Showing posts with label Leigh Drew. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Leigh Drew. Show all posts

Monday, 30 September 2013

Peas and Greens Parcels


From Wrapped in Pastry, Leigh Drew, Aduki, 2012.
This recipe was actually called ‘Beans and Greens Parcels’ but I have changed the ‘beans’ to ‘peas’ because I only used chickpeas and not the cannellini beans.

I began by mashing a can of chickpeas with a couple of tablespoons of tahini with salt and pepper. This was put aside as the vegetables were prepared.
Three stalks of spring onions were sliced and a garlic clove was chopped. These went into a large frying pan to cook in a little oil for a couple of minutes as I prepared the broccoli and cauliflower. I used 100g of each vegetable and cut them up into pieces. These now were added to the pan to cook for another couple of minutes. A little water, about ¼ cup, was added and a lid placed over to let the vegetables steam for a few more minutes.

I washed 500g silver beet and cut out the hard centre stalks. The leaves were roughly cut into pieces and added to the pan with the juice of ½ lemon and a teaspoon of chilli flakes. When the leaves had wilted the mashed chickpeas were added and stirred in. The mixture was left to cool completely.
The parcels were now prepared. A sheet of filo pastry was brushed with oil and another sheet added on top. The vegetable mixture was divided into six lots. One of these was added to the long end of the pastry strip that was folded over and over until about half way along. The sides were folded in and the wrapping continued until fully rolled. It was placed on a baking tray with the end of the fold down. Now brushed with oil it was ready to go in a 180ºC oven. The remainder of the vegetables were treated the same way until there were 6 parcels. About half way through the cooking the parcels were turned over.

These were certainly filled with green goodness. They came out like a variation on spanakopita without the cheese. If making in future I think I would increase the broccoli and cauliflower to double because I enjoyed their texture and they were a little overbalanced by the silver beet.

Taste: ✔✔✔
Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔


Friday, 3 May 2013

Bakewell Tart


From Wrapped in Pastry, Leigh Drew, Aduki Independent Press, 2011.

I do enjoy pies and tarts so when I saw this little book I picked it up. It is for vegan cooking rather than vegetarian, which I prefer, but I thought I would give it a go and see how it worked out. It is a cheaply produced book with a mixture of both sweet and savoury recipes. My first try was only half satisfactory: the case was terrible but the filling very nice.



The pastry for the base was the failure for me. It used margarine instead of butter. I have made pastry before with margarine and it has not worked so I had doubts before I began this one but I did try it to see if this one would be all right. It didn’t work for me. I do believe that the result was due to firstly me rolling the pastry a little too thick but more than that I feel that cooking it in a 160ºC oven was wrong. I always cook my pastry in a much hotter oven. After 20 minutes—the stated time—the case did not look right for me so I turned up the oven to 200ºC. It was of course too late to really make the pastry burst into life.

The filling was very good. I mixed 2 tablespoons water with 2 tablespoons flaxseed meal. This was left to meld while the next process was done. For this I put ½ cup margarine and ½ cup brown sugar in the mixer and gave it a burl to churn it well. Then 1½ cups almond meal was blended in. Now the flaxseed mix went in and one apple grated. The recipe called for apple sauce but I felt that freshly grated apple would do the trick. I now added a tablespoon flour, ½ tablespoon baking powder and a tablespoon lemon juice. (The recipe called for lemon zest.)

Now strawberry jam was spread on the pastry base which had been cooling. The filling was poured in and smoothed over. Flaked almonds were sprinkled over the top and it went into the oven for half an hour.

The filling turned out well and was very tasty. Should I try it again—which I might do—I would use a different pastry recipe, though I suspect that the oven temperature quoted was quite wrong to cook a pastry.

One other detail: I do find it annoying when ingredients are not listed in the order in which they are required for the recipe.

I score the pastry case a zero but give the filling ✔✔✔.