Nut roast surprise
"If there's such a thing as pariah food – a recipe shunned by mainstream menus, mocked to near extinction and consigned to niche hinterlands for evermore – then the nut roast, a dish whose very name has become a watchword for sawdusty disappointment, is surely a strong contender. ,,, vegetarianism, apparently, has moved on a bit. You don't see Yotam Ottolenghi faffing about with nut roasts, do you?" Felicity Cloake
My sister, however, did faff around with nut roasts today - for she had a vegetarian friend visiting and so she decided to make a nut roast for lunch. Now I wasn't all that rapt in the idea but wanted to be supportive so decided to go along with it. And I am pretty glad that I did. I should have taken a photo of hers - but it looked a bit like the one in the picture above and she did serve it with a delicious tomato sauce.
I hadn't realised that it's a semi-traditional Christmas dish for vegetarians in England - a vegetarian substitute for roast turkey. I think when I lived in England I didn't know any vegetarians. And I probably thought that it was one of those weird things that vegetarians cooked to try and imitate meat. These days, as Felicity Cloake says, vegetarianism has moved on - there is no need to pretend to be eating meat - just enjoy the amazing things you can do with vegetables. And so it has fallen into disrepute - Delia doesn't have a recipe - but Jamie and Nigel Slater do - more later.
I don't actually know what was in my sister's loaf and she couldn't remember herself where she got the recipe from. There was some ricotta, obviously there were nuts, some breadcrumbs, and there were other vegetables as well. But when I looked into the whole subject on the net I see that the options are pretty much endless. I guess you also need to put in eggs to bind it all together, but the vegetable, nut, grain and flavouring options are endless. The general opinion seemed to be that a good sauce to lather it with was essential, but this sauce could be absolutely anything at all - tomato, mushroom, onion, curry, cranberry ... Felicity Cloake in her article on the perfect nut loaf covers hers in cabbage leaves as well and Mary Berry has eggplant slices around hers. My sister's was unadorned and crusty - which was nice.
Jenny has leftovers - some of which her friend is taking back to Brisbane, but Nigel Slater seems to think that leftovers are a good thing:
"The next day I fried slices of the loaf in a little butter and ate them with shredded red cabbage and kale with slices of crisp apple, pomegranates and sticky dates." - Nigel Slater
My brief research of the subject turned up endless variations - some elaborate, some simple - the perfect thing to experiment with. Jamie Oliver - who is usually reasonably simple in his approach had a huge list of ingredients in his version - but it does look pretty spectacular - in a slightly messy Jamie sort of way.
Anyway I was impressed enough to give it a go next time I have to feed vegetarians - which I do every now and then.
The final word goes to Radhika Sanghani writing in The Telegraph who maintains it is one of the most forgiving things you can cook - so let your imagination run wild.
"If you cook a turkey wrong, people are going to realise. With a nut roast, no one has any idea. Every single nut roast is so different that you can pretend forgetting the chestnuts was a deliberate move. It also means there’s potential to be creative – you can add creamy mushroom sauces, stick pesto in the middle, or stick in some cranberries to be festive. The nut roast is not fussy."
