Parsnip, Miso, Oat and Shallot Boulangère

A gorgeously hearty, warming vegetable-based dish from Gizzi Erskine's inspiring book Restore which is full of and advice on how to eat ethically and seasonally.

This recipe is from the Autumn to Winter section and combines one of my favourite winter vegetables, parsnips with miso and, intriguingly, with oats.

Gizzi writes: Boulangère is a gratin of potatoes made by cooking potatoes in the juice (stock) and fat of lamb - the unsung hero of the potato dauphinois. Playing around with root vegetables in a gratin is a great way to really understand them. I've replaced the lamb stock and fat with a chicken or vegetable stock pumped up with miso and oat cream, that you can buy or make yourself. The flavour of the oat is what I want here, not the creaminess, and oat and parsnip are dreamy together.

This dish is a good way to show how we often overlook the flavours of the modern plant-based movement. This gratin is superb as a main dish for a supper or served as a side dish, and if you make it with vegetable stock, your vegan friends will thank you."

SERVES 4 as a side dish

Preparation lime 15 minutes

Cooking lime 45 minutes

2 tbsp oil

4 shallots, very thinly sliced

500g parsnips, cut into very fine rounds (ideally using a mandolin e or a food processor with a thin slicing attachment)

500ml fresh vegetable stock (or chicken stock if you're not making it for vegetarians or vegans)

1 tbsp white miso paste

½ tsp salt

250ml oat cream

few sprigs of thyme

freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 240°C/220°C fan/gas mark 9.

Start by sweating the shallots. Heat the oil in a large frying pan over a medium-low heat, add the shallots and cook gently for about 20 minutes, stirring regularly, until beautifully soft and caramelised.

Add the sliced parsnips (I don't think they need peeling - the peel adds a nice texture) to a separate saucepan, along with the stock, miso paste and salt. Bring to the boil then take off the heat immediately. Drain the parsnips, reserving the stock. Return the stock to the pan and cook over a high heat until the volume has reduced to about 150ml and the stock has a thick, syrupy consistency.

While the stock is reducing, you can start constructing the dish. Once the parsnips are cool enough to handle, take a gratin dish (about 2 litre capacity) and make a layer of parsnips on the bottom, two or three parsnip slices thick. Spoon over a thin layer of the shallots, season with pepper and the leaves from the sprigs of thyme. Repeat this process until you have used everything up.

To finish the sauce, add the oat cream to the stock and allow to reduce further for a couple of minutes until thickened slightly. Pour this over the parsnips and put the dish in the oven to bake for 20 minutes, until the top is crisp and golden. Remove from the oven and leave to sit for a couple of minutes before serving.

What to drink: I'd go for a rich white with this, maybe with a lick of oak. I'm thinking white Rhône or Roussillon (anything from grenache blanc or gris), oaked white rioja or a Douro white

Extracted from Restore: a modern guide to sustainable eating by Gizzi Erskine is published by HQ at £25

Photography credit – c. Issy Croker.

Seasonal Veg Pakora

With the new season's spring veg springing up in the garden and coming into the shops it's the perfect moment to make these delicious Seasonal Veg Pakora from Grace Regan's appetising new book, Spicebox.

"On almost every city street in India, you’ll find a food vendor tending to giant karahi of floating pakoras in bubbling oil" says Grace, who runs the Spicebox curry house in Walthamstow. "The battered veg varies depending on what’s in season but soft, faster-cooking vegetables are preferable, such as onion, aubergine and spinach."

Below she's listed seasonal veg and combinations that work well. "The harder the vegetable, the smaller you have to cut it. For root vegetables, grating works best." (There are some useful tips on cooking veg in the book which includes 100 spicy curry house recipes.)

"Traditionally, just gram flour is used but Grace finds that adding rice flour and baking powder makes for a crisper batter at home."

Serves 4–6 as a starter/side

For the batter

Veg oil, for frying, around 1 litre

100g gram flour

50g rice flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp fine sea salt

2 tsp ajwain seeds (also called lovage or carom seeds; swap for fennel or nigella (black onion) seeds if you can’t find them)

1 tsp cumin seeds

1/2 tsp tsp ground turmeric

A thumb-sized piece of ginger, grated

1 green chilli, thinly sliced

A small bunch of coriander (stalks included), finely chopped

2 tsp garam masala

Salt

Put the gram and rice flours into a bowl, along with the baking powder and the rest of the batter ingredients. Slowly pour in 500ml water and whisk until a batter is formed – you’re looking for the consistency of a thin pancake batter.

Pour the oil into a large saucepan or wok – it needs to be 5–7cm deep – and place on a high heat.

Test the oil to make sure it is the right temperature by dropping a piece of batter into it. It should fizzle and turn golden in around 30 seconds. If you have a thermometer to hand, the oil should be 180°C.

Drop a small handful of your chosen veg (see below) into the batter and make sure it’s evenly coated. Allow any excess batter to drip off, then gently drop the veg into the oil. Fry until golden on one side and then turn over, using a slotted spoon (they will take around 1 minute 20 seconds on each side).

When the pakora is golden on both sides, lift it out of the oil and drain it on a piece of kitchen paper. Season with a generous pinch of salt on both sides. Repeat until all your veg are cooked. You can cook two or three pieces at the same time, depending on the size of your pan and the veg.

Grace recommends these with date and tamarind Chutney or green (mint and coriander) chutney, recipes for both of which are in the book.

Spring/summer veg

Cabbage, finely shredded

Brussels sprouts, finely shredded

Beetroot, grated raw, or cooked and sliced

Carrot, grated raw

Celeriac, grated raw

Butternut squash, roasted and sliced

Potatoes, boiled and sliced

Sweet potato, roasted and sliced

Cauliflower, cut into thin steaks

Kale, finely shredded

Leeks, thinly sliced

Onion, thinly sliced

Parsnips, grated raw, or roasted and sliced

Autumn/winter veg combos

Grated apple and beetroot

Grated pear and celeriac