Well, it wouldn’t be a vegan Christmas without a nut roast! Roasted in a wreath tin and topped with my cranberry sauce, it’s the perfect Christmas centerpiece.
To fry sage leaves for garnish, leave the saucepan on the heat after cooking the nut roast mixture in it. Add a couple tablespoons more of oil if there’s none left in the pan. Throw in the sage leaves and cook for 2 minutes, until crisp. Transfer the sage leaves from the pan onto a couple of sheets of paper towel to soak up any excess oil.
Per serving:
Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease nonstick 10 inch cake ring mold/tin. (Line with parchment paper if itu2019s not nonstick.)
Heat olive oil in large saucepan over medium heat and sauteu0301 onion, celery, garlic, leek, squash, eggplant and chestnuts for a few minutes, stirring frequently. Add spices, herbs, some seasoning and orange zest. Turn heat down and cook for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring every now and then. You want all flavors to marry together and vegetables to soften slightly.
While vegetables are cooking, blitz nuts in blender until they are a crumb-like consistency. Add chickpeas and pulse a couple times just to break down slightly. Tip mixture into saucepan and add breadcrumbs, cranberries, apricots and sun-dried tomatoes, stirring well.
Add orange juice, vinegar, miso paste, nutritional yeast and Marmite and cook for 3 to 4 minutes, stirring often, then turn off heat.
Spoon Cranberry & Orange Sauce into tin and spread out evenly, then carefully spread nut roast mixture on top. Press mix into tin as much as you can. Once youu2019ve filled the tin, cover with foil and roast in preheated oven for 30 to 35 minutes. After roasting, allow to cool slightly before turning out of tin. Serve topped with garnishes of choice.
Tourtière is, for me, the dish that best represents Québec. It can be traced back to the 1600s, and there’s no master recipe; every family has their own twist. Originally, it was made with game birds or game meat, like rabbit, pheasant, or moose; that’s one of the reasons why I prefer it with venison instead of beef or pork. Variation: If you prefer to make single servings, follow our lead at the restaurant, where we make individual tourtières in the form of a dome (pithivier) and fill them with 5 ounces (160 g) of the ground venison mixture. Variation: You can also use a food processor to make the dough. Place the flour, salt, and butter in the food processor and pulse about ten times, until the butter is incorporated—don’t overmix. It should look like wet sand, and a few little pieces of butter here and there is okay. With the motor running, through the feed tube, slowly add ice water until the dough forms a ball—again don’t overmix. Wrap, chill, and roll out as directed above.
My love of artichokes continues with this classic recipe, one of the best ways to eat this interesting, underrated, and strange vegetable. Frozen artichoke hearts are a time-saving substitute, though the flavour and texture of fresh artichokes are, by far, much superior and definitely preferred.
Cervelle de canut is basically the Boursin of France, an herbed fresh farmer’s cheese spread that’s a speciality of Lyon. The name is kind of weird, as it literally means “silk worker’s brain,” named after nineteenth-century Lyonnaise silk workers, who were called canuts. Sadly, the name reflects the low opinion of the people towards these workers. Happily for us, though, it’s delicious—creamy, fragrant, and fresh at the same time. Cervelle de canut is one of my family’s favourite dishes. It’s a great make-ahead appetizer that you can pop out of the fridge once your guests arrive. Use a full-fat cream cheese for the dish, or it will be too runny and less delicious.