Occasional recipes: mushroom and potato pie

From The Colour Library Book of Vegetarian Cooking, published by - um - Colour Library Books, with our own embellishments based on our previous enjoyment of the dish last year.

Take:

• 400g mushrooms (book says 350)
  
• 3 celery stalks
• 1 onion
• as many cloves of garlic as you're comfortable with (book doesn't say any, but come on!)
  
• 40g flour
• 2 tsp paprika
• 1 tsp thyme (ignored 'cos we don't have any)
  
• 1/2 pint milk
• 2-3 teaspoons lemon juice (or just juice half a lemon)
  
• 850g potatoes (book says 750, which is too thin)
• 6 tablespoons milk
• more paprika

Simmer spuds for 20 minutes to make tender.

Fry chopped onion, celery and garlic for five minutes in butter, then add mushrooms and cook for a further 2 minutes. (The celery is particularly important as it gives the Boy something to do, i.e. carefully pick it all out of his helping before eating.)

Sprinkle flour over mushroom mixture, stir, add paprika and (allegedly) thyme. Remove from heat, stir in milk, return to heat until sauce thickens. Remove again and stir in lemon juice. Season to taste and set aside.

Mash potatoes with milk and butter. (Also a previously cooked and skinned artichoke, for interesting additional flavour. Remember to drain properly in something like a colander. Yours truly was feeling impatient so just drained through a gap between pan and lid, leaving lots of water in and leading to quite runny mash.)

Pour mushroom mixture into oven dish, cover with mashed potatoes, sprinkle with paprika, bake for 20 minutes.

The picture in the book showed a nice diamond pattern of paprika lines over a bed of smoothly furrowed mash. We went more for the "random chaos" look. Tastes the same ...