Morel Mushroom and Brie Tart

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May 8, 2011 by Dana

This past week was a big week for food bloggers everywhere.  Between Cinco de Mayo and Mother’s Day, you couldn’t help but find a festive taco, burrito, or enchilada recipe, or a tasty Mother’s Day coffee cake or dessert suggestion.

You’ll notice that I posted for neither occasion.

See, for me, this past week was less of a festive one, and more of a hectic one.  Between planning a dinner for 60 people for work, traveling to Boston for said dinner, studying for an accounting midterm, taking the midterm, and traveling to Washington DC for my little brother’s graduation, there was no time for such festivities.

There was barely time to do what I had to do!

But one fun food blogger activity I was able to squeeze in was the Morel Recipe Challenge hosted by Marx Foods. (And get another step closer to one of my 27×27 goals in the process!)

For the contest, the kind folks at Marx Foods sent me and fourteen other food bloggers some dried morel mushrooms to create an appetizer recipe.  The winner will get 4 more lbs of fresh morels!

I had never worked with, or even tasted morels before, but I love my mushrooms, so I figured I would give it a shot.  After tasting the morels in this Morel Mushroom and Brie Tart, I knew I had made the right choice!

Ingredients

1 sheet puff pastry
2 tablespoons butter
½ sweet onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 oz dried morel mushrooms, reconstituted and chopped
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary, chopped
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
4 oz brie, cut into bite sized pieces
¼ cup half and half

Reconstituting the morels is extremely easy.  Follow the simple directions from the MarxFoods sit, which can be found here.  The reconstituted mushrooms were about 2 cups worth, so if you are lucky enough to have fresh morels on hand, you can just measure them out.

Directions

1.  Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.  Spray a baking sheet with Pam or cooking spray.

2.  Roll the Puff pastry into a square, about 12×12 inches and place on baking sheet.  With a knife, score the puff pastry in a square about 1 inch from the edge.  Poke the inside portion of the square with a fork at 1 inch intervals.  Bake the pastry for 15 minutes.

3.  While pastry is baking, melt butter in a large sautee pan over medium high heat.  Add garlic and onion, and cook until onion is translucent, about 6 minutes.  Add mushrooms, rosemary, salt and pepper and cook for 3 more minutes.

4.  In a small saucepan, heat half-and-half and 2 oz of the brie over medium heat, until brie becomes soft and spreadable. 

5.  Spread brie mixture on the inside square of the puff pastry, then spread morel mushroom mixture.  Top with scattered pieces of the remaining brie.  Bake for 20-25 more minutes. 

6.  For plated appetizers, cut tart into 6 pieces, plate, and serve.  For passed hors d’oeuvress, cut into bite sized pieces and serve on a platter with toothpicks.

This tart was so tasty.  I wasn’t sure what to expect before tasting it, but the simple combination of flavors was spot on.  I loved the morel mushrooms.  They had a different texture than other mushrooms I’ve had before, but the earthy flavor was great.  Hopefully, I’ll win some more morels to work with!