A Thanksgiving Wild Mushroom Terrine of sorts

Here we have Lentinula edodes (Shitake), Boletus edulis (Porcini from Italy) and some small Portabella common brown mushrooms. 

I've been thinking about making a wild mushroom terrine come pate loaf thing for a while but just have not got round to getting the right mix, so today I thought I'd give it a whirl since this is mushroom season round here and also I've just signed up for Paul Stammet's mushroom growing course near Olympia, Washington. I've been dying to do this course with one of the doyens of mushroom knowledge so this is a sort of celebratory loaf for me.

So today being the first big wet day of the Fall I went to town and foraged for ingredients. We are very lucky to have such wonderful stuff that is grown right here on our little island. First stop was the Saturday Market where I saw a bunch of Mayan type folk from the Permaculture Project and a Mountie wandering through the stalls.

I bought Shitake mushrooms from the nice mushroom growing man where I had a chat about my Mushroom Perfecti course. Then I spied some tasty Rocket/Arugula and of course David Wood's truffle goat's cheese and his Montana sheep cheese. So now with Max the Italian pasta man's porcini mushrooms I had my loaf base ingredients.

I was going to use a long terrine container but when I popped into the kitchen shop I found a four loaf setup that just suited my needs........easy to load and unload and just enough to make a few loaves so that there's no wastage at a few sittings.

The idea is to have slices of this wild mushroom loaf with freshly baked Ciabatta rolls and lashings of butter.

In addition to the ingredients above (in the dialog that is) there are shallots, sage and thyme, celeriac  and of course some dry sherry and some peas for the end (shown here). amounts are not accurate.....lots more mushrooms and less butter and cheese and of course sherry etc......see steps as we go along.

1: Shave some carrots

blanch the carrots till they are soft and malleable

line the little loaf pans with the soft carrot shavings

2: Chop the mushrooms, the shallots and herbs.

3: Saute the shallots in a bunch of butter, add salt and pepper and then add the grated celeriac root.

4: Add the mushrooms, herbs and the Porcini liquid and saute till the whole lot is wrinkled and tasty.

4: Toast some walnuts and then blend them into small bits and also add at least a cup of dry white sherry to the mushrooms and reduce further.

5: Let the mushroom mix cool slightly then add the ground toasted Walnuts, finely grated hard sheep cheese and the truffle soft goat's cheese........mix up well to a uniform mix and spoon into the prepared, carrot lined tins. 

6: Spoon it in and boil up some peas.

7: Take the peas and press them into the mix.....these will be the base when the sort of terrine is inverted ready to be sliced and woofed down with warm, buttered Ciabatta rolls.I'll add some pics of the eating session once the terrines have been refrigerated overnight.