We’re being sneaky this week, making this spread with dry porcini -supermarket mushrooms add volume and fresh creds to this fancy pressure cooked spread.
My 7-year old son, who calls these mushrooms porcellini (little pigs), adores this mushroom spread. It reminds him of the precious vases displayed outside the stores in the historic hill-top towns that surround Rome. The shopkeeper will plop the smallest dot of the pate on little mosaic squares of bread to give curious tourists and adventurous children a taste. We always walk away to the clink of jars in a bag slung over my husband’s shoulder with the children excitedly skipping circles around us in anticipation.
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| Mushroom vendor in Nemi (RM) Italy; Fresh porcini mushrooms; gazing at the entrance to Nemi. |
This pate’ will inspire new memories for you, too.
It’s more than a dip!
Stir in a cup of this brown gold right after pressure cooking a plain white risotto. Warm 3/4 of a cup of this pate with three tablespoons of heavy cream to dress a pound of egg fettuccine pasta. Or spread a tablespoon or two on focaccia, topped with a thin slice of prosciutto and a couple of arugula spears for the fanciest open-faced sandwich.. ever!
Another gadget
This recipe is also the perfect vehicle to introduce you to my latest favorite gadget. I bought this mushroom slicer when I popped over to the US last summer and I am in absolute LOVE. It looks like an egg slicer, but instead of metal wires, the mushroom is cut by 9 little knives. It also makes beautiful strawberry slices!
Unfortunately, this slicer is not dishwasher safe – but the 30 second sud and rinse is totally worth it for me to thinly slice a pound of mushrooms in less than a minute. Be sure to store this fun-looking sharp thing in you knife drawer or out of the reach of your little ones.
While you might ordinarily remove the tough stems from cremini before cooking, we’re keeping them to add bulk and body to this spread.
| Pressure Cooker | Accessories | Pr. Cook Time | Pr. Level | Open |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 L or larger | none | 10-12 min. | High(2) | Normal |
(per serving)
- Serves: 1½ cups (about 24 servings)
- Serving size: 1 tablespoon
- Calories: 20.3
- TOTAL Fat: 1.4g
- TOTAL Carbs: 1g
- Sugar Carbs: .02g
- Sodium: 157.5mg
- Fiber Carbs: .04g
- Protein: .08g
- Cholesterol: .05mg
- ¾ cup (about 1 ounce or 30 grams) dry porcini mushrooms, rinsed
- 1 cup water, boiling
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 shallot, sliced
- 1 pound fresh cremini or white button mushrooms, thinly sliced
- ¼ cup dry white wine
- 1½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon white pepper
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil (or white truffle oil)
- 3 tablespoons (about ¾ ounce or 20 grams) Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, finely grated
- In a one-cup heat-proof measuring cup add dry porcini up to the ¾ mark. Then, pour boiling water over them until the liquid reaches the 1 cup mark. Cover tightly and set aside.
- In the pre-heated pressure cooker, on medium heat, melt the one tablespoon of butter and olive oil. Then, saute' the shallot until it begins to soften. Add the fresh mushrooms and, stirring infrequently, saute' them until at least one side is golden brown (about 5 to 10 minutes).
- Pour in the wine and let it evaporate completely. Then, the porcini mushrooms and their soaking liquid, salt, pepper, and bay leaf.
- Close the lid and set the valve to pressure cooking position.
- Electric pressure cookers: Cook for 12 minutes at high pressure.
Stovetop pressure cookers: Lock thelid, and cook for 10 minutes at high pressure. - When time is up, open the pressure cooker with the Normal release - release pressure through the valve.
- Remove and discard the bay leaf. Add the extra-virgin olive (or white truffle) oil.
- Tilt the cooker to the side and puree the contents using an immersion blender until smooth add the grated cheese and pulse a few times until well integrated.
- Pack the mushroom puree into several ramekins or small containers and cover tightly.
- Refrigerate for two hours before serving.
This looks delicious. :)
The recipe says “When time is up, open the cooker by releasing the pressure.” Do you mean cold water release, turn the dial or leaving the pressure to drop by itself”?
It means use the “Normal Release.” Depending on your model you may have to push the trigger, twist a dial or tilt the weight to release pressure.
The normal release in this recipe automatically evaporates the vapor so there is no need to spend time reducing extra liquid that is usually preserved with a cold-water or natural release.
Ciao,
L
I must try this one, looks really excellent.
Have you tried adding something sweet? Because this reminds me the “shiitake marmalade” in Modernist Cuisine at Home, where they put a little soy sauce and honey, it tastes great and also works wonders as a garnish or complement for many dishes. They also grind the raw mushrooms in a robot before cooking instead of pureing at the end. But otherwise similar concept.
Hola Enrique!
I like to keep the fresh mushrooms whole so they can get a little golden glaze and scorch before pressure cooking. The parmesan cheese adds a very light sweet note – though not as much as honey might.
Another great addition that is traditional to pate’ would be a spoon of rum at the end – I avoided boozing it up since my son is such a great fan of this spread.
Can’t wait to hear about your variation!
Ciao,
L
Love the recipe and the mushroom cutter too…thats too lovely…I didnt have a chance to see this gadget in the US stores.
Pepper, you can get the mushroom slicer here: http://amzn.to/WGfoU0.
Ciao,
L
OMG lovely pics Dear..and nice yummy recipe :)
Thanks for stopping by, Rasa!
