Soy meat, Plantain and Beetroot dip

We are one week before pay day and by pure slackness I have decided not to step out of the house this week end. A quick look through my cupboard informs me that I’ve got plantain, precooked beetroot, flour and soy meat. Not very inspiring, but is it 12 o’clock, I have skipped breakfast and getting hungry! I make myself a cup of coffee, then, light bulb moment. I ate a beetroot puree not long ago. I could try that, but I want something warm all the way so… I wish I could have steak and chips and this is how I came up with this dish:

Soy meat steak, plantain chips and hot beetroot dip - Serves 2 portions

Ingredients:

Ingredients for the dish

·         250g Hydrated soy meat ball
·         25g plain flour
·         25g + 50g onion
·         4 garlic cloves
·         2 yellow plantain
·         25ml sesame oil
·         Chip oil
·         Olive oil
·         Salt & black pepper
·         A bit of herbes de Provence
·         Scotch bonnet (or chilli pepper)  

Preparation:

For the soy meat cakes; squeeze out the water from the hydrated soy balls, place them in a food processor with 2 table spoons of sesame oil and wiz in 2 or 3 quick bursts. We just want them chopped up finer than we can with a knife. When it is done. Empty in a bowl and set aside.

Now peel and crush two garlic cloves on the mix, finely cut 50g of onion and add to the mix. Then add the flour, salt and pepper. Mix well and form as if you were making burghers. Leave to the side

Prep done!

For the beetroot dip; rinse the beetroots, cut and place in a food processor with 25g onion, 2 garlic clove and the scotch bonnet. Also add 3 table spoons of water to help with the liquidizing. Leave aside.

As for the plantain, just peel and cut to your taste.
Now that everything is prep, clear out the mess and reset your work space.

Method:

To cook the soy meat, heat a non-stick frying pan without oil and place all four burghers on the pan and let them cook for 2 minutes on each side. If you want, you can add a tea spoon of sesame oil to help the process.

To prepare the dip, just fry the blended beetroot mix in 3 table spoons of olive oil. Add salt pepper and Herbes de Provence, stir and leave it to cook until there is no traces of liquid (water) coming out of the mix… this should takes 5-7 minutes. Don’t forget to stir so that it doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan.

For the plantain, if you do not have a chip pan, just heat up 500ml of vegetable oil and fry in it the plantain as you would your chips. I recommend that you add a big slice of onion along with the plantain to give it an added flavour. The plantain should take about 5 minutes to brown. Once it is brown, remove it from the oil and place on some absorbing paper before serving.

I recommend deep frying plantain because it absorbs less oil than when fried in a frying pan. And it takes longer too, then the colour isn’t homogeneous.
All is ready! Time to serve and enjoy…

Oh the leaf? It just from one of my house plant. Lol

Serving suggestion