egg wash the pastry.
6. Cook in the oven for 30 minutes.

Enjoy! H x

Adapted from Rose Elliot Vegetarian Christmas (1992) Chestnut and Red Wine Pate En Croute