Forget the turkey - here's Susan Jane White's Plant-powered Christmas
Our food columnist and vitamin-monger Susan Jane White has something for everyone this Christmas, whether you’re cooking for a vegetarian or simply want to impress the in-laws with your yummy Yuletide spread
The mere mention of Yuletide has me sweating sequins. I hate feeling like a week-old party balloon before Santa even arrives. So this year, I’ve prepped a few darling recipes, many of which will happily sit in the fridge for 72 hours and massage my synapses.
Beet bourguignon, see below, has lots of red wine and umami grenades to remedy the absence of meat for any vegan guests on Christmas Day. This recipe is bewitching, but then again, beetroot has a magic of its own, turning your tongue purple and your pee scarlet. It’s also deliciously sweet and earthy, like a snuggle with a pug — a puggle?
Also below, my buckwheat blini are dinky little pass-aroundies, with pungent horseradish to kick the bejaysus out of those sinuses. And as soon as your sniffers are clear, I’m helping you escape that murderous honk of overcooked sprouts that fills the house every Christmas morning.
This year we’re going Caesar. You see, shredding raw sprouts will give the Caesar dressing lots to grip onto (including hope). You’ll be astonished at the volume of satisfaction this sprout Caesar salad,
far right, will grant you. It’s a cracker. Making something as virtuous as sprout Caesar salad is just about the most annoying thing you can do to your in-laws, and the most deliciously vain interlude and graceful showing off that can be packed into an afternoon of joy-filled festivities. Do it.
And if vitamins aren’t your thing, you can head straight for the dessert trolley. The chocolate, honey and cardamom cake, right, is both gluten-free and dairy-free, so expect thunderous applause from guests, God and Satan. Receiving praise, well, is in itself a particular social gift. That’s your gift list sorted, then.
Merry Christmas, my friends. See you in 2020.
Chocolate, honey & cardamom cake
Serves 20, can be frozen
For the cake, you will need:
1 unwaxed orange, juice and zest
125ml melted coconut oil
2 eggs, plus 2 egg yolks
225ml runny honey
10 green cardamom pods, seeds only
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon flaky sea salt
½ teaspoon ground turmeric
200g ground almonds
150g chickpea (gram) flour
For the frosting, you will need:
450g dark chocolate
230ml almond milk
You will also need:
A sprig of holly, to decorate
Date syrup, to serve
Whipped cream, to serve
1 To make the sponge, you’ll need 2 round springform cake tins, 15cm or 18cm in diameter. A 20cm tin is too large for this recipe. Line the bottom and sides of both cake tins with parchment paper. Then preheat your oven to 160°C, 320°C, Gas 3.
2 Add all the cake ingredients to a blender and blitz until lusciously smooth.
3 Scrape the batter into the prepped cake tins, and use the back of a wet spoon to smooth the tops. Bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Allow the cakes to cool before carefully ejecting them from their springforms.
4 To make the frosting, chop the dark chocolate into tiny pieces. Put them in a large, room-temperature bowl on your kitchen counter. Put the almond milk in a sacepan and heat it until you can see steam rise from the surface — it should be almost scalding, but not boiling. Pour the hot almond milk into the bowl with the chocolate chunks, and stir with a spatula (not a whisk or fork). I do a figure eight with my spatula around the bowl, which works well. The mixture will come together fairly quickly. As soon as the mix is dark and smooth, stop stirring, to prevent over-agitation. If it misbehaves and looks a little grainy, heat a further 30ml of almond milk and stir it through to prevent splitting.
5 To assemble the cake, make sure your sponges have cooled completely. Cut both sponges in half horizontally, creating four layers altogether. You can refrigerate each layer wrapped in cling film for up to two days in advance of assembling the cake. To decorate the four layers, first place one layer on a cake stand and top it with frosting. Place another layer of sponge on top of this, and frost again. Repeat with the remaining layers, and then cover the sides of the cake with frosting — see photo. Garnish with a sprig of holly. You can serve the cake straightaway, or keep it covered with cling film and store it in a cool room overnight. I love slices of this cake served with some date syrup and whipped cream.
Beet bourguignon
Serves 6 (Can be made up to 4 days in advance. Leftovers freeze beautifully)
You will need
5 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
4 large raw beetroots, peeled and chopped
2 large carrots, sliced into large discs
3 bay leaves
3 sprigs of thyme
6 Portobello mushrooms, sliced
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons tomato puree
1 tin of drained anchovies, chopped (if you are vegetarian, use 2 tablespoons sweet white miso instead, but add it at the end of the cooking time)
500ml red wine
500ml good veggie stock
Mashed potato, to serve
1 Heat half of the olive oil in your largest heavy-based saucepan, over a gentle flame. Add the chopped onion and the finely chopped garlic, and saute them until they are glassy. Then tumble in the chopped raw beetroot, the sliced carrots, the bay leaves and the thyme sprigs and let them socialise for 5-10 minutes.
2 While they are cooking, heat the remainder of the olive oil in a large frying pan, then lower the heat and sear the sliced mushrooms until they are tender. Season them to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper, then parachute them into the pot of veg.
3 Keeping the pot of veg over a low to medium flame, stir through the Dijon mustard, the tomato puree, and the chopped anchovies, if you’re using them, and stir for one minute.
4 Pour in the red wine and enough veggie stock to cover the vegetables. Simmer on a low putt-putter for 90 minutes or more. Make sure to leave the lid off to let the alcohol escape. Being Irish, this step sounds anti-intuitive, but trust me. You don’t want the alcohol content in the finished dish.
5 When the beets and carrots are cooked but still have a nice bite to them, remove the pot from the heat. Remove the bay leaves and thyme sprigs and discard them. If you’re vegetarian and didn’t include the anchovies, you can now add the two tablespoons of white miso for the same umami punch. Stir it through the bourguignon just before serving.
6 Spoon into deep bowls. If you have any leftover horseradish creme fraiche from the blini recipe, add a generous dollop to each bowl. Bourguignon is traditionally served with lentils, but I find mashed potato suits our pipes much better. Otherwise, my husband might asphyxiate on Christmas night.
1 First, make the blini. Add the buckwheat flour, the baking powder, the egg, the oat milk or the cow’s milk, whichever you are using, to a blender and whizz. You can store the batter in the fridge for up to three days in advance of cooking.
2 When you’re ready to cook, heat the butter or olive oil, whichever you are using, to a hot frying pan. Tilt the pan to coat it completely, before dropping a tiny bit of batter onto the pan. Cook for one minute. Flip the blini and cook the other side until it is slightly golden. Remove the blini from the pan and allow it to drain on kitchen paper on the side before tasting it. Decide if you want the next blini to be bigger or smaller (small is best), and whether it is cooked enough, or too little. Proceed to make blini in batches until all the batter is used up. Let the blini cool, and set them aside while you make the horseradish creme and cook the beluga lentils.
3 To make the horseradish creme, stir the Irish creme fraiche and the finely grated horseradish together. It will keep in the fridge for up to five days.
4 The beluga lentils can be made up to five days in advance, too. Bring the broth or water, whichever you are using, to a rolling boil, tumble in the black beluga lentils and cook them with a lid on, until they retain a nice bite (they shouldn’t be too soft or mushy). You may need to add more water to keep them submerged. Cooking time will vary depending on the age of the lentils, but I find 25 minutes a good guide. Drain the lentils, and gloss with minimal olive oil.
5 Dot the cooled blini with horseradish creme fraiche and a touch of your lentil caviar.
2 Gently peel the baby carrots, leaving the green leafy tops intact. Slice them lengthways if you feel they are on the big side. Divide the carrots between two medium roasting trays, drizzle them with the olive oil, and scatter some salt and freshly ground black pepper on top.
3 Roast for 20 minutes. After 10 minutes of cooking (ie halfway through), add the marmalade and the thyme leaves for a beautifully sticky glaze. Roast the carrots for another 10 minutes, or until they are caramelised around the edges.
4 If you’re serving the carrots hot, serve them straight away. If you’re serving them cold, dish them up on top of a swirl of natural yoghurt.
