Encased Stuffed aubergine

All Stuffed

Serves 4

 

Ingredients:

• 
  1 medium aubergine (about 300g)
• 25g potatoes flakes or 1 tablespoon plain flour
• 40g minced dry soya
• 50g fresh parsley
• 1 small red onion
• 50g roast or sundried tomatoes from the jar or fresh tomatoes
• 1 ready rolled puff pastry
• 20g raw sunflower seeds
• 1 table spoon paprika
• Salt & white pepper
• 20ml room temperature water.
• 1 Lemon
• Olive oil

Preheat the oven at 180C

Prep:

Cut the aubergine in half, remove some of the flesh leaving about 1cm of flesh all around the skin. To prevent the inside of the aubergine darkening, rub a bit of lemon juice in it and set it aside.

Cut in small pieces the flesh of the aubergine and place in a bowl.

Chop the parsley, onion and seeds. Keep them in separate bowls. Grate the lemon and set aside.

Rehydrate the soya mince by pouring on it 200ml of salted boiling water. Leave it aside for 10 minutes then, sieve & squeeze out the salted water. Set aside.

Method:

In a bowl, mix the cut aubergine flesh, potatoes flakes, half of the parsley, sunflower seeds, paprika, sundried tomatoes, salt and white pepper, lemon zest, mix well.

If you have chosen to use fresh tomatoes, the juice from the later will help to bind the stuffing. But since we are using roast tomatoes, it is the reason water is need to combine. The stuffing should be able to hold together.

Now that the mix is ready, stuff both halves of the aubergine and

stick them together then, drizzle about a table spoon of olive oil on the stuffed aubergine, then wrap in the pastry.

Place the aubergine on a buttered baking tray, score and pierce the sides of the pastry to allow stream to get out while it is cooking. Place in the oven at 180C for 1 hour.

Once the aubergine is ready, leave to rest for 10 minutes, then serve,

In the meantime stir fry the mince to accompany the dish:

Heat 2 table spoons of olive oil, add the onion and stir for 1 minute on high heat. We are not looking for the onion to brown here we need its flavour and the crunch.

After 1 minutes, add the mince soya and continually stir until the remaining water from the rehydration has evaporated. This should take 3-5 minutes.  Leave the mince to crisp a little bit add pepper and adjust the seasoning. Stir again and then add the other half of parsley. Stir for 2 minutes. That is ready. The mince should

take in all 10 minutes to get ready and can be done while the aubergine is resting.

Though the aubergine may still be moist, I recommend to serve this dish with some kind of sauce or dip. Mine here is served with a carrot sauce.

I will be posting the recipe of the carrot sauce here soon.

Thank you for reading and don’t forget to tell me what you think!

 

Et voila!

Bon Appétit!

Nash

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

Vegan Chilli con carne

Serving suggestion

Dinner for 2

Ingredients:

·         1 tin of kidney beans - rinsed

Some of the ingredients for the dish

·         1 tin of tomatoes

·         1 medium onion - chopped

·         4 cloves of garlic - chopped

·         ½ a red pepper and ½ green pepper – roughly cut

·         1 teaspoon of cumin powder

·         1 tea spoon coriander powder

·         A bit of black pepper

·         2 small chilli peppers

·         Thyme

·         Small bunch of parsley

·         Rapeseed oil

·         1 stock cube melted in 250ml of water

·         20 medium soya meatballs

·         1 cup of barley

 

Method:

Start by soaking the meat balls in boiled and salted water for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes squeeze out the water and cut them as they would have doubles size.

 

In a hot pan with 3 table spoons of rapeseed oil fry the chopped onion with thyme for 2 minutes and add the meatballs with garlic, salt and black pepper and fry until the meat has absorbed the flavours. This should take 5 minutes.

 

When the meat is brown, add the green and red peppers, the tomatoes, the cumin and the coriander. Cover and let simmer for 10 minutes. Now add the kidney beans with the chillies and 250ml of vegetable stock, stir, cover and let the beans absorb the flavours for 15 minutes. Don’t forget to stir from time to time so the bottom of the pan don’t burn. Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary

 

In the meantime, rinse the barley and to remove the starch covering it. Please it in a pan and cover with water. Barley can be hard to cook. So, water is 2 measures for 1 measure of barley. Here we’ve got 1 glass of barley so, 2 glasses of water will be needed to cook it. Also add 1 teaspoon of oil and a bit of salt. Then, leave the pan open and let the water evaporate for 15 minutes on high heat. There should be a little bit of water left. After 15 minutes stir the barley, put the heat to low and cover the pan. This will allow the barley to finish cooking with steam mainly for another 10 minutes. Just before serving, add the finely chopped parsley.

