Mushroom And Goat's Cheese Crepes

I'm a bit slow with getting this post up and running, but better late than never!

Tuesday this week was Pancake Day, so I wanted to cook pancakes of some sort to celebrate. The kids had an early morning pancake breakfast at school, so dinner was going to be the meal of the day that we got to eat them together. Not being much of a sweet person, I thought I'd go along the savoury route.

Mushroom and goat's cheese are a match made in heaven, and for a vegetarian dinner option, these were delicious!

This pancake recipe is the one that my Mum uses. We always grew up with thin pancakes, more in the style of crepes, rather than thick American ones. I find them much too doughy and heavy. Adding the soda water at the end helps to thin the batter and make the crepes nice and light. If you don't have any soda and don't want to open a new bottle, just use regular water.

Because you are rolling up these crepes with a filling, it doesn't matter if they are a bit wonky! Given I only make pancakes once or twice a year, mine are never particularly round. You can also make the crepes the day before you are going to eat them, as they store well in the fridge. Anything I can do to make dinner time a bit quicker and easier is always a winner!

Savoury crepes really are so versatile and you can fill them with anything you like. Chicken and mushroom in a white sauce, spinach and feta, roasted vegetables.............The options are endless! Experiment and find a combination that you like.

Mushroom And Goat's Cheese Crepes

For the crepes

1 1/4 cups plain flour

2 eggs

1 1/2 cups milk

1/2 cup soda water or regular water

Butter or oil spray for frying

Combine flour, eggs and milk into a smooth batter using a whisk. Set aside for at least 30 minutes.

Just before cooking, add the soda water and stir to combine.

Heat a crepe pan or frying pan over medium heat and brush with butter or spray lightly with oil.

Pour 1/3 cup mixture into the pan and swirl to coat the base evenly. You want crepes that are about 15-17cm in diameter and nice and thin.

When bubbles start to appear on the surface, flip with a spatula and cook the other side until lightly golden. Remove from the pan to a plate.

Repeat with the remaining mixture. You should get about 12 crepes.

Set aside to cool.

For the filling

20g butter

5 large field mushrooms, diced into medium sized pieces

1 small onion, diced

2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

125g soft goat's cheese (I used the herbed one, but you could use a plain one too)

A handful of fresh thyme, finely chopped

Salt and pepper to taste

Heat a large frypan on medium heat and add butter until it melts and starts to bubble.

Add onion, garlic and mushrooms and fry until the onion is lightly golden and the mushrooms have released their juices and are soft.

Add the thyme and season to taste. Continue cooking until all the liquid has evaporated. You don't want soggy crepes!

Set aside to cool.

To put together

Lay all the crepes out on a work surface. You might not need all of them, but it's easier to be prepared.

Lightly grease a large baking dish that will fit the rolled crepes.

Place a couple of spoonfuls of the mushroom mixture along the centre of each crepe, using up all the mixture. You want to be reasonably generous with the filling, but not so much that you can't roll them up.

Break the goat's cheese up into small pieces and scatter over the top of the mushroom mixture. Use as much or little as you like, making sure you keep some aside to put on the top when you bake them.

Roll each of the crepes up with the filling and place them seam side down in the baking dish.

Dot the top with the remaining goat's cheese.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.

Bake the crepes for 15 to 20 minutes to just heat through and brown the edges of the crepes and the goat's cheese.

Serve with a light salad or vegies.

Enjoy!

And To Drink....

Slow cooked mushrooms match perfectly with a lovely Pinot Noir. All that beautiful funky flavour in the mushrooms complements the funky, but fruity, characters in the wine.

I must admit that I haven't really had many New Zealand Pinot Noir's and this one had been sitting in our cellar for a while. About time we opened it, I think!

A 2007 Ra Nui Pinot Noir from Marlborough on the South Island, this wine had a beautiful roundness and complexity to it. It was still beautiful and fruity with lots of cherry and black plum flavours, with a touch of spice. Being aged, it had lovely soft tannins and was nice and smooth. The fruit paired nicely with the mushrooms and the acidity in the goat's cheese. It really was a fantastic match.

Ra Nui make their wines organically and one of their vineyards has even been certified biodynamic. They use minimal intervention wine making, hand picking the grapes and whole bunch pressing.

In the more premium Estate grown Ra Nui range, they make a Pinot Noir, Gwurtztraminer, Pinot Gris, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc.  They also make a very unique sounding Rosè, called Sexy Rexy, which is made from Syrah and Pinot Gris. In exceptional vintages Ra Nui also produce a limited edition single vineyard range. Currently a 2009 Syrah is available.

Now that I've tried their wines, I'll certainly be looking  out for them. The Rosè particularly sounds interesting. 

New Zealand really makes some wonderful wines and they certainly go far beyond the usual Sauvignon Blanc. It's time to explore more of the wines across the Tasman!

Caramelised Onion And Mushroom Tarte Tatin

I made this dish last week for one of our vegetarian meals and it was delicious. Sorry it's taken me so long to get around to writing about it.

The onions took a little while to caramelise, but once the filling was prepared the rest of the cooking didn't take too long at all. Using frozen puff pastry made it really quick and really quite light. If you had the time, you could make your own pastry, which would make it a bit more special and a bit richer.

I used my gorgeous red Emile Henry tarte tatin dish, but you could use any ovenproof frypan or even a round cake tin if you didn't have anything else suitable to put in the oven.

The recipe came from a mushroom cookbook called 'Mushrooms - The Great All-Rounder' which was put out by the Australian Mushroom Growers Association. This recipe book contains lots of great recipes using mushrooms as one of the main ingredients. Some recipes are vegetarian, others have a meat component. The one thing in common is that they are all quite easy and look delicious!

This tarte tatin was lovely as a light meal with a rocket, pear and parmesan salad with a balsamic vinegar dressing. Next time I make it, I think I'll dot a bit of soft goat's curd or thin slices of brie over the top of the tarte when I turn it out. I think that the extra creaminess and acidity would be perfect.

Give this recipe a try. It looks great and tastes even better!

Caramelised Onion and Mushroom Tarte Tatin

4 onions, halved and thinly sliced

50g butter

1 Tbs olive oil

2 tsp brown sugar

300g swiss brown mushrooms, thinly sliced

2 Tbs thyme leaves

2 Tbs balsamic vinegar

Salt and pepper to taste

1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed

50g goat's curd or brie (optional)

Rocket, pear and parmesan salad, to serve

Preheat the oven to 220 degrees.

Place onions in a large bowl, cover loosely with a lid and microwave for 3 minutes, or until softened.

Heat the butter and oil in a tarte tatin dish or large oven proof frypan until bubbling.

Add the onions and sugar and cook until lightly golden.

Add the mushrooms, thyme and vinegar and cook for another 3-4 minutes or until the onions are soft.

Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Evenly spread the onion and mushroom mixture over the base of the pan and gently lay the pastry over the top, tucking the edges in.

Place the dish or frypan in the oven and bake until the pastry is golden and the filling bubbling.

Carefully turn the tarte onto a large serving plate and serve to the table whole.

If you are using the cheese, place blobs of the goat's curd or thin slices of the brie over the hot tarte to slightly melt with the remaining heat.

To serve, cut the tarte into generous wedges and serve with the salad.

Enjoy!

And To Drink....

Mushrooms and pinot go together like a horse and carriage, so this is an obvious match. I'm sure we drank a pinot with this dish, but I completely forgot to take a picture of it! Oops!

Choose a pinot from the Yarra Valley or Mornigton Peninsula that is young and fruity with just a little bit of funkiness. The sweetness of the onions overpowers the earthiness of the mushrooms to some extent, so you don't really want a wine that has too much of the forest floor characteristics.

If you make this dish, let me know what you choose to drink with it and how it matches. :-)

Blood Oranges Part 2

 I love having fruit with chicken, particularly oranges or mango. In summer, I think we live on variations of warm chicken salad with mango.

Tonight I wanted to use some more of the beautiful blood oranges I had, and figured that chicken was the perfect match. I like my salads to have plenty of flavour and be nice and filling, especially when it's not the middle of summer and you still want a relatively hearty meal.

In my mind, nothing works better than pan fried chicken, sweet juicy orange, salty fried haloumi, toasted pinenuts, rocket and roasted sweet potato. That's exactly what we had! And it was delicious, even if I do say so myself :-)

This salad was very quick and easy to put together and doesn't really require any ability in the kitchen. If you can use an oven and a fry pan, then you can master this.

Make sure you don't over cook the chicken, because you still want it to be nice and juicy. The haloumi though, is best when it's nice and charred and golden.

Chicken, Blood Orange and Haloumi Salad

2 chicken breasts, sliced into tenderloin sized pieces
1 blood orange, segmented, juice reserved for dressing
100g haloumi cheese, sliced into 1/2cm slices
1 sweet potato, peeled, halved lengthways and sliced into 1cm pieces
A handful of toasted pine nuts
A few handfuls of mixed rocket and baby spinach (or mixed lettuce)
Olive oil, salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 180 degrees.
Prepare sweet potato and mix with salt, pepper and oil to lightly coat and roast for 20 mins or so until cooked to your liking. Set aside to cool.
While the oven is on, place pinenuts in a small oven proof tin and toast until golden brown. Keep an eye on them as they can burn very easily.
Segment orange by cutting off the rind and pith with a sharp knife and then removing each segment into a bowl. Reserve the juices in the same bowl with the fruit, squeezing as much out as you can.
Heat a fry pan with oil on medium heat and when hot, add the chicken in a single layer and season with salt and pepper. Fry on one side until golden, then turn to cook the other side. Make sure the chicken is cooked all the way through, but not overcooked and dry.
In a separate pan, heat a thin layer of oil until hot and fry the haloumi slices until golden and gooey. Flip with a spatula and cook the other side.
While the chicken and cheese are cooking, mix the sweet potato with the orange, rocket and pinenuts and drizzle with the reserved juice and a little olive oil to make a dressing.
Pile the salad on to dinner plates and artfully arrange the chicken and haloumi over the top.

Bon appetit!


A nice meal wouldn't be complete in my book without a glass of wine to go with it. We have no shortage of wine in this household, so there are plenty of drinking options to go with dinner. I'm also lucky enough that my brother in law's family have a vineyard on the Mornington Peninsula, called Five Walls, so local wine is often prominent on the table. Tonight we matched our chicken salad with a Pinot Noir. Normally I wouldn't have a red with chicken, but to go with the sweet acidity of the orange, the salty goodness of the cheese and the charred sweet potato, it was perfect. Lots of red berry and plummy flavours washed it all down a treat!