About the Recipe
This festive filo swirl is a true showstopper – golden, flaky, and packed with a rich mushroom, chestnut and walnut filling that’s guaranteed to impress. Perfect as a Christmas centrepiece, it’s a hearty flavour-packed dish the whole family will love. Bring it to the table and wait for all the “oohs” and “aahs” fill the room!
If you want to get ahead, you can make the filling and keep it in the fridge overnight. Bring to room temperature and make your filo swirl when you’re ready to cook.
Ingredients
1 large onion, finely diced
150g portabella mushrooms, roughly chopped
120g shitake mushrooms, roughly sliced
300g chestnut mushrooms, roughly quartered
180g whole cooked chestnuts (I use Merchant Gourmet), finely chopped
80g walnuts, finely chopped
2 large garlic cloves, peeled and minced
3 teaspoons dried thyme
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon soy sauce
200g baby spinach
6 large filo sheets, plus 1 for patching cracks
1 teaspoon maple syrup
1 teaspoon sesame seeds
Olive oil
Salt
Preparation
Preheat your oven to 200°C (180°C fan). Line a 20.5cm springform cake tine with baking parchment.
Add a tablespoon olive oil to a large, deep-sided frying pan. Add the onion, turn the heat down low and cook for 5 minutes until soft and translucent. If need be, add a tablespoon water to make sure the onion doesn’t stick to the pan.
Up the heat to medium and add all the chopped mushrooms to the pan. Stir occasionally for about 10 minutes and all the mushroom liquid has evaporated.
Turn the heat down to low. Stir in the cooked chestnuts, walnuts, garlic, thyme, cayenne pepper and soy sauce. Add a generous pinch of salt and gently mix all together. After a minute or so your mushrooms will start to smell amazing. Add your spinach in batches until it has all wilted.
Take the pan off the heat and set aside.
To create your spiral you will need a clean section of worktop space long enough to fit two sheets of filo pastry side by side, lengthwise.
Join one sheet with another by overlapping by about 2cm on the short side. Brush both with a little olive oil, including under the overlap. Lay another two sheets on top, overlapping in the same way. Brush again with oil, including the overlap. Repeat in the same way with the last two filo sheets. You will end up with one long rectangle with three layers of filo pastry.
Leave a 2cm border on both short sides of your pastry. Then spoon your mushroom mixture into a sausage shape along the bottom edge of the pastry – leaving enough pastry on the long edge to wrap over the top of the ‘sausage’.
Fold both short edges towards your mushroom filing. Gently roll up the long edge of pastry, keeping a neat sausage shape as you go. Keep slowly rolling until you have the seam on the bottom.
Starting from one end of the sausage, curl the pastry into a tight spiral. Don’t worry if your pastry splits – you can use the spare filo sheet with brushed oil to patch up any breaks.
Once all your splits are mended (if you have any), transfer to your lined cake tin. Gently press down your spiral to fill the tin and remove any gaps you might have in your spiral.
Mix the maple syrup with a tablespoon of oil and brush over the top of your spiral. Sprinkle over the sesame seeds. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes until golden brown on top.
Leave to cool for 5 minutes before placing on your serving platter. Place on the table unsliced for all the ‘wow’s’ before everyone tucks in!