Vegan bolognese

March 13, 2023

We had a quiet public holiday Monday lined up and I decided it was time to tackle something a bit time-consuming: a classic bolognese sauce from the Smith & Deli cookbook. The actual processes are super simple, just a lot of stirring and simmering, but it's the kind of recipe that fills up an afternoon. You start chopping after lunch, and by the time you saute everything and then simmer the whole pot for as long as you can handle, it's time to put the pasta on and settle down for dinner. It's worth the time you put in to it - rich and hearty with a lovely depth of flavour and nice gentle hit of acidity from the capers. We ate it on spaghetti all week and I simply could not get enough.

   

Vegan bolognese

(from Smith & Deli-cious by Shannon Martinez and Mo Wyse)

80ml olive oil

1 brown onion, diced

1 small carrot, diced

1 celery stalk, diced

8 button mushrooms, diced

3 garlic cloves, minced

2 tablespoons capers, mashed up

2 tablespoons caper juice from the jar

1 teaspoon chilli flakes

1 teaspoon dried oregano

3 tablespoons tomato paste

2 cups soaked textured vegetable protein (TVP)

1 cup soy milk

1 cup red wine

400g diced tomatoes

700g passata

1 cup beef stock

2 teaspoons powdered porcini

1 bay leaf

small bunch of basil leaves, torn

handful of parsley leaves, chopped

salt

Heat the oil in a large saucepan and stir through the onion, carrot, celery, mushrooms and a good shake of salt. Fry on low heat for 10 minutes or so, until everything softens and starts to turn golden.

Stir in the garlic, capers, caper juice, chilli flakes, oregano and tomato paste and cook for a couple of minutes. Stir in the TVP until everything is well combined.

Stir in the soy milk and cook, until it's almost entirely absorbed. Add the wine and simmer some more - until it reduces down by at least half. Add the diced tomatoes, passata, beef stock, porcini powder and bay leaf, plus salt and pepper to taste. Simmer over low heat for as long as you can be bothered - an hour or so is good. 

Check the sauce again and add salt, sugar or pepper as needed - stir through the basil and parsley and you're done, ready to serve with spaghetti or to use in lasagne or whatever you like.

Coconut jam slice

February 12, 2022

   

After limiting my socialising a lot in January, I've been enjoying some face-to-face contact with friends in parks and homes this month. We had Ben and Natalie over for brunch, where Michael made a big pan of chipotle sausage hash, Natalie contributed a jug of fancy iced tea, and I had a tray of this coconut jam slice lined up in advance. (Ben also more than pulled his weight, measuring up a broken kitchen cupboard and planning a future repair!)

I think of coconut jam slice as an Aussie classic, although I don't hold a family recipe for it. I picture thick, golden-brown squares of biscuit with a seam of berry jam, and a pillowy top layer of desiccated coconut bound together in a meringue-like batter. This Smith & Deli version has clear similarities and differences. The biscuit base includes cocoa (going for a lamington vibe, perhaps?), and the topping is primarily thicker shredded coconut, lightly bound with an egg replacer and only toasting around the edges during baking.

This slice was popular with the group - the base holds up without any bending or crumbling, and I like the bold chewiness of the shredded coconut. But overall, this slice was just sweet, sweet, sweet to me, overpowering any potential contrasts from tangy fruit and creamy coconut. I would play around with different jam, less jam, and less added sugar in future bakes. The core recipe is simple to pull together, so it wouldn't be a chore to experiment and work towards a new family favourite.

Coconut jam slice

(from Smith & Deli-icious by Shannon Martinez & Mo Wyse) 

base

1 cup plain flour

1 tablespoon cocoa powder

3/4 cup desiccated coconut

1/2 cup margarine, melted

1 teaspoon vanilla

toppings

heaped tablespoon egg replacement powder

1/2 cup water

1/3 cup caster sugar

2 cups shredded coconut

pinch of salt

1 cup raspberry jam

Preheat an oven to 180°C. Line a small slice tray (mine was 27 cm x 18 cm) with baking paper.

In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, cocoa and coconut. Pour in the melted margarine, give it a little stir, add the vanilla, and stir until completely combined. Tip the mixture into the slice tray and use the back of a spoon or clean fingers to spread and press the mixture out into an even base. Bake for 15-20 minutes, then allow it to cool for at least 10 minutes.

