Frugal Christmas Recipe - Main (Veggie option)

An original recipe for a vegetarian Christmas main course for just £2.22 per person!

The main: The Portobello mushroom, port and stilton wellington (serves five - so plenty leftover for Boxing Day! - and costs £2.22 per person)

Last week I published my frugal recipe for an Christmas starter: Smoked mackerel pate on crostini and red onion confit. Next week, I'll take you through my recipe for a frugal dessert: a lemon tart with fresh vanilla mascarpone. Ingredients for these dishes can be found below, if you want to buy them up now.

But today, I'm like to take you through my recipe for a frugal main course for vegetarians. (I've also provided a meat alternative: a recipe for a roasted pheasant with garlic and bacon, caramelised sprouts, rosemary roasts, bread sauce and peach, sausage and thyme stuffing.)

Ingredients

500g of Jus Rol puff pastry (£1.25)
750g of Portobello mushrooms (£4.50)
Three red onions (51p)
15g of fresh thyme (80p)
90g of pine nuts (£2.49)
200g of blue stilton (£1.85)

The cupboard staples...

Salt, black pepper, olive oil, 2 cloves of garlic, 1 egg and a splash of port.

Total cost

If you already have the cupboard staples, then according to mysupermarket.co.uk, this trolley was cheapest at Sainsbury's, where it came to £11.40 - that's £2.22 per head!

Instructions

Let's make the filling first, as we need to cool it right down before we place it in the pastry, otherwise the puff pastry will melt down and it will be too hard to handle.
Roughly chop the red onions, mushrooms, thyme and garlic cloves.
Now get a large pan on the heat and add a really good glug of olive oil. Fry off the onions first until soft, then add the mushrooms, pine nuts and garlic and fry until they have a nice colour on them. Now turn the heat right up on the pan and add a good splash of port and reduce down until the alcohol has burnt off (you don't want the mixture to have too much excess liquid, so make sure you reduce sufficiently). Add the fresh thyme and salt and pepper. Let the mixture cool right down in the fridge.
Now preheat the oven to 220C before you rollout the pastry.
Take the pastry out of the fridge and roll out into two even rectangles on a floured surface. I would make the pastry between ½ a cm and ¾ of a cm in thickness.
Remove the cooled filling from the fridge and place it in the middle of one of the pastry rectangles along with a few slices of stilton on top of the mixture (use all of it - it's Christmas!). Then brush the edges with a little beaten egg and place the other rectangle on top. Bring the sides in a little using your hands so you get a nice tight wellington. Cut off any excess pastry using a knife so it seals the wellington tightly.
Place the wellington in the fridge to cool for 15 minutes before cooking. After 15 minutes take the wellington from the fridge, place on a baking tray (lined with greased baking paper) and egg wash. Cook for 30 minutes until the pastry is golden.
Happy Christmas eating!

A bit about our Chef, Paul Warburton

Paul Warburton had a hectic career in the world of hot kitchens and screaming chefs before joining the lovemoney.com products development team.

During these years, under the tutorage of some great chefs, he honed his skills in cooking for numbers within a tight cost and portion-controlled environment.

What lovemoney.com readers have said about Paul's other recipes

"We enjoyed this recipe very much: easy to make and even easier to eat!" varneyrob

"I made this recipe and it was absolutely delicious! Seriously good! Five of us feasted on it, and feasted well..." Ibeshy

"I made this recipe on Saturday night, and my 13 year-old son promptly requested it again for the following night!" Malcolm Wheatley

"This is a cracking risotto recipe. Just had it for lunch & it's a winner. More recipes please. Thanks." SavvyLass

"Another delicious offering from Paul. Thank you - keep 'em coming!" Palefire

This is a lovemoney.com classic blog updated for 2011