Goats cheese, mushroom and truffle honey en croute

This recipe is adapted from an Olive magazine Christmas edition recipe and so includes quite a fancy ingredient. However, once you’ve purchased it, you may as well used it. The dish uses fairly simple staples but enhances them with the luxury product of truffle honey. This humbly lifts it a higher level. You can find it readily at M&S.

You can make the en croute as rustic or as fancy as you like. I used small plates to mark my rounds of pastry, one for the bottom and then a slightly larger one for the top, taking into account the depth of the filling I needed to cover.

What you will need
2 red onions
150g mushrooms
Thyme
1 goats cheese log cut into four slices
4 tea spoons truffle honey
1 fresh chilli
All butter puff pastry

Firstly slice the mushrooms, red onions and chilli and fry in a little oil until softened and the moisture has evaporated. Season well with salt and pepper and add the thyme.

Set aside to cool whilst you cut out four circles of puff pastry to form the bottom (10cm across) of the en croute and four slightly larger  (12cms across) rounds to form the top.

Lastly slice the goats cheese log into equal sized circles.

 

Now, to compile the en croutes. Place a couple of table spoons of the mushroom and onion mix in the centre of each base circle, leaving ½cm edge. Top with the goats cheese and then drizzle over a tea spoon of the honey.

Next, using your fingers, wet the edge of the circle.

Take each top circle and place three small slits in the centre of the circle, staying well away from the edge. Next place, each top sheet over the filling and press down at the edges to glue the two pieces together. Make sure the pastry case is sealed and flute the edges.

Place the en croutes on a baking tray and cook in the middle of a preheated oven at 180C  for 25-30 minutes until the pastry has browned.

Serve with a crisp green salad or roasted vegetables.