We have made several nut roasts before, but I have never been entirely happy with them. We have also done some vegan cooking courses, the most recent being the Demuth’s 2 week diploma course in Bath. While there we had an excellent meal at Acorn, which was originally Rachel Demuth’s but is now run by Richard Buckley, who produced the cook book – Plants Taste Better. He has a great nut roast recipe in the book.
The best thing I have learned doing all these courses is about building flavour. This recipe for nut roast does just that.
I have changed a couple of the ingredients – I use walnuts instead of hazelnuts, and sweet potatoes instead of celeriac, which we don’t generally get here.
Thanks to “Plants Taste Better” for the inspiration.
Here is my version:
Ingredients:
- 500 grms sweet potatoes
- 1 large onion
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 1/2 t salt
- 100 grms walnuts
- 100 grms cashew nuts
- 50 grms sunflower seeds
- 30 grms cornstarch
- 15 grms wholegrain mustard
- 1/4 t grated nutmeg
- canola oil
What to do:
- Preheat your oven to 180 deg C (160 C for a fan oven)
- Medium dice the potatoes and onion, and toss in a little oil and salt, along with the garlic
- Spread out on a baking tray and roast till soft – about 30 t0 40 minutes
- Meanwhile, spread the walnuts and cashews out on a baking tray and roast for 6 to 8 minutes till lightly golden
- And also toast the sunflower seeds in a fry pan till fragrant and just starting to brown
- In a food processor, grind the sunflower seeds till fine, and transfer to a large bowl.
- Then also grind the walnuts and cashew nuts till a coarse crumb and add to the bowl
- Put the potato and onion mixture into the processor and pulse till a coarse mash
- Add this mix to the bowl with nuts and seeds
- Add in the cornflour, mustard and nutmeg, and mix very well
- Put mixture into a loaf tin and bake for about 25 minutes
- Allow to cool, and then put in fridge to firm up
To serve:
Cut the loaf into slices, brush with oil and then bake in the oven for a short while on each side to just brown slightly.
Serve with roasted veggies and a gravy.
Notes
Instead of using a loaf tin, you can roll the mixture in baking parchment into about 4 cm diameter roll. (As was done for the picture above)
As suggested in Plants Taste Better, we also made the poached apples balls, and the cider gravy. These were delicious as well. Recipes will come in another post.
Thanks again to Richard Buckley for his inspirations. I can highly recommend his book – Plants Taste Better.
Bon apetit