While the base is cooling, use a clean medium bowl to whisk together the egg powder and water until frothy. Whisk in the sugar. Stir in the coconut and salt until well combined.

When the base has cooled slightly, spread the jam evenly across it. Spoon over the coconut mixture - it doesn't have to be tightly packed and even, but try not to have jam peeking through. Bake for 20-30 minutes, until the coconut is golden brown at the edges but not burned. Allow it all to cool completely before slicing and serving. 

Spanish baked beans

October 20, 2020

   

I've been keeping my cooking pretty simple lately... few new recipes and no big projects. How simple? Well, making beans on toast has been the biggest deal of the past couple of weeks. When you do it the Smith & Deli way, there's cooking dried beans (never our forte!), a couple of veges, lots of dried spices and even a burst of capers. But mostly there's a lot of slow simmering.

That slow simmer really mellows everything out. The beans, a bit floury on their own, became soft and comforting. The fennel, vinegar and capers lost all their bite. I couldn't pick out any of the spices distinctly, though they contributed to the overall flavour. Our big pot of beans lasted for days. We made an effort to buy some fresh bread to eat with it, then garnished it in different permutations based on what else needed eating: a spoonful of sour cream, a vege sausage on the side, or a fried egg on top. These beans served us well every time.

Spanish baked beans
(slightly adapted from a recipe in 

Shannon Martinez & Mo Wyse's Smith & Deli-icious)

375g dried white beans

1 bay leaf

1/4 cup olive oil

1 brown onion, chopped

1 red capsicum, chopped

1 fennel bulb, sliced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 teaspoon thyme

1 teaspoon smoked paprika

1/2 teaspoon chilli flakes

1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds

2 teaspoons salt

1 tablespoon tomato paste

1 tablespoon white wine vinegar

400g can diced tomatoes

500mL vegetable stock

1 teaspoon brown sugar

1 tablespoon capers

pepper, to taste

Soak the beans overnight in water. Drain the beans, and place them in a large saucepan with lots of fresh water. Add the bay leaf and pop on a lid. Bring the beans to the boil until just cooked. Drain the beans.

While the beans are cooking, prepare the sauce. Choose a big saucepan or a deep frypan, and use it to heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion, capsicum and fennel, gently cooking them until they're soft. Stir through the garlic and thyme, cooking for a further minute. Add the paprika, chilli, cumin, salt and tomato paste, stirring and cooking for a minute. Add the white wine vinegar, dice tomatoes, stock, brown sugar, and capers, stirring some more. Turn down the heat and gently simmer the sauce for 30 minutes.

Remove the bay leaf from the beans, then combine them with the sauce in whichever of the two pans can fit it all. Simmer it all for another 30-60 minutes. Add pepper to taste before serving.

Smith & Deli brownies

April 19, 2019

I'm testing out a couple of different vegan brownie recipes in the lead-up to a special occasion. There are a few such recipes on the blog already, but I've still got the appetite to try more. 

The Smith & Deli cookbook was an obvious place to relaunch from. Their base recipe isn't too complicated; non-dairy yoghurt was the only ingredient we don't routinely have at home, and even it is easily found in most supermarkets now.

A large quantity of cocoa powder and a heaping cup of chocolate chips have these brownies looking very dark and rich, yet they're actually on the cakier side and not as deeply flavoured as I'd expected. I was able to strap a lunchbox of them onto the back of my bike to share with our friend who missed out on those shortbread cookies. These brownies were pretty great with a cup of tea, but I'm directing my search towards fudgier recipes next.

Smith & Deli brownies
(from Smith & Deli-cious by Shannon Martinez & Mo Wyse)

3/4 cup margarine
1/2 cup coconut yoghurt
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 1/2 cups gluten-free plain flour
3/4 cup cocoa
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 cup soy milk
1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat an oven to 170°C. Line a 22cm square baking tray with paper, and lightly spray it with oil.

With an electric beater, cream together the margarine, yoghurt, vanilla and sugar until light and fluffy. In a separate large bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda. Gradually beat these dry ingredients into the margarine mixture. Gradually beat in the soy milk until everything is well combined. Fold in the chocolate chips.

Pour the brownie batter into the lined baking tray, gently smooth over the top, and bake for about 45 minutes - it's OK for the centre to still be a bit wobbly.

