cheese and mushroom pie?

When I lived in Chile, I always kept my eye out for "torta pascualina" in the Jumbo grocery store. They showed up occasionally, and not only at Eastertime. Of the three varieties that would appear - cheese and mushroom, turkey, and spinach - the only one I really liked was the cheese and mushroom. Very, very cheesy. It would come in a deep-dish aluminum pan, with a puff pastry top crust. One slice was a good meal, so one pan was worth several days of good meals. Granted, it's not the sort of thing you should make a regular part of your diet, but on a Sunday afternoon (especially in a country like Chile, where everything is closed on Sunday so there's not much to do but stretch out lunch and read and nap), it's quite a treat.

I've had something similar -- a cheese and mushroom pie -- on a few occasions at the Cork and Bottle restaurant in Leicester Square in London (the wine bar in the basement, below the Sex Shop ... c'mon, you know the one). My brother and frequent travel companion Mike favors the Cork and Bottle's ham, cheese, and mushroom pie, but I didn't care for the ham that much and thought it was taking up valuable space that could have been better occupied by cheese and mushrooms.

I've got quite a craving to make this dish at home, but can't find a recipe. I searched online for "torta pascualina" and found recipes with spinach, with other vegetables, and with a little cheese (I want a LOT of cheese), often parmesan (NOT the gooy melted cheesiness I'm looking for). I also searched for recipes for cheese and mushroom pie, and found some old colonial American kind of offerings, but they seem to be mostly mushroom, not much cheese.

I suppose I could just throw a lot of any vaguely appropriate pale-colored meltable cheese and some sautéed mushroom slices into a pastry crust, but I was looking for a little more specificity than that.

Does anyone have any recipe suggestions for a thick, cheesy, cheese and mushroom pie?

I don't, but let me second your request for someone who does, because that sounds absolutely delicious.

This sounds like something I've had in my Oxford college! And here's a recipe that might very well work:

http://fooddownunder.com/cgi-bin/recipe.cgi?r=228851


Food Down Under is a wonderful source for all sorts of things, esp. South Asian and (who'da thunk) Brit-traditional.

Geo

THAT'S what I'm looking for! Thanks, Geo! I think I might substitute Gruyere for the Cheddar ... but then again, maybe I should honor the spirit of the recipe and try the Cheddar version first.

Thanks again!

I hope this addition to this thread works, because there are not too many mushroom recipe threads on LTH.

Today's shelter-at-home meal considerations revolved around my desire to clear out excess vegetables before the Top Box delivery on Friday. When this all began, I bought two large cabbages and 10-pounds of potatoes. This morning, I had 1.5 cabbage heads and approximately three pounds of potatoes. I also had two-pounds of mushrooms.

fifille and I occasionally do mushroom cooking demonstrations for mushroom club. I keep my eye out for interesting techniques and recipes. I was inclined to do tried-and-true Mushroom Spaghetti Sauce a la Sophia Loren, but decided to look through my mushroom recipe clippings for something to catch my attention.


This did the trick: mushroom and cabbage lasagna from Marcus Jernmark, then executive chef of Aquavit, clipped from the NYT in 2009. It called for Napa cabbage and Yukon Gold potatoes, but my plain Jane green cabbage and Burbank Russet potatoes would have to do. A variety of cultured 'wild' mushrooms were also called, but their flavor would be lost in the mix. Good old button mushrooms would work well in their place. There was quite a volume of vegetables and cream sauce expected to fit in an 8x8 pan.

I did a search on the mushroom and cabbage lasagna recipe to see if anyone commented on the suggested pan size. Smitten Kitten cooked this recipe in November, 2018. She made this recipe in a 8x12 casserole, so clearly we both recognized a pan-size issue.

I will advise my order of operations, because this is a great recipe if you have staff. It is a lot to do when your staff is you. I made the cream sauce in a 1.5 quart sauce, then set is aside. In a 12-inch pan, I cooked the vegetables, then added the cream sauce. I used a rubber spatula to get as much as possible. I then filled it with water to blanch the cabbage leaves (and commence cleaning the pot).

This recipe calls for a 350 degree oven. If and when I do this again, I will up the temperature to 375 degrees, because it never got bubbly or began to brown until I raised the temperature.


This is not a weeknight meal, unless you prep one day and bake the next. This is Sunday, I want to play in the kitchen and/or I want to really impress a vegetarian guest. One of these days, a finished dish to show at mushroom club.

Regards,
Cathy2