Wild Mushroom Cobbler

While watching Diners, Drive ins and Dives, I realized that the chef from Brick and Fire was demonstrating is a recipe that is used for Ukrainian Christmas Eve, creamed mushroom sauce.

Wild Mushroom sauce is a favorite of my Aunt's and always served on Christmas Eve.  The sauce varies depending on the mushrooms used or available.  Like this recipe, my Aunt likes to mix wild mushroom with button mushroom. The mushroom of choose is Pedipanky or honey mushroom which are picked in her area and dried in the fall. 

My aunt starts the recipe by browning flour, then adding oil or butter to make a roux. The liquid used would be milk.  My grandmother's dishes were dairy-less and meatless for this meal, so she would have used crisco oil and water.  My grandmother always used Pedipanky  as button mushrooms were not readily available.  Onions are sautéed until soft or caramelized.   

In the show, the chef used a variety of dried and fresh mushroom for the dish.  He also added some dried wild mushroom powder that he had made by throwing some dried mushroom into a coffee grinder.  My cousin made some for me, which I use to enhance the mushroom flavour in a sauce.  The sauce in this recipe is flavoured with Madiera, spices like thyme and cayenne pepper and enriched with cream or evaporated milk.

The Mushroom sauce was added to a greased pan or to small greased gratin dishes for individual or appetizer servings.    The chef add a biscuit topping before baking the dish at 400 degrees for 25 minutes.


I have included the recipe found on a blogger's site as was unable to find this recipe on the Triple D site

Wild Mushroom Cobbler  

• 1 ounce dried porcini mushrooms, or any dried mushroom of choice

• 1/2 red onion

• 2-3 medium shallots

• 2 1/2 tablespoons olive oil

• 2 1/2 tablespoons butter

• salt and pepper to taste

• 1/4 pound fresh crimini mushrooms

• 1/4 pound fresh oyster mushrooms

• 1/4 pound white mushrooms

• 2 cloves garlic, chopped

• pinch of dried thyme

• pinch of cayenne pepper

• 1/4 tsp Worcestershire sauce

• 1/2 cup San Antonio madeira or red wine

• 1 package Sprouts mushroom sauce (optional)

• 2 tablespoons flour

• 1/2 cup cream or evaporated milk

Biscuit topping

• 2 cups all-purpose flour

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 2 teaspoons baking powder

• 1 teaspoon salt

• 4 tablespoons chilled butter

• 1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese

• 1 1/3 cups buttermilk

Instructions

Pour 1 1/2 cups boiling water over the porcini mushrooms to cover them. 
Let soak for at least 30 minutes.

Slice the red onions and shallots thinly. 
In a large, non-stick skillet, heat a tablespoon of olive oil and a tablespoon of butter. 
Add the onions and shallots and cook over low to medium heat for about a half an 
hour to an hour, until the onions are carmelized.

Clean, trim, and slice the fresh mushrooms into smallish bite size pieces. 
Mushrooms shrink when cooked! 
When the dried porcinis are soft chop them into pieces that are small bite size. 
Reserve the soaking liquid, add water to equal 1 cup.

In another non-stick skillet(or wait til onion/shallot mixture has carmelized, 
remove them/set aside and use the same skillet), heat 1 1/2 tablespoons of olive oil 
and 1 tablespoon butter. Add the chopped garlic, stir for 30 seconds til fragrant 
then add the fresh mushrooms. 

Saute the mushrooms, stirring often, until they start to release their liquid. 
Add the chopped porcinis, a pinch of thyme, a pinch of cayenne, 
and keep cooking over medium heat until the excess liquid has cooked away 
and the mushrooms have changed color. 
Sprinkle the flour over mushrooms and stir for 1-2 minutes (the mixture will thicken)

Add the madeira and the soaking liquid from the dried mushrooms. 
Combine the mushrooms with the carmelized onions 
and simmer them all together for a few minutes until thickened, 
Add cream, stir, taste and adjust salt and pepper to taste

Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees.

Pour the mushroom mixture, spreading evenly, 
into a large gratin dish coated with cooking spray.

Combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a bowl or use a food processor. 
Add the chilled butter, cut into chunks and cut in with pastry blender or do several pulses 
in food processor until the mixture has the texture of coarse meal. 
Add the parmesan cheese and process a few seconds.

Stir in the buttermilk, just until the dough forms. 
The dough will be thick and sticky. Do not over mix it.

Spoon the biscuit dough onto the mushrooms, distributing it more or less evenly over the top. 
Add salt pepper and more parmesan if desired. 
Bake the cobbler in a preheated 400 degree oven for about 25 minutes 
or until the biscuit topping is golden brown. 
(Warning: will boil over and make your house smoky if baking dish is too small)

Can be baked in individual ramekins for appetizers or gratin dish as side dish.

Pyrohy.. Ukrainian dumpling

While in Northern Manitoba, I made pyrohy for my  brother and used the following recipe
for the dough.  Everyone has their favourite recipe, but I have found that this recipe of 4 ingredients that my Mom used is the best.  Each one of my Aunts has their favourite dough recipe with some variation, using some thing in the recipe to make a soft dough, from sour cream, baking powder, eggs to different temperatures of water.  I have found that I have been most successful using very hot water and by letting the dough rest!  Everyone agrees that the dough must sit to relax!

