Spring Always Comes

creamy leek & mushroom hand pies

Feb 28, 2022

Allô! 👋

I'm not going to lie, I didn't exactly feel like writing (let alone sending out) a newsletter this month. The culmination of global events has got me feeling all sorts of not-so-fun feelings. And it just doesn't feel right to be taking your attention away from what's going on in the world right now. At the same time, it also doesn't feel right to say nothing at all. To do nothing. To act as though everything is fine.

So I decided to still write and send this newsletter out, but not without acknowledging that everything is not fine. Personally, on top of feeling a mix of appalled and heartbroken and anxious, I also feel powerless. But one thing I’ve learned over the years is that one of the best things to do when you feel like there is nothing you can do, is just to do something. Anything. I've listed some links below for things you can do to help Ukraine, as well as other links that might help offer you some comfort. Links aside, I encourage you to just do something for yourself. Like putting your phone down, going out for a walk in a green space, calling a friend, re-reading a book you enjoy, patting a dog, petting a cat, or baking a cake.

I don’t recommend these things because I think we should act oblivious and unconcerned with serious events that do not impact us directly, but because looking after our sanity is necessary in stressful times likes these. Beyond giving us food to fuel our days, spending time in the kitchen can genuinely provide respite. I often find solace in making, eating, and sharing food with others, and I hope you can too. That’s why this month’s newsletter recipe is one I hope you will take the time to make, share and enjoy. It is hearty, perfect for dropping off to a neighbour, and extremely well-suited to freezing — so you can show kindness to your future self too.

This winter, especially, has been challenging for me with regards to daylight. Last year I was still living in Oslo, right near the Oslofjord, and I would spend almost every morning chasing the sunrise as I walked or ran along the city's waterfront. Now we live in a town on the southern mountainside of a valley. It's beautiful, and I adore many things about it, but the thing about living on the southern mountainside of a valley is that you have to watch everyone who lives on the northern mountainside of your valley get four more hours of sunlight than you do every single day (you also get to watch them get an earlier spring and later autumn because their sunny microclimate means everything is a lot drier and warmer than it is on your cold, wet, dark mountainside). In any case: the point I'm trying to make is, spring always comes. Even when things feel like they've been dark and cold and miserable for a very long time, things inevitably get brighter and warmer with time. First in little blips, and then in much longer stretches, until suddenly everything really is much better again. Watching different representatives from the UN Security Council come together after a vote on the invasion of Ukraine last week gave me hope that even though right now we're in a deep and dark winter, things will eventually get better. Spring will eventually come. It always does.

Sending you all a very, very big hug and see you in the spring,

👋simone

potentially useful links
🕊️

to help Ukraine

various charities and international organisations are on the ground, working hard to help those affected in Ukraine; you can help from afar by staying well-informed and stopping the spread of misinformation, by showing your support locally through demonstrations, signing petitions and writing to your local representatives, and by making one or more donations to the organisations and charities working in Ukraine.

🇨🇦 information if you are in Canada*

🇺🇸 information if you are in the US

🇬🇧 information if you are in the UK

🌏 information if you are located elsewhere

*(note that the Canadian government is currently matching all donations made by individual Canadians to the Canadian Red Cross)

for a feel-good moment

there's a silly video of strangers dancing together at a bus stop that I go back to every now and then, as it never fails to give me the fuzzies. it's cheesy, but it really does feel like a virtual hug (and I can hardly believe I've been returning to it for nearly ten years already).

📼 click here for my favourite feel-good video

📺 click here for more like it

for a laugh

Foil, Arms and Hog are an Irish sketch comedy group who make lots of brilliant skits on the internet and perform live when they can, too. they never fail to crack me up.

🎭 click here for my "if you only have time for one skit" pick

for a distraction

it might be just a fad, but I don't care — Wordle is fun.

🇼 click here to play

creamy leek & mushroom puff pies
🍄

You'll have to forgive me for calling this a recipe. It's more of a guideline. That's because even though I list the ingredients and the steps, the measurements are a bit of a guess. I know I used a punnet's worth of mushrooms and one whole leek, but I also know that your punnet of mushrooms and your whole leek might look different from mine, just as your splash of cream and handful of herbs may differ too. That's actually how I prefer my recipes to be (unless I'm baking, but even then...). With the food I share online, I always aspire to inspire at least one person to get in the kitchen and get excited to cook something; I honestly don't care if you choose to go off-script and put your own twist on things. I always say: use what you have and use what you like.

So consider this more of a "watching a friend cook in the kitchen" experience than a "tried-and-true-peer-reviewed-recipe-that-you-must-absolutely-follow-to-the-letter-or-else-you-will-fail" set of instructions.

•••

CREAMY LEEK & MUSHROOM PUFF PASTRY HAND PIES

makes 8 hand pies, about 9x7cm / 4x3in. each

INGREDIENTS

• around 250g or ½ lb (1 punnet) of white button mushrooms (you could also use brown cremini mushrooms)
• 1 medium leek
• 1 small bunch of fresh flat-leaf parsley
• 1 or 2 cloves of garlic, peeled
• cream (I use 38%), enough for a generous splash
• white wine or vermouth, enough for a conservative splash
• vegetable broth, enough for a generous splash
• 1 tsp dried tarragon and/or 2 tsp of your favourite dried herb blend (if you prefer to use fresh herbs, that'll be around 1 Tbsp chopped fresh tarragon and 1-2 Tbsp chopped fresh herbs (1 if woody herbs, 2 if tender herbs))
• sheets store-bought puff pastry, enough for 8 pieces of approx. 18 x 8 cm / 7 x 3 inches each
• 1–2 Tbsp flour
• 1 small carrot, or ½ a medium one, or ⅓ of a large one*
• 1 small potato*
• 1 egg, for the egg wash
• nigella seeds and sesame seeds, for sprinkling the pie tops
• salted butter
• extra virgin olive oil
• sea salt
• freshly cracked black pepper

*note: I didn't actually use a carrot or potato as my ingredients, I used a frozen vegetable blend readily available here in Norway (it is called lapskaus blanding, or "lapskaus mix" in English, and is great for making lapskaus but also soups and other stews — it contains carrot, potato, leek, rutabaga and celeriac). If you can find a frozen vegetable mix containing diced carrot and potato near you, I say give it a go! You'll only need about a small cup's worth for this "recipe".

