Wednesday, December 28, 2011

A Very Vegan Christmas: "Oyster" Patties



No good Southern feast would be complete without some oyster patties for appetizers. They truly are our pigs in a blanket. There’s nothing not to love with a wonderfully flaky outer pastry encompassing a fantastic inner oyster filling. You may be asking yourself “How can the vegan Christmas include a dish known as oyster patties?” Well, the simple answer comes thanks to the magic of mushrooms.

The oyster mushroom lives up to its name.


Vegan "Oyster" Patties
Modified from Haydel's Bakery
Servings: 6 overstuffed patties
Time: 35 minutes
Proper "oyster" size

6 large vegan puff pastries (Pepperidge Farm makes good ones)
1 small onion, diced
1/2 green bell pepper, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp olive oil
1 cup oyster mushrooms, chopped to oyster size
1 can cream of mushroom soup
3/4 cup Italian bread crumbs
1/2 cup Daiya cheese
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
Salt and Pepper to taste




The puff pastry also reaaaaallllllly lives up to its name.

  1. Prepare the puff pastries as directed on the box.
  2. Sauté the onions, bell pepper and garlic in oil until they become tender.
  3. Add the mushrooms and cook until tender.
  4. Stir in the cream of mushroom soup, salt and pepper and bring to a light boil.
  5. Mix in the vegan cheese, yeast and bread crumbs and stir until melted. This should yield an almost thick pudding like consistency which can be altered by adding more bread crumbs.
  6. Spoon the mixture into the puff pastry shells and bake for another 5-10 minutes at 350.

Cheese and bread crumbs- the perfect toppings for any dish.
Our oyster mushrooms provided the perfect consistency and flavor for our appetizers. Seriously, I wouldn’t have known these weren’t the real deal if I hadn’t help make them. Our warm gooey mushroom based filling was an absolute pleasure to bite into when surrounded by the always magnificent and buttery puff pastry. Typically, these are much smaller, so each bite would have an even greater ratio of puff pastry to filling. Our large version was just as delicious and helped imitate a main course better. It also provided the perfect accompaniment to our milanesa that made this appetizer centered dinner into a complete and utterly satisfying meal. That combined with our fantastic champagne punch (recipe to come in time for your New Year's Eve party) and some Die Hard made for a splendid Christmas Eve.

And then Reginald VelJohnson showed up, and victory was assured.

2 comments:

  1. which cream of mushroom soup do you recommend?

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  2. The Imagine Organic Creamy Portabello Mushroom Soup is quite good (and can be found at Whole Foods). They also make a fantastic butternut squash bisque.

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