Ingredients
3 tbsp olive oil
2 onions, chopped
2 garlic cloves (or more) - crushed
28 oz canned tomatoes in juice
1 tsp dried basil
3 fl red wine
8 oz buttom mushrooms - washed & sliced
1 salt
1 freshly ground black pepper
10 oz filo pastry
4 oz butter, melted
3 1/2 oz roasted cashew nuts - roughly chopp, ed
Directions
Heat the oil in a fairly large saucepan, add the onions and cook
them, with the lid on the pan, for about 10 minutes, until they are
tender but not browned. Add the garlic, the tomatoes together with
their liquid, the basil and the wine. Let the mixture simmer gently
without a lid on the pan, stirring from time to time, until the
liquid has disappeared and it is quite thick - this will take about
20 minutes. Add the mushrooms and cook for a further 5 minutes or so,
or until the mushrooms are tender and any liquid which they make has
boiled away. Remove from the heat and season to taste.
When the filling mixture has cooled, you can assemble the strudel,
which can then be cooked straight away, or kept in the fridge for a
few hours until you're ready, or in the freezer for at least a month.
I find it easiest to assemble the studel directly on to a large
baking sheet, which means you don't have to lift it later.
Set the oven to 200 C/400 F/Gas Mark 6.
If you have the type of filo pastry which is long and narrow -- about
30 x 20 cm (12 x 8 inches) -- lay two sheets side by side,
overlapping them slightly where they join. If you have the type which
is quite large ~- about 30 cm (12 inches) or so square -- lay out one
sheet. Either way, brush the surface with a little melted butter and
then sprinkle with a third of the nuts. Put another layer of filo
pastry on top, brush with butter, and scatter with nuts. Repeat with
another layer, then a final layer of filo pastry, which you just
brush with butter. Now tip the tomato filling mixture on top and
spread it to about 2.5 cm (1 inch) of the edges. Fold the edges over,
to enclose the edge of the filling then, starting from one of the
widest edges, roll the whole thing up like a Swiss Roll, trying not
to let it break (although it's not the end of the world if it does).
Brush with melted butter and garnish with some shreds or shapes of
filo pastry.
Put the strudel into the oven and bake for 30 minutes, or until golden
brown. Transfer carefully to a serving dish with the aid of two fish
slices.
Source: Rose Elliot's Vegetarian Christmas Typed for you by Karen
Mintzias
Servings: 1 studel
Christmas Savoury Strudel Recipe brought to you by Recipe Ideas
Categories: Christmas; Dessert; Holiday
The History of Recipes
It is quite feasible to prove the history of recipes way back into antiquity, certainly as far back into history as early Egypt, and possibly even further. Having said that, mostly, these early records were just very simple hieroglyphic instructions for meal preparation.
Interestingly, the oldest recipe discovered so far, according to Professor Solomon Katz, is a collection of clay tablets in ancient Sumerian which show the making of bread which is then used to make a drink, quite possibly a form of beer as it is recorded as having made anyone who tried it feel `wonderful`. Later on, we have a couple of books which were published in the 14th Century : a cookery book called `Forme of Cury`, and another, similary entitled `Curye on Inglish`. Amusingly, these two books are not about the spicy food that is served today, but instead accounts of the types of food on the tables of the rich and powerful of the time. Later on in the 1400s, knights returning from the crusades brought back many new foods and spices from Arab countries, including coriander, parsley, basil and rosemary. These new herbs and spices led to a torrent in books on cooking, the majority of which are kept safe in private libraries. For the centuries that followed, the rich families of the West strove to serve the most extravagent meals, and as a consequence, the best cooks and their collection of recipes were much in demand. Even so, it was during the nineteenth century that fine cooking and cookery books reached a high level of popularity. The Famous Mrs Beeton in the UK, and the equally well-known Fannie Merritt Farmer in the US, dedicated the best years of their lives to collecting, verifying, and publishing recipes common in their social group. The introduction of the TV brings us celebrity TV chefs and the demand for the accompanying recipe books. And that brings us to the present day and the invention of computers and the internet, permitting everybody to search through massive numbers of recipes such as those found on our web site. |
We hope you enjoy this Christmas Savoury Strudel recipe.
