Mushroom Pie With Porcini and Thyme

Mushroom pie is a great meat-free dinner alternative. It's filling and full of savoury, wild mushroom flavour. Best served with rocket salad and some garlic bread on the side. Can be a main meal, lunch or an appetiser. Microwaves well and keeps in the fridge for 2-3 days.

For pie crust:

- shop-bought or homemade shortcrust pastry or puff pastry
- baking paper or aluminium foil
- ceramic baking beans, dried rice or dried beans (for blind baking)

Filling ( for a deep, 9 inch pie dish):

- 800g mushrooms (white or brown skinned, or mixture)
- 40g dried porcini mushrooms
- 1 medium white onion
- 2-3 garlic cloves
- olive oil for frying
- 4 small eggs (or 3 large)
- 250g sour cream or creme fraiche
- 140g grated cheddar
- fresh thyme (1 tablespoon), salt (1-2 teaspoons)

Line the pie dish with your chosen pastry. This recipe works great with both puff pastry and regular savoury shortcrust pastry.

Let the pastry rest in the fridge for an hour before blind baking.

Prick the base of the pastry with a fork.

Use aluminium foil or baking paper to line the inside of the dish. Add baking beans or dry rice to weigh the pastry down.

Bake for 20min at 200C. Take out of the oven and carefully remove the baking paper.

800g of mushrooms is quite a lot of work when it comes to frying it, so I like to put them in the oven and dehydrate them slightly. It saves me a lot of time. Just cut the mushroom into small, 1inch pieces, spread them over the baking paper and bake at 160C for 20 min.

Alternatively, you can cook them in a frying pan with olive oil.

Reserve a few nice looking mushroom slices to use a decoration for the top of the pie.

Pour boiling hot water over the porcini mushrooms, just enough water to cover them. Leave to soak for minimum 2 hours.

Strain the mushrooms and rinse them.

Cut an onion into small cubes, fry with olive oil until translucent, add minced garlic and cook on medium low for 2 minutes. Don't let the garlic burn.

Mince the porcini mushrooms into small pieces and fry with onions. Add dehydrated mushrooms to the pan and mix it well.

Mix sour cream, eggs, grated cheese, thyme and salt. Don't overmix, you don't want to aerate the eggs too much. Add mushroom/onion mixture to the sour cream filling and pour into the pie dish.

Decorate the top of the filling with reserved mushroom slices.

Bake at 200C for 30 min (or 10 min longer if pie dish is very deep).

Cover the pie with aluminium foil halfway through baking to prevent burning.