April 20-22, 2025
I've been a long-time reader of Anne Helen Petersen across multiple platforms and a few months ago she announced the start of a cooking club within her substack. The first cookbook we were all invited to cook from was Hetty Lui McKinnon's Tenderheart, an easy and welcome request in this household! I used this as motivation to try a couple of 'project' recipes over the Easter weekend.
The two recipes I signed up for form a clever pair within the Mushroom section. First, there's mushroom, leek & walnut pâté - I liked that it included dried porcinis for a flavour boost. There's soaking and sautéing and blending and refrigeration; nothing too complicated but best taken slowly. The process generates a lovely, savoury spread that I ate on fresh bread. I'd increase the quantity of five-spice and salt if I made this again.
Second, there's sesame mushroom toast - a home-made, vegan alternative to prawn toast. This transfers the mushroom pâté to the plainest white square bread, where it's layered with sesame seeds and shallow-fried. We love eating veg*n versions at restaurants, and I expected the home version to be messy and not quite right. How wrong I was! This sesame mushroom toast was easy to fry golden (and also successful with less oil than instructed) and tasted magnificent, especially with the sweet and sour sauce drizzle. I immediately posted photos to my veg*n groupchat with the caption I just made the mushroom sesame toast from Tenderheart and am now levitating. Then I wrote way too many effusive words in AHP's cookbook club thread. Now you get some, too!
Mushroom, leek & walnut pâté
(a recipe from Hetty Lui McKinnon's Tenderheart)
olive oil
1 leek, finely sliced
30g dried porcini mushrooms, soaked in hot water for 20 minutes
3 cloves garlic, minced
500g mushrooms (any type), roughly chopped
1 teaspoon five-spice powder
1/2 teaspoon red chilli flakes
salt and pepper
100g walnuts, soaked in warm water for 10 minutes
Set a frypan over medium heat and add a couple tablespoons of oil. Add the leek and cooked until softened, up to 10 minutes.
While the leek is cooking, drain the porcini mushrooms and lightly squeeze them out, keeping all the soaking liquid. Roughly chop the mushrooms. Strain the soaking liquid through a fine sieve.
To the frypan, add the fresh and soaked mushrooms and the garlic. Cook, stirring, for 5 minutes. Add the five-spice, chilli flakes, and salt and pepper. Allow the mixture to cool to a temperature that's safe for a food processor.
Drain the walnuts and place them in a food processor. Add the cooled mushroom mixture. Pulse the mixture to your desired consistency. Stop and scrape down the sides occasionally for evenness, and add a little of the mushroom soaking liquid if you need more moisture (I didn't need much at all). Spread the pâté on fresh bread or toast, either straight away or after storing in the refrigerator.
Sesame mushroom toast
(slightly adapted from a recipe from Hetty Lui McKinnon's Tenderheart)
toast
6 thick slices square white bread
3/4 - 1 cup mushroom pâté (as above)
1/2 cup white sesame seeds
vegetable oil, for frying
sweet & sour sauce
1 tablespoon caster sugar
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
3 teaspoons tamari
2 tablespoons tomato ketchup
1 teaspoon garlic powder
Make the sweet and sour sauce by whisking all the ingredients together in a small bowl.
Spread a generous amount of pâté on each piece of bread. Sprinkle over a lot of sesame seeds, aiming for full coverage, and lightly press them into the pâté. Quarter the slices into triangles.
Set a frypan over medium-high heat and pour in oil to a depth of 5mm. Set up a plate or tray with paper towel to drain the fried toasts. When the oil is very hot arrange some toast triangles in the oil, leaving decent gaps between them. The toasts should sizzle immediately. Fry them for about 2 minutes on each side, until golden and crisp, then transfer them to the paper towel as you fry the remaining toasts in batches.
Serve as soon as possible, with sweet & sour sauce drizzled over the top.
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