Recipe: Plant-Based Nut Roast Recipe

To make the filling

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C fan assisted.
2. Peel, deseed and chop the squash into 1.5cm chunks, then place onto a parchment lined baking tray and toss 1 tbsp oil and sea salt and black pepper, and roast for 20 to 25 minutes until soft and slightly caramelised. Remove from the oven and set aside until ready to use.
3. While the squash roasts, peel and finely dice the onion and crush the garlic.
4. In a frying pan over a medium heat, sweat the onion in 1 tbsp oil for 10 minutes or until soft and sweet begin to soften. Keep an eye on the onions and stir occasionally to ensure they cook evenly and don’t catch on the bottom.
5. While the onion cooks

1. Soak the apricots and cranberries in boiling water
2. Pick the thyme leaves
3. Cut the tofu into 1cm dice.
4. In a food processor blitz the pistachios and almonds until ground to a coarse powder but still have a little texture. Alternatively chop the nuts.
5. Pick and chop the coriander – set aside reserving some for garnishing the pies.

1. When the onion has softened add the garlic and cook for another minute, finally add the thyme leaves, remove from the heat and set aside.
2. Drain the dried fruit and roughly chop it.
3. Mash the squash with a fork.
4. Tip the onion mix into a large bowl add the quinoa, diced tofu, mashed squash, chopped fruit and nuts, chilli flakes and soy sauce and 3⁄4's of the coriander. Beat and stir in the vegan egg mix and stir to combine.
5. Check seasoning and adjust.

Assemble and bake the pies:

1. Turn the oven down to 170*C fan assisted.
2. Melt 100g of vegan butter in a small pan.
3. Cut filo pastry into 14cm x 14cm squares (per pie).
4. Butter pastry squares and layer into muffin tins – use 2 layers, drape pastry over the edges
5. Fill with the nut mixture
6. Butter 2 pastry squares and scrunch up pastry and top each pie.
7. Bake for 10 minutes and then carefully remove the pies from the tin and place them on a baking tray and cook for a further 3 to 4 minutes until the bases begin to turn golden.
8. Remove from the oven and sprinkle with reserved coriander and a ramekin of the hot plant based red onion gravy on the side.

Make the Gravy:

1. First, sweat all the onions. For the strudel filling and the onion gravy.
2. Heat 30ml of oil in a pan and add all the sliced onions and cook slowly until very soft about 10-12 minutes
3. Now add the sugar and turn up the heat. Allow them to caramelise and turn golden.
4. Add the flour and stir for 1 minute. Add the Dijon mustard and pick the thyme leaves and stir to incorporate.
5. Add the red wine, reduce by half then and then add the stock.
6. Bring to boil and then turn the heat down to low, reduce until it has a good gravy consistency, about 30 minutes. Keep checking the gravy to make sure it doesn’t catch.
7. Once cooked, taste and season with salt and black pepper. Set aside until ready to use.