Cheesy broccoli pie

March 22-23, 2019

We had a weekend away in the country with a big group of friends recently and night two of our communal dining schedule was Pie Night. A few of us brought pre-prepared fillings and baked up a plethora of pies to feed the masses. Our contribution was a vegan cheesy broccoli pie from the Smith & Deli cookbook. It was wonderful, providing a nice burst of greens to offset the shepherd's and mushroom pies that others prepared. The cheesy sauce is pretty horrifying from a nutritional perspective, but it's goddamn delicious - gooey and a bit rich and the perfect pal for the broccoli. Highly recommended. 

Cheesy broccoli pies

(from Smith & Deli-cious by Mo Wyse & Shannon Martinez)

2 large broccoli heads, chopped

90g vegan margarine

1/3 cup olive oil

1 leek, white and light green parts, sliced finely

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/3 cup plain flour

1 cup veggie stock

1 cup soy milk

1 1/2 cups grated vegan cheese (we used mostly Bio Cheese)

1 tablespoon nutritional yeast

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1/2 cup parsley, chopped

1 teaspoon dried thyme

salt and pepper

Blanch the broccoli in a large pot of boiling water. Drain and set aside.

Heat the margarine and olive oil in a large saucepan and fry the leek until soft. Add garlic and cook for another minute before whisking through the flour and cooking for another couple of minutes.

Slowly add in the stock and soy milk, whisking to smoothness along the way. Stir through the cheese, nutritional yeast, Dijon, parsley and thyme and cook until the cheese has melted, 5 minutes or so. 

Add salt and pepper to the sauce to taste and then stir the broccoli back in. Cook for another 5 minutes and then leave to cool.

That's your filling - we wrapped halved Borg's puff pastry sheets into little squares around a few tablespoons of filling and baked until the pastry went golden (about 25 minutes). Spectacular.

Kimchi, gochujang & cheese scrolls

December 16, 2018

I bought Cindy a copy of the Smith and Deli cookbook for her birthday and committed to cooking something out of it when the weekend rolled around. Cindy was keen to recreate the Deli's famous scrolls - the standard option in the book is vegemite and cheese, but we went for one of the alternatives: kimchi, gochujang and cheese.

I'm not a confident baker, but this came together pretty well in the end. I needed a *lot* more flour than the initial 3.5 cups specified in the recipe, but once I got the dough to the right kind of texture the rest was pretty easy. If you're making them for brekkie you'll need to get up early - there's a bit of time waiting for the dough to rest etc - but they're well worth the effort. We ate this whole tray in about 2 days and I'm keen to try more variations on future lazy weekends.

Kimchi, gochujang & cheese scrolls
(from Smith & Deli-cious by Mo Wyse & Shannon Martinez)

1 sachet of dried yeast (2 teaspoons)
2 tablespoons caster sugar
1.5 cups warm water
3.5 cups of flour plus extra if needed (I think I used at least 4 cups)
2 teaspoons salt
90ml olive oil
2 tablespoons gochujang, mixed with 1 tablespoon warm water and 1 tablespoon tomato paste (adjust the quantities depending on your love of chilli here)
1/2 cup of kimchi
200g grated cheese (we used the pre-grated Biocheese)

Combine the yeast, sugar and water in a bowl and leave for 5 minutes until it starts to froth up a bit.

Combine the flour and salt in a big bowl. Stir through the oil and then add the yeast mixture stirring constantly (the original recipe suggests using an electric mixer with a dough hook - I'd probably do this bit by hand next time, but do whatever you're more comfortable with).

Mix thoroughly until you've got a sticky dough ball - I had to add a lot of extra flour at this step to get a knead-able dough. Knead your dough for at least 5 minutes until it's soft and elastic. 

Leave to prove in a warm place for half an hour or so - it should double in size. Punch it back down to its original size.

Preheat your oven to 190°C. 

Dust your bench with more flour and roll the dough out into a big rectangle - about 45 x 30cm, maybe 10-15mm thick.

Spread the gochujang mix evenly across the dough and then sprinkle over the kimchi and cheese. Carefully roll the whole rectangle up into a giant spiral and then cut it into 8 scrolls, each about 6-7cm wide.

Lay the scrolls out on a baking tray, cover with a tea towel or plastic wrap and let them rest for another 15-20 minutes and then bake for 20 minutes, until things start to go golden on top. 

Leave the tray to cool for 10 minutes and then separate the scrolls and scoff them down.