Mushroom and Thyme Canapés

(Makes:   16 - 18 depending on the canapé bases you use.)

These little mushroom and thyme bites are totally delicious and perfect as a nibble with drinks. The mixture can be made in advance, and frozen if you want to, and then it can be used to fill pastry cases when you need them. In the photograph below we have put the mushroom mixture onto oatmeal canapé shells, put them straight in the freezer and defrosted and decorated when needed.

Ingredients:                                                                            Preparation:  10  minutes

6 large chestnut mushrooms, finely diced                               Cooking Time: 5 minutes

50g butter

2 large cloves of garlic, very finely diced

2 large shallots or small onions, very finely diced 

1 tbsp of double cream

1 tsp of Marsala wine (optional)

a small handful of thyme, stalks and leaves, finely chopped

thyme leaves to decorate

salt and pepper to season

canapé bases - we used Maclean's Highland Bakery oatcake canapé shells 

                                       sourced from http://www.macleansbakery.com/oatcake-range/mini-canape-oatcakes

Method:

1. Heat a heavy based saucepan over a medium heat. Add the butter and once it is melted and foaming add the finely diced shallots and garlic.
2. Once the shallots have softened add the diced mushrooms and coat in the buttery mixture to cook.
3. Cook for 3-4 minutes and then add Marsala and a minute later the cream. The amount of cream may vary slightly depending on how much water the mushrooms release. If they release a lot of water hold back on a little of the cream, it is there to bind the flavours together not to create more liquid. 
4. Increase the heat to drive off any excess liquid, add the seasoning and the finely chopped thyme to taste.
5. Remove the mixture from the heat and put one third of the mixture in a small bowl. Whizz the rest of the mixture with a blender (a stick blender is probably best for this small quantity) until you achieve a rough combined texture. You do not want it to be smooth.
6. Add in the third of the mixture that you didn't blend and mix together. You should now have delicious mushroom mixture which holds together but still has some texture in it.
7. At this point you can freeze this mixture or you can keep it in the fridge for 24 hours until you need to use it.
8. Put the mushroom mixture onto the oatmeal canapé shells and serve!

Hints, Tips and Alternatives:

• Instead of oatmeal canapé shells use the parmesan pastry tartlets we made in an earlier blog.
• If you can't find canapé shells, then a simple oatcake would work equally well, as do mini vol au vent cases.