Wild Mushroom & Truffle Tart with Comté

⏱ 110 min · Serves 6

A crisp, buttery all-butter pastry case filled with deeply caramelised wild mushrooms, a silky truffle-scented custard and nutty aged Comté. It slices like a dream, smells like a forest floor in autumn, and looks every bit the centrepiece — serve just-warm with a sharp leaf salad.

Per serving: 668 kcal · 19.0g protein · 37.0g carbs · 49.0g fat

Ingredients

• 250g plain flour
• 150g cold unsalted butter, diced
• 1 tsp fine salt
• 1 egg yolk plus 2–3 tbsp ice-cold water
• 400g mixed wild mushrooms (girolles, trompettes, chestnut, oyster), torn
• 250g chestnut mushrooms, sliced
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 30g butter
• 2 shallots, finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 2 sprigs thyme, leaves picked
• 2 tbsp dry Madeira or dry sherry
• 150ml double cream
• 100ml whole milk
• 2 whole eggs plus 1 egg yolk
• 2 tsp truffle paste (or 1 tbsp truffle oil)
• 120g Comté, coarsely grated
• Sea salt and black pepper
• Small handful flat-leaf parsley, chopped
• 1 small fresh black truffle, to shave (optional)

Method

1. Make the pastry: pulse flour, salt and cold butter to coarse crumbs. Add the yolk and just enough ice water to bring it together. Flatten into a disc, wrap and chill 30 minutes.
2. Roll out to 3–4mm and line a 23cm loose-bottomed tart tin, leaving a little overhang. Prick the base, chill 20 minutes. Heat oven to 190C/170C fan.
3. Blind bake with parchment and beans for 20 minutes, remove the beans and bake 8–10 minutes more until sandy and pale gold. Trim the overhang. Drop oven to 170C/150C fan.
4. Meanwhile, fry the mushrooms in two or three batches in the oil over a high heat so they colour rather than steam; season as they go and set aside.
5. Add the butter to the pan, soften the shallots and garlic with thyme for 4 minutes, return all the mushrooms, splash in the Madeira and let it bubble away. Cool slightly, then stir in the parsley.
6. Whisk cream, milk, eggs, extra yolk and truffle paste with a good pinch of salt and plenty of pepper.
7. Scatter half the Comté over the tart base, spoon in the mushrooms, pour over the custard and top with the remaining Comté.
8. Bake 30–35 minutes until just set with a faint wobble in the centre. Rest 15 minutes, unmould, and shave over fresh truffle if using. Serve warm.