4 cups of flour
1 3/4 cups of hot water.. I think I used 2 cups!
1/2 tsp of salt
1/4 cup of oil.. in this case it was olive oil

Mix everything together and let rest covered for about 1/2 hour.

This recipe made 90 pyrohy for me, but it depends how thin you roll the dough out.

Divide your dough in half, cover the rest of the dough so it will not dry out.  Sprinkle flour on your working area and roll out the dough.  There are cutters you can use, but a glass will work just as well.

Near the end of my Mom's cooking career, she wondered why she had routinely cut out circles when 3 inch squares were more efficient and less time consuming! The shape would still be a triangle

My Mom's  filling was very traditional.. in the spring, she only used dry cottage cheese and dill, the rest of the time, she used cottage cheese and potatoes.. The sauerkraut that you buy needs to be washed to reduce the acidity, then squeeze it so it is dry.. you can also fry up the cabbage with some finely chopped onions.

If your filling is too wet, it is difficult to work with.

My brother enjoyed the filling very much in this batch of pyrohy.. He thought they were the best I have made.  I think because of the ricotta cheese which is very light and sweet tasting, thus the ricotta is closer in taste to homemade cottage cheese.  I used a container of creamed cottage cheese, a container of ricotta cheese and 4 medium potatoes.  The potatoes are first boiled and then mashed. 

Now here is a nice twist that one may want to try as a filling, sweet potatoes and cheese. 

The importance of pinching these dumpling securely is necessary so you don't lose your filling in the boiling water.  I usually line up the formed dumplings on a clean tea towel, which may need to be floured, depending on how moist your dough is.   Then I will again check the dumplings by pinching the sides again before placing them to freeze on a cookie sheet

In the above picture,  I freeze the dumplings on a floured saran covered cookie sheet and then repackaged in Ziplock Bags.  The Dumplings can also be cooked at this time, but after making about 7dozen of these babies, Im usually  ready to pack it in..

If pre cooking the dumplings in salted water, you need to have melted butter ready to toss the dumplings so they don't stick.  When cool they can be packaged in Ziplock bags to freeze.

My aunt pre cooks the dumplings before freezing them and then reheats them by boiling them again.

My other aunt, also pre cooks them before freezing but microwaves them to reheat. This she says is does by watching the dumplings very closing.  My other aunt felt that microwaving the pyrohy made them tough!

To test taste your dumplings, you can also just fry the uncooked dumpling in oil.. Much like the Gyoza or Japanese pot stickers!

Basic Crepe/ Nalysniki recipe ,

My cousin Eleanor's blog always features a new recipe and tidbits on family life.   In a recent blog she wrote about my Mom and her entering the work field at a tender age of twelve.  My Mom's memories of working as a domestic helper at farm were most interesting...  She worked in the kitchen and helped with meals which were sent to the family via a dumb waiter.  She spoke of having to iron the linens for daily meals and for Sundays.  She was very appreciative of being loaned a horse to ride home at Easter  to see her family.
At sixteen, she worked in a Hospital run by the Felician sisters from Chicago.  Here she worked under a chef in the kitchen that was Cordon Bleu schooled.  Her culinary skills benefited greatly from this exposure, as her desserts and pastries were not only delicious but beautiful to look at!
One of my favourite if only Ukrainian dishes was Nalysniki, which I remember her making in her square electric frying pan.  The crepes which she lifted with her fingers when a golden brown colour were paper thin.
One of the few recipes that she actually hand wrote for me as she rarely measured and went by sight and feel!   After many tries of this recipe, I was finally successful when I increased the amount of flour and have the cast frying at a constant medium heat.  Constant heat and a lightly oiled cast iron pan is the secret in successfully making these crepes.


Basic Crepes: 
1 cup all-purpose flour 
1 pinch of salt 
2 large eggs 
1 1/2 cups milk 


The modified crepe recipe comes from Macheesmo's site

 These are Nalysniki made by my Aunt Marion for Ukrainian Christmas Eve 2012 at the age of 90.
The filling for her crepes is Home Made Cottage Cheese made by Mrs H. Marion pours heavy farm cream over the crepes to bake until hot before serving. Mom used doted butter on her crepes to keep from sticking as they bake.

These are the crepes I made this year for Christmas using a caste iron pan.

 The crepes can be made a head of time, rolled with a cottage cheese filling and frozen as a whole piece or cut in to 2 inches pieces and assembled in a casserole with butter.

These are the crepes my Aunt made this year for Ukrainian Christmas Eve 2013, so delicious! 

My Aunt Florence sent me this recipe that she says is her Mom's recipe for Crepes which she makes for Christmas Eve supper.. I know my mom never makes then for Christmas but did for Easter.. I am pretty sure that my Grandmother Anna never did either as the traditional Christmas Eve dinner was dairyless and meatless.. in other words pesnya!