Regrettably, I had a less than successful Hen of the Woods foraging season this year…but fortunately, our local grocery store (McCaffrey’s) has a great array of dried mushrooms, and Wegman’s actually had fresh hen of the woods on our last trip, so we’ve had a great safety net to bail us out of our fungus hunting failures.
With our fresh hen of the woods secured, we decided to make a vegetarian pot pie! Unlike our Chicken Pot Pie, we decided to only partially cover our entree with a dome of dough…and we used a little more butter in our dough for this one so it would get puffier.
We served our pot pies in small ramekins with a spinach and tomato side salad!
Time: 75 Minutes
Ingredients (To make one regular sized pie or three small ramekins):
- For the filling:
- 4 Ounces Hen of the Woods/Maitake Mushroom
- 1 Sweet Onion
- 4 Celery Stalks
- A few cloves of Garlic
- 15 Baby Carrots (or whatever the big carrot equivalent is)
- 1 Tablespoon Butter
- 1 Tablespoon All Purpose Flour
- 4 Ounces Vegetable Stock
- A few splashes of Worcestershire Sauce
- Black Pepper
- For the Dough Topping, either use a premade pie dough or:
- 1/2 Cup All Purpose Flour
- 3 Tablespoons of Butter
- A little Cold Water
Method:
- Start my prepping your dough.
- Add your butter and flour to the bowl of your food processor, and pulse to combine.
- Slowly add in cold water an ounce at a time, and pulse until your dough clumps.
- Use your hands to combine the clumps into one big dough ball, and then wrap in plastic wrap, and place in your refrigerator to cool.
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F, and turn your attention to your filling:
- Dice your onion, celery, carrots, and garlic, and set aside.
- Rinse your mushroom, cut off any tough or woody bits, and then slice. Don’t dice, as they will cook down anyway.
- Heat some butter in a large pan, and then add your onion, celery, carrots, and garlic.
- Allow to sautee for 10 minutes or so to soften your veggies a bit. Then, add in your hen of the woods/maitake mushroom, and sautee everything for another 3-5 minutes.
- Sprinkle your flour atop your veggies, and stir to combine.
- Sprinkle in some black pepper, pour in a little worcestershire, and add your vegetable stock. Allow to simmer and for your sauce to thicken.
- When your sauce has thickened, pour into your pie pan or ramekins.
- Sprinkle some flour down on a large, clean surface, and then pull your dough ball out of the fridge.
- Roll it out into a rectangle that is at least as long as the diameter of your pie dish/ramekins (to ensure that your dough will completely cover your pie when you arrange it).
- Use a pizza cutter to cut your dough into strips. Then, layer those strips into a pound sign (hashtag for younger readers) over your pie. You may need to recombine and reroll leftover dough scraps to get enough.
- Place your pie(s) in the oven, and bake for 35-40 minutes to cook and slightly brown your dough.
- Plate, devour, and enjoy!
