Steak for vegetarians

The photo yet again doesn't do this dish justice, so ignore that slightly messy looking plateful for a minute and just let me tell you about it.

There's three components - a cauliflower 'steak' - browned outside and soft inside; a strangly almondy cauliflower puree; and a rich tomato and caper sauce. The steak and puree bit I borrowed from Bon Appetit magazine, slightly adapted, and the sauce and pine nuts I added.

The other day I tried a recipe for a chickpea and celeriac salad I had had bookmarked in Australian Gourmet for ages. It involved a lot of different ingredients, making your own houmous, and roasting celeriac in about an inch of liquid that needed to be sporadically topped up. Complicated stuff, but I thought it would be worth the effort because it looked like a beautiful dish that would be bursting with flavour and something very special from two humble main ingredients.

I learnt a valuable lesson trying this out. Namely, that complicated recipes are just not my thing. I cut corners and I substitute ingredients, and I expect too much from something which takes all of my evening to prepare. It was a bit of a mess, and the kitchen was so messy by the time I had finished, and I so tired, that I barely noticed eating it in between all the prep and the tidy up.

Hang all that. I am much happier with recipes with a little give and take. That concentrate on one or two ingredients, that don't require the finely tuned balance of 17 different spices, that can be thrown together in an hour and then enjoyed at leisure.

I saw this cauli recipe and it seemed much more the kind of thing. I thought there was something very dignified and beautiful about presenting this vegetable in both a luxurious processed form and in a proud, unadulterated chunk. It required few ingredients and only three pans. It looked promising.

And it delivered. The 'steak' is good and caramelised and tasty. The puree is light and slightly sweet and rich. The sauce is rich and sharp and a good complement to both. It's a good dinner dish. Something a bit different and fully satisfying. And not too complicated!


Cauliflower steak with cauliflower puree and tomato sauce
(Serves 2)

• First, chop half an onion, a clove of garlic and several handfuls of cherry tomatoes (sorry - I forgot to weigh them so no more accurate weight, but you can work out how many you need I'm sure!) or just use a tin or two of tinned tomatoes.
• Heat some olive oil gently, add the onion, garlic and tomatoes, a good slug of red wine, salt and pepper and a few branches of rosemary. Let simmer for an hour or so, stirring occasionally, until rich and thick.
• Near the end, add a handful of capers and pick out the sticky bits of rosemary.
• Meanwhile, cut two 1 inch slices from the middle of a medium-sized cauliflower and break the rest into florets.
• Heat some olice oil in a frying pan, and cook the 'steaks' on both sides for about 5-10 minutes until browned, at which point transfer to an oven tray and bake at about 180C for another 20 minutes to soften the inside
• While the steaks are cooking, put the florets in a saucepan with a cup of milk, a cup of water and a couple of pieces of cinnamon bark. When soft (about 10 minutes), drain, reserving the liquid, spread out on an oven tray and put in the oven until they've crisped up a little (5-10 minutes)
• Process the florets with a cup of the reserved liquid and a little grated parmesan, until nice and smooth.
• Toast some pinenuts in a frying pan until lightly browned.
• Put a blob of puree on each plate, top with a steak, and scatter with pinenuts. Sauce on the side.

The fall from innocence... (A tomato's tale)

Well, just imagine what you could do with these little bad boys! Aren't they superb all piled up like that? Handfuls and handfuls of ripe cherry tomatoes. And these ones they really smell like tomatoes, and they really taste like tomatoes; not the pale impostors you find on supermarket shops (my local Turkish shop, for its tomatoes and avocados alone, is one of the major plus points of living in Archway).

I feel a little bit guilty actually looking at them there, because here were these fresh ripe fruit, all bright-cheeked and eager. Just look at them!

And then, what did I go and do? I corrupted them, poor loves, with bucketloads of sugar and hot hot heat and bubbled them and boiled them so they were no longer unsullied and innocent, but sticky and broken and all in a heap.



Although, to be fair, they were going to end up meeting their ends via mine or someone else's greedy mouth anyway, so whether drizzled with balsamic, as part of a fresh greek salad or reborn as jam, I don't suppose they really minded anyway.



Yes, that's right, I said jam. And I suspect you might be a little sceptical. Tomato JAM?! You might even be wrinkling your nose up and wondering what the world is coming to.



Well, I saw this recipe in Vogue Entertaining and Travel you see. And it intrigued me. I couldn't work out whether it would be exquisite or grotesque or merely just mediocre. But the colour was superb, and the tomatoes were a bargain, so I thought I'd give it a go.



As it turns out, it's good, very good. But slightly disconcerting. There's lemon and pomegranate syrup in there too (the latter is my addition, the former in the orig.) so it's quite tangy and marmalade-y although not as bitter as a marmalade, not as pickly as a chutney, but not quite as jammy as a jam. So as you eat it you feel a little disorientated, as it won't fit in any gastronomic pigeonhole your tastebuds want to slot it in to.



But it's good on toast, and it's good in sausage sandwiches and it is fabulously red, so I think in the end it was worth it.



Tomato and Lemon Jam



- Chop 900g cherry tomatoes in quarters (I halved them, but then the skins are too big in the jam, so better to quarter I think)

- Put in a heavy-based pan with 1/2 lemon, thinly sliced, the juice of the other half of the lemon, 6 dessertspoons pomegranate molasses and 650g jam sugar.

- Bring to a boil and simmer until it reaches the setting point - to test this you take half a teaspoon of the jam and dot it on a cold plate. After a couple of seconds you push the edge with your finger. If it wrinkles, it's ready; if it's still just liquid keep cooking. For me, this took about two hours.

- Once done, bottle in sterilised jars (thoroughly cleaned old jars, put in a low oven for 10-15 minutes until hot)

- VE&T say it will keep for a couple of months in the fridge, but if the jars are airtight I don't see why it shouldn't keep longer unopened, like most jam.

life is not too short...

... to stuff a tomato. At least not in my opinion. I mean, how long does it take? 20 minutes maybe? I must confess, I am not such a busy efficient important kind of person that I don't have 20 minutes to prepare some food...

I'll admit though - in the past, I have been a bit suspicious of stuffing vegetables. I didn't really see the point. Often the vegetables were better off by themselves. It seemed a ploy to make vegetarians think they were getting something exciting; a proper dish, just because it was all shoved together.

However, I've been converted by these little tomatoes, which I tried the other day. The cheesy stuffing goes all soft and oozy inside the roasty red shells. They are a little messy to eat - cutting into one can initiate a kind of landslide effect; but to eat, pretty good...

Tomatoes with a Goats Cheese and Chilli Stuffing

Per person:

1 largish tomato

about 30g goats cheese

1/4 of an onion, diced

about 1/2 a small red chilli, finely diced

2 dessertspoons wholemeal bread crumbs

tsp chopped walnuts

1 dessertspoon Creme Fraiche

Sweat off the onions in a little oil, and add the chilli

Mix onions and chilli with the breadcrumbs, walnuts, goats cheese and creme fraiche

Slice the top off the tomato, scoop out all the insides and stuff with the mixture.

Rub a little oil on the outside of the tomato, replace its 'lid'

And pop in a preheated oven at 180C for about 10 minutes, until the tomato looks cooked.

Serve with a little salad perhaps.