Creamy Mushroom Pie Party - Our Very First Pie

I am sure than in each and every one of us, there is a thin person bitch cook party animal waiting to be unleashed. I am a bit of a party animal myself...well, as long as the party involves a lot of alcoh food, doesn't require me to wear anything I can't eat a lot be comfortable in, and do not need me to pretend laugh at jokes which aren't funny...I'm in.

This is why I like organizing cooking parties with my big eater dearest friends. Cook something delish, or learn and experiment how to cook something together, dress in whatever you like (except anything showing butt cheeks), with or without make up, and with maximum stomach capacity. This time, we learnt how to make our very first pie.

Creamy Mushroom Pie

We love savoury over sweet, and we all love mushrooms (who doesn't?), so mushroom pie it was. This experiment actually scared the crap outta me, I remember Jamie Oliver said something like we're bound to fail a few times before we can produce a decent pie...and failure is not only my middle name, it is pretty much my surname. So I was sure I was gonna screw up, big time. But hey, at least I had some people with me, just in case I needed to blame somebody. ;)

I adapted the pie crust recipe from Culinary Cafe's Basic Pie Crust and I made up the creamy mushroom filling.

Basic Pie Crust
(Yields: Enough for two 9-inch, I used the two batches separately, with an oval baking dish)
Ingredients
- 2 & 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- I added a dash of mixed dry italian herbs (oregano, thyme, sage and rosemary)
- 1 cup (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
- 1/4 to 1/2 cup water
Combine the flour, salt, and sugar in food processor. Add butter; process until mixture resembles coarse meal, about 8 to 10 seconds. Add ice water in a slow steady stream through feed tube of food processor with machine running, until the dough holds together for no longer than 30 seconds. Turn dough onto piece of plastic wrap. Press into flat circle, or rectangle depending on what shape you intend to roll out pastry to. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 1 hour. May be frozen, double wrapped in plastic, for several months. I did freeze the other half, and used it two months later, after defrosting it in the fridge for 1 day. It was still as good as the fresh one.

Spend the one hour refrigeration time chit chatting, playing mah jong, video games, or whatever you fancied, as long as it doesn't involve nibbling on the pie filling (at least leave some for the pie, dammit!). Roll two parts of dough (for top and bottom)...

Look at the way we rolled our first pie crust...I bet it was wrong from every angle. I tried minimizing all the mess by placing the dough in between two baking paper. If you have some parchment paper, that would work even better.

After grueling with the crust....place the crust and gently press to fit the baking dish/pie dish, leaving some excess on the outside of the dish.

Ta daaaa....my very first pie crust!

Creamy Mushroom Filling
- 2 or more kinds of mushrooms (you can make more and keep the rest to be eaten with rice/bread/pasta)
- a bit of butter and olive oil
- 1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
- heavy cream
- salt, black pepper, sugar, mixed dry italian herbs (oregano, sage, rosemary, thyme)
Saute garlic in butter and a bit of olive oil, add mushrooms, cook until wilted, add cream until you achieve the desired thickness (not runny), season, let cool while playing with the pie crust. Once the crust is done and the filling is cool, pour filling into the crust...

Brush some beaten egg on the edges, cover with the top of the crust, gently shape it (mine was ugly, you can do better than this)

My friend suggested pressing fork on the edges to make it prettier.

I decided to place a giant nipple circle in the middle just for fun, poked a few hole, brushing it with egg again...

...and stroke some fierce poses before dumping the pie into the preheated oven.

We peeped at our pie impatiently every few minutes, witnessing all the butter running down on the baking sheet, the savoury scent of butter made my flat smelt absolutely heavenly...and before we knew it, the pie was ready.

It may look kinda ugly, but in my eyes, they are the most beautiful looking pie there was (maybe this was how my mum felt when she looked at me as a baby. No matter how many times she heard the comments, she just wouldn't believe that I was an ugly baby *cough* denial)

Savoury, buttery, flaky crust with creamy mushroom filling...perfect with hot lemon tea. Party animals, get your ingredients ready and see you at the next party!

I easily forget most of my firsts (first crush, first kiss, first love...ew!) as they generally were bad, but I won't forget my first pie.