Ciao,
L
Your recipes never allow me to paste them into a doc for future reference . . . What gives??
You can click on the little printer at the bottom of the recipe, and then save the recipe as a PDF.
An unscrupulous pressure cooker mailing list was copying all of the pressure cooker recipes into their database without permission or citing the source.
I apologize for the inconvenience, but to keep this website going and continue publishing new, original recipes for free I have to be assured that all readers honest and maltent respect the website’s copyright.
Ciao,
L
Awesome idea Laura! I am mushroom crazy. Had not yet thought about mushrooms in my pressure cooker. Now, I am curious.I am sure this is delicious, and very versatile. Like a French duxelles.
Now I am wondering about making pate in the PC in ramekins. If we can do cheesecake, basically a custard, in the PC, why not other things like pate? I have a long and complicated cognac liver pate I do at holidays. It eventually bakes in a water bath. Wonder how it would do in the PC? You have my mind spinning with ideas!
Can’t wait to try this!
Sally, of course you can do bain marie in the pressure cooker anything that you would ordinarily bain marie in the oven!
Have you seen my quick liver pate recipe? It only needs 3 minutes at high pressure.
Perhaps you can adapt your cognac recipe to the liver pate method.
Ciao!
L
I loved hearing a bit about your life in Italy. My husband is a mushroom fan. I’m sure he’d especially like this recipe.
Ciao Barbara! I try not to go too “Italian” so I’m glad you enjoyed it. ; )
Ciao,
L
Very yummy, Laura. Your son has gourmet tastes!
When I got my rather expensive little package of porcini home, it was only 14 grams, so I just made half the recipe. I’m sure it will be no problem at all to use it up, but do you think it would freeze gracefully?
And what about using less expensive dried shiitake from our Asian market?
Yes, when Vittorio went nuts with the truffle spread my husband and I exchanged “Oh, shoot now we have to share” glances!
You can absolutely freeze this spread! Just do not add cream (for the pasta sauce) and THEN freeze. But as-is it freezes beautifully.
You can use any strongly-flavored dried mushroom. The flavor will be completely different but equally enticing.
Ciao,
L
I tried this recipe about a week ago with some slightly different mushrooms, but it came out great! I look forward to trying out other recipes on this site!
Someone gave me some fresh mushrooms recently, so I tried this recipe with some dried mushrooms I already had, not porcini. Also, my husband can’t eat dairy so I used only olive oil and didn’t add the cheese. It was still delicious so I saved most of it for appetizers for family and friends we had over for Christmas dinner. I put a little bowl of freshly grated parmesan out for people to sprinkle on it. Everyone loved it and couldn’t believe it was homemade. I also made turkey in the pressure cooker from Lorna Sass’ Pressure Perfect, with her Gingered Plum Sauce – another huge hit. Between your blog and Lorna Sass, we eat really well around here. Thanks for all your experimenting and enthusiasm!
Don’t the French call this stuff “duel less”?
Don’t know, I’m not French. I’m Italian. Perhaps a francophile reader can fill us in.
Ciao,
L
I’m having an embarrassment of riches here. I cooked the 1 pound of cremini and shallot last night in anticipation of the arrival of the porcini this morning, but instead of the dried porcini I ordered, they sent a pound of fresh, which I read online is the equivalent of 3 oz dried. I don’t want to use them all in this one recipe, so was thinking I’d saute half and use the rest for something else. Alternatively, I suppose I could just triple the recipe and freeze two-thirds of it. Any advice on how to proceed would be welcome.
Camille, lucky you! Nonono, I would not use fresh procini to make a spread. Saute’ them in oil and garlic and enjoy them on pasta, mix them into a risotto, or add a touch of tomato and a sausage and pour them over polenta!
Ciao,
L
Hi again,
I sliced up as many porcini as would fit on two sheet pans and dehydrated them for a several hours in a 170-degree oven, the lowest temp my oven would go. That yielded only three-quarters of an ounce, so I added a few dried shiitake to make the full ounce. I sauteed the rest of the porcini, which were surprisingly tasteless, as mushrooms go, and used them in a mushroom rice Instant Pot recipe (by JL Fields), which got a lot of help from the No Chicken Better Than Bouillon I used for the broth.
The paté, though, was amazing! Thanks for a great recipe.
Cheers,
Camille
I’m not familiar with JL’s recipe, but if the mushrooms are well-sauteed they should have a more concentrated flavor.
Glad to hear the pate’ worked out, tho!!!
Ciao,
L
We are dairy-free. Any way to make this without the cheese at the end?
Alison, I substituted vegan parm for the cheese and the paté was delicious. There are many recipes for it on the web, most with nuts, but while I’m not allergic to anything, I tried a recipe called ‘hempesan’ by Gena Hamshaw, of Food52 and TheFullHelping. It consists of 3 Tbsp hemp seeds and 3 Tbsp nutritional yeast. There are also several commercial parm products available; one in particular that Gena recommends is called Parma. In addition to nutritional yeast, it contains walnuts, hemp seeds, and sunflower seeds. I haven’t tried it, but will as soon as I run out of the huge bag of hemp seeds I bought accidentally!
I am a bit confused about the first instruction. Can you elaborate on what to do with the dried mushrooms once in the measuring cup?
They stay there and are covered by the boiling water.
Ciao,
L