This recipe has been a long time coming. I first saw it the week before the West Point taekwondo tournament, when I had to drop five pounds and couldn’t eat anything besides the occasional salad. The week after that was hell week followed by hell weekend, during which I was too busy trying to learn two months work of immunology in a weekend to cook. Last night, finally, there was a smidgen of breathing (read: eating) room before Bobby starts cutting for nationals.
For all intents and purposes, these are dumplings with mushroom filling. But these little dumplings have a gorgeous, flaky, golden crust that is to die for. And with the amount of butter and cream cheese in it, you may just die from heart disease. But let’s not think about that. They are savory and just crisp enough to give you a satisfying crunch and absolutely magical little morsels.
Mushroom Crescents
Modified from Eat Me Delicious
Pastry
- 4 oz cream cheese, softened
- 1/3 cup butter, melted
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 egg, beaten
Filling
- 4 tbsp olive oil
- 1 small onion, finely chopped
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 3/4 tsp dried thyme
- 3/4 tsp oregano
- 3/4 tsp dill
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1 1/2 cups finely chopped portobello mushrooms
- 1 1/2 cups finely chopped button mushrooms
- 1/2 cup vegetable broth
For the pastry…
In large microwaveable bowl, combine cream cheese and butter and microwave to melt. Beat together until fluffy. Stir in flour 1/4 cup at a time until dough begins to form. Knead in until smooth. Divide dough in half and flatten into 2 discs. Cover with saran wrap (Important! Else your dough will end up too dry like ours did…), then refrigerate until firm, at least 30 minutes.
On lightly floured surface, roll out each disc into until they’re about 1/8 inch thick. They should be thicker than your average potsticker wrapper, but still thin enough to wrap. With a 2 1/2 inch round cookie cutter (we just used a cup), cut out circles, rerolling scraps.
Our rolling pin is pretty kickass, no?
For the filling…
In large saucepan, heat olive oil over medium heat. Fry the onion, garlic, thyme, oregano, dill, pepper and salt, stirring occasionally, until onion is softened, about 3 minutes. Increase heat to medium-high. Add the mushrooms and fry, stirring occasionally, until browned, about 10 minutes. Stir in the vegetable broth and cook until liquid is evaporated. Let cool to room temperature.
Putting it all together…
Brush the edges of the circles lightly with egg. Place about 1 tsp of the filling in center of each, then fold dough over filling, pinching edges to seal. Try not to get the filling juices to touch the edges, because the liquid keeps them from sealing properly. Place the crescents 1 inch apart on an ungreased baking sheet. Brush tops with remaining egg.
Bake in the center of 400F oven until light golden, 15 to 17 minutes. Makes about 40 crescents (so says the recipe, but we only got 22 out of it…).
We had quite a bit of filling and egg left over, so Bobby decided to omlettize it. Epic fail, because there was more filling than egg, but we wrapped it up in fresh spinach leaves and ate them while waiting for the crescents to bake. Dee-licious, and pretty damn cute, too. I thought they resembled little animals floating down a river on little leaf boats (a la this), but I had to push that thought away quickly else I couldn’t eat it.
Length of procrastination: 1 hour 35 minutes
Ways to prolong procrastination: Fight over which crescents to take pictures of and which crescents I’m allowed to eat.
Cooking to Procrastinate 