METHOD

1. Preheat your oven to 180°C fan/200°C/390°F and put a large pan or cast-iron skillet on medium-high heat.

2. Start by cleaning your mushrooms and cutting them in half, then cut each half again either into halves or thirds, so as to get similar-sized mushroom pieces.

3. Add the mushrooms to the pan, and leave them to cook (stirring occasionally) until they no longer stick to the pan and are lightly browned on every side. Then sprinkle over a pinch or two of salt, stir the salt through the mushrooms, and leave them to continue cooking (stirring occasionally) until all their water has evaporated off. By now, the mushroom pieces should have shrunken a fair amount, which is exactly what we want — concentrated mushroom flavour and texture.

4. This step is skippable if you are using a frozen vegetable mix. If not, while the mushrooms are still releasing all their water, dice your carrot and potato into ~1cm / ⅓ in. cubes, and add them to a small pot of lightly salted boiling water. Boil for 10 minutes, then pour out into a colander and leave to steam, then cool, while you continue with the rest of the pie filling.

4'. Now add a pat of butter and a drizzle of olive oil to the pan, turn the heat down to medium, and leave the mushrooms to finish cooking while you finely chop your parsley stems, microplane or mince your garlic cloves, and clean and slice your leek (in half lengthwise, then across into ~1cm / ⅓ in. thick half-moons). Season with black pepper. When the mushrooms look nearly done, add the chopped parsley stems and puréed garlic to the pan, stir though, and cook 5 minutes more (the mushrooms are done when they have a nice, deep, golden brown sheen to them). Transfer the mushrooms out of the pan and into a bowl. Set aside.

5. Keep the pan on medium heat and add to it the whites of the leek — if the bottom of the pan gets dry, add a bit more butter and olive oil. While the leek whites soften, roughly chop up your parsley leaves. After about 6 minutes or so, when the whites look translucent, add the leek greens and chopped parsley leaves to the pan. Season with a bit of salt.

6. Once the greens have turned a deep and vivid green and softened a little, return the mushrooms to the pan. Bring the heat back to medium-high and deglaze the pan with a small splash of white wine or vermouth, enough to scrape up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan and melt those concentrated bursts of flavour into the liquid (apologies for the lack of a precise measurement here — use your judgement!). Once the alcohol has evaporated, add in a large splash of cream (again, use your judgement) and a large splash of the vegetable stock (judgement!). Stir through to combine, then sprinkle in 1 tablespoon of flour. Cook off the flour, stirring continuously; if the liquid is still a bit runny after five minutes, stir through a second tablespoon. You want the mixture to be substantial enough to hold well in the pies, but not so thick that it becomes stodgy or too floury.

7. Turn the heat off and remove the pan from the burner. Add in your diced vegetables, freshly chopped or fresh from the freezer, as well as the teaspoon of dried tarragon and/or two teaspoons of your favourite dried herb blend. Taste, and adjust the seasoning with salt and/or pepper if necessary. Transfer the pie filling to a bowl and place it in the fridge, or in a cool area.

8. While you wait for the filling to cool, remove your puff pastry from the freezer and set it out to thaw, then set up a little pie assembly area with: a lined baking tray, a sheet of parchment paper next to it, your egg beaten in a bowl with a tablespoon of water and a tiny pinch of salt for the egg wash, a pastry brush, a small bowl of water, a pastry wheel or knife, possibly a fork for crimping, and your nigella and sesame seeds for sprinkling.

9. Once the pastry sheets are ready to handle, it's time to assemble! Transfer your first sheet of puff pastry onto your parchment paper. Place 1½ heaped tablespoons of the creamy leek and mushroom pie filling into the centre of the pastry sheet. Dab a finger into the bowl of water and wet the edges of the pastry before folding it over in half to make a parcel. Stretch and pinch down the top edges to make a seal with the bottom edges of the pastry. Using a pastry wheel or knife, you can trim the edges of the pie to help further seal the two layers of pastry together (alternatively, you could just use a fork or your fingers to crimp the edges together). Brush the top of your pie with the egg wash, sprinkle with the seeds and then, using a sharp knife, poke two to four holes in the top for ventilation. Repeat for all the remaining puff pastry sheets and pie filling (you may have to do this in two batches, baking one half of the pies while you assemble the second half; I certainly did).

10. Place the baking tray with the pies in a cool place for 15 minutes — ideally, a freezer, but a fridge or cold outdoor space will do. This ensures the fat in the pastry is actually cold before it hits the hot oven, which is exactly what you need for the pastry to puff up nicely and not turn dense as it oozes out melted butter. Then transfer the pies into the oven and bake for approximately 18 minutes, or until the pastry has puffed up nicely and the pie tops are crisp and golden but not too brown.

note: even though I called these hand pies, you don't have to eat them with your hands. I presume they travel well, but in my case, they only traveled as far as the dining table on a plate, and were devoured with delight using a good ol' knife and fork. Also, if you need a bit of visual aid, click here!

Pairs fantastically well with steamed broccolini, or sautéed greens. If you'd like, you can also freeze some pies just before the baking step to enjoy them later — simply add a couple of minutes to the baking time!