 

Note: Did you know that parsley is a great source of antioxidants, folic acids, vitamin K and C? I didn’t know that, but I love parley!

 

Yummy!

Lentils, Quinoa and soya chunks salad



Salad without parsley

Salad ingredients

  Ingredients:

• 20 or more soya chunks
• 1 small onion few
• 3 twigs of fresh thyme
• 1 medium tomato
• 1 lemon
• 1 glass of precooked quinoa
• 1 glass of precooked lentils
• A small bunch of flat parsley (optional)
• Olive oil  3 spoons
• Salt

Method:

Soak the soya chunks in a bowl with salt and boiling water. Make sure there is enough water to cover the chunks. Cover the bowl and leave the chunks to rehydrate for 10 minutes.
After 10 minutes squeeze out the water and cut the chunks in smaller pieces… 2 to 3 pieces per chunk perhaps?

Cut the onion and fry into 2 spoons of olive oil with the twigs of thyme. Fry for 2 minutes and then add the cut soya chunks with one spoon of water. Simmer fry until the water dries and the chunk start browning and become crispy. The purpose of this is so that the soya chunks absorb the flavours from the onion and thyme.

Remove the chunks from the pan and set aside.

Now cut the tomato in small pieces, grate the lemon to obtain zest and squeeze the juice.

In a salad bowl, pour your lentils, the quinoa, the fried onion and soya chunks, the tomatoes, lemon zest and juice, a pinch of salt and the chopped parsley. Drizzle the last spoonful of olive oil. Mix well and leave in the fridge to cool.

This dish is best served on its own very cold. Do prepare some additional lemon quarters for serving is needed.

Serving suggestion wit parsley

This would be great for brunch and for the pack lunch.

Enjoy

Stuffed onion (“Olivier") with parsnips chips

So, my friend came to work the other day, pulls out this massive onion from her bag and say… look! I brought this for you!

I took the onion and It was the most perfect onion I have ever seen; the colour, the shape… I proceeded to make and exposé to my colleagues about the onion for the rest of the week. I displayed it on my desk and everyone passing by asked me why I had this onion on my desk… we had by now named it “Olivier”. Unless you can see beyond the fact that it was an onion, you’d know why “Olivier” was on my desk. I thought about exhibiting it in the London National gallery but the urge to cook something special with it was much stronger! So here it is:

Stuffed “Olivier” with parsnips chips and tahini sauce.

Ingredients:

Olive oil

“Olivier” the onion

Fresh parsley

 5 Brazil nuts

1 table spoon of flour

3 garlic cloves

1 carrot

10 soya meat balls

3 parsnips

1 vegetable stock cube.

1 table spoon of Tahini and mustard paste.

Ready to be stuffed!

Start by hollowing the onion leaving at least 3 layers for the shell.  In a hot frying pan with olive oil, brown the extremities of the onion shell and leave aside.

Prepare the stuffing:

Boil some water and pour over the soya meat balls with a pinch of salt. Leave to soften for 10 minutes, then squeeze out the water and cut finely.

The soya meat is a bit like a sponge and need a lot of seasoning. So, after cutting it finely, fry it for 3 minutes in Olive oil and chopped onion. Set aside.

Roast and grate the brazil nuts, peel and grate the carrot, finely chop the parsley, chop onion and garlic.

Now in a hollow dish mix all the above with the flour and 3 table spoons of water, a bit of salt and pepper, half a crushed vegetable stock cube and the fired soya meat.

Olivier halves ready for the oven

Scoop the mélange into the onions halves, put them in an oven dish and drizzle olive oil on the top. Cover the dish with aluminium and put in the oven at 175C for 1hr.

The aluminium will help produce the steam needed in to cook through the mince. Remove the aluminium after 30 minutes and leave the onion to finish cooking and browning for the other 30 minutes.

For the tahini sauce.

In a frying pan, add a table spoon of olive oil, add a hand full of onion and brown. Add the tahini paste and mustard paste with half a glass of water. Leave to cook for about 5 the time for the water to dry and you can no longer smell the mustard on it own or taste the bitterness of the tahini.

For the parsnip:

Peel, cut and fry like regular potatoes chips… (simples!)

All is ready to serve.

Here it is... Stuffed "Olivier with parsnips chips & Tahini sauce". Enjoy!