Here's the appetizer I started out with at the Hunt 'N' Munch: little savory eclairs flecked with black trumpets, filled with a chanterelle cheese mousse, and topped with a pickled chanterelle.
The "bouchée" description is just the pretty name given to savory, filled bites of pate a choux like this. If pate choux isn't in your culinary repertoire, it should be, not only can it be sweet or savory depending on what you want, it can also be piped and poached, then fried to make a type of gnocchi.
You could vary the combinations and ingredients, like using dried mushrooms in the pate a choux dough instead of fresh black trumpets, or...whatever you want-its really versatile.
Black Trumpet Bouchées With Chanterelle Mousse
Yield-about 30 cream puffs depending on how big you make them
Ingredients
- ½ cup fresh black trumpet mushrooms chopped
- 4 large eggs
- 1 ¼ cup flour
- ½ stick unsalted butter
- 3 tablespoon parmesan cheese grated
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 recipe Chanterelle-Cheese Mousse follows
- 1 cup water
- A few nice buttons of chanterelle conserve you can use this recipe here
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 325. In a 2 qt sauce pot, saute the trumpets in the butter for 3-4 minutes until wilted, season with salt, add the water and then puree the mixture in a high speed blender.
- Pour the black trumpet-water mixture back into the pan, bring to a boil, and add the flour all at once, stirring with a wooded spoon to incorporate.
- Reduce the heat and continue cooking the mixture for 5 mintues, stirring occasionally The mixture should form a soft dough and pull away from the sides of the pan.
- Transfer the dough to the bowl of a stand mixer and mix on low speed with the paddle attachment. Start adding the eggs, one at a time, waiting for each egg to be incorporated into the dough before adding the next.
- When All the eggs have been added, add the parmesan cheese. Transfer the dough to a piping bag and pipe small balls the circumference of a half dollar onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment.
- Bake the pate a choux balls for 30 minutes, rotating the cookie sheet occasionally. when the bouchées have doubled in size and are lightly brown, transfer them to a warm place, preferably an warm oven with the heat turned off or on a warming setting. Allow the bouchées to rest in the warm over for another 15 minutes, to make sure that they hold their shape and become hollow on the inside.
- When the bouchées are hollow and crisp, remove them from the oven and cool. From here they can be frozen, or sliced and filled with a spread or filling and served within a day or two. The bouchées may also be frozen.
- Finishing and serving
- Slice each bouchee in half, leaving a portion of the back attached so that the top doesn't fall off.
- Fill each bouchee with a tablespoon of the chanterelle-cheese mixture, garnish each bouchee with a pickled chanterelle and serve.
Notes
Adapted from a pate a choux recipe in the Joy Of Cooking. See my recipe for chanterelle conserve here.
Chanterelle-Cheese Mousse
Yield: about 5 cups, enough to make appetizers with 1 tablespoon each for 30 people
Servings: 15
Ingredients
- ½ lb chanterelles
- ¼ lb butter
- ½ cup dry white wine
- A few small sprigs of thyme
- 1.5 cups heavy cream + ½ cup for finishing the mousse
- ½ cup mascarpone cheese
- 1 sheet silver gelatin
- Kosher salt and pepper to taste
- 3 tablespoon grapeseed oil lard, or another high smoke point oil
Instructions
- Heat the grapeseed oil until smoking in a wide saute pan. Cook the chanterelles for 5 minutes, or until nicely browned and caramlized. Season the mushrooms with salt and pepper, then de-glaze the pan with the white wine and cook until evaporated.
- Soak the gelatin in a few tablespoon of warm water until soft. Add the softened gelatin to the 1.5 cups cream, then heat in a pot and whisk until the gelatin is compelely melted. Next add the gelatin-cream mixture to the pan with the chanterelles and cook for 5 minutes on medium heat, stirring occasionally.
- Transfer the mushroom-cream mixture to a high speed blender and puree, adding the mascarpone gradually in chunks to maintain a creamy emulsion.
- Transfer the pureed mixture to the fridge, then let cool.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, whip the cream until stiff peaks from.
- Gently fold the cream into the chanterelle-cheese mixture, double check the seasoning for salt and pepper, and reserve until needed.
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