Beth Adamson never intended to become a chef and recipe developer. “My mum was a great cook and we always prized family meals around a big dinner table,” she says. “So she taught me the basics. But I did politics and sociology at uni, and afterwards I thought I’d just work in a restaurant for the summer holidays for fun, to improve my cooking, then move on to a real job. But I never did.”
Although she loved the restaurant business, the hours were “horrible”. So three years ago Adamson launched herself online as @boroughchef, named after the part of London where she was living at the time, and quickly built a huge following on Instagram (385,000) and TikTok (1 million likes). It sounds hectic but, she says, “I enjoy the pace of life a lot more now”. And she can fit her work in around looking after her two year-old twin boys at their new home in Lewisham, south London.
This umami-rich mushroom and lentil pie epitomises Adamson’s accessible style, which she describes as “quite laid back, not too faffy or complicated, but prizing vegetables and legumes, with nutritious food at the heart of it – flavour being the most important thing”.
Interview by Lisa O’Kelly
Beth’s mushroom and lentil pie
Super-savoury cold-weather comfort food. Serve with a big pile of steamed greens.
Serves 4-6
Ingredients
3 shallots, diced
4 cloves garlic, grated or crushed
200ml red wine
1 tsp chopped rosemary leaves
1 heaped tbsp plain flour
1 tbsp finely chopped dried porcini
1 tbsp Marmite or yeast extract
1.5kg peeled and roughly chopped Desiree or other semi-waxy/mashing potatoes
80g butter, diced
400g cooked green or brown lentils (or simmer 200g dried lentils until tender and drain)
600g chestnut mushrooms, finely chopped (you could use a food processor for this)
1 tbsp tomato puree
Method
Place the potatoes in a large pan, well covered with cold, salted water. Bring to a simmer and drain when tender. Leave for a few minutes in the colander to let excess steam billow off then pass through a ricer or mash very smoothly. Stir in the butter. Place in piping bags or cover with parchment paper and set aside.
Bring a kettle of water to the boil. Place the porcini in a heatproof jug and cover with 750ml water. Leave to steep for 20 mins.
Meanwhile, place a fairly shallow hob- and oven-safe pan, roughly 30cm in diameter, over a medium heat with a little oil. If you don’t have a pan like this you can use a regular frying pan at this stage and assemble the pie in a baking dish later.
Add the shallots, garlic and rosemary to the pan and sweat until softened. Stir in the chestnut mushrooms and increase the heat to high. Keep stirring from time to time until the mushrooms are cooked and the pan is nearly dry.
Stir in the wine and cook it until it has almost completely reduced and is very sticky. Stir in the flour and cook out for around 3 mins – add a little more oil to the pan if it looks dry at this stage. Stir in the tomato puree, then stir in the porcini and its stock little by little until incorporated. Stir in the lentils and Marmite or yeast extract. Simmer until very thick and season to taste.
Heat the oven to 200C/390F fan (220C/410F conventional) or Gas Mark 7. Wipe the sides of the pan clean and smooth the lentil mixture flat with a spoon. Leave it to stand for at least 10 mins before topping with the mashed potato, so it isn’t too liquid-y and the mash has a more stable base to sit on. Do this step in a baking dish if you don’t have a suitable hob-to-oven pan.
Pipe or spoon the mash evenly over the top of the lentil mixture and bake until golden – around 25 mins.
Beth Adamson has a weekly Substack newsletter celebrating vegetarian cooking and is on Instagram as @boroughchef