WetLeather Recipe Database - food for bikers

Name:	Wild Mushroom Bread Pudding	Contributor:	Martin Golding
Description:	Wild Mushroom Bread Pudding	Posted:	2002-07-04
Key words:	mushrooms, shallots, Creole	Category:	Side Dishes
ID:	624	Updated:	2006-04-11 22:21:48
Ingredients:	1-1/2 c heavy cream 1/4 oz dried mushrooms (1) 1/2 Tbsp olive oil 1/2 small onion, cut into small slices 1/2 Tbsp minced shallots 1/2 tsp minced garlic 3 oz fresh wild mushrooms, sliced (2) 1 Tbsp molasses (3) 3 beaten eggs 1/2 tsp Creole seasoning (4) Tabasco to taste Worchestershire to taste salt and pepper to taste 2 c diced bread (5) 2 Tbsp grated Parmesan
Preparation:	Preheat the oven to 350 (degrees fahrenheit, duh). Bring the cream and dried mushrooms to a boil in a heavy saucepan. Remove from pan and let cool. Saute the onion, shallots and garlic over medium heat until the onion is slightly caramelized. Add the fresh mushrooms and cook until tender, about 3 to 4 minutes. Add the molasses, let cool. Strain the cream through a fine-meshed sieve into the eggs.(6) Season with Creole seasoninng, tabasco, Worcestershire, salt and pepper. Add bread and let soak 5 to 8 minutes. Stir in the mushrooms. Fill four 4-oz buttered molds and top with cheese.(7) Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 18 to 20 minutes. Remove foil, bake and additional 2 minutes to brown. (8) Let cool slightly, unmold. Serve warm. 1) I expect that boletes are canonical. I used a blend that included oyster, boletes, and black trumpet. The oysters are bland, but the black trumpet is nicely earthy. 2) I used one portabello, and six 1-1/2"-2" fresh shiitake, all stemmed and sliced about 1/4"-3/8" thick. It was just Bill, so I left out the truffle. 3) I suspect that the molasses is mostly for color. The slight sweetness is NOT an improvement; next time we'll leave the molasses out. 4) Rick's Special, though I suspect that anything hot'n'salty will do. 5) I used a dill rye bread, because the potato bread we had was way too moist for a bread pudding. I toasted it in the oven, just a bit too brown, then had to soak it longer, but it all worked out in the end. 6) My Scots ancestry forced me to snip up the reconstituted dried mushrooms and add them to the mix. 7) I baked it in well buttered (smear with warm butter, fridge before use) large muffin tins. Small muffin tins would likely do as well, and make more puddings. 8) I didn't bother with the foil. It didn't suffer thereby, but that may be because we have a convection oven. Do whatever your conscience says. It may be, for the queazy, best to combine everything but the eggs, adjust the seasoning (season highly, in anticipation of the eggs), then do the final mix. Next time I'll try to determine precisely how much tabasco and Worcestershire I use.
Notes:	We made this for Bill (you guys remember Bill, he's the Founder of all the Feasts, he doesn't write, he doesn't call, he doesn't visit... but one taste of this, and BANG! Bill's Back In Town) to go with Come At The Table Salmon (which didn't have _near_ enough garlic in it). Wild Mushroom Bread Pudding from Andre Begenaud of Emeril's Living well is the best revenge,
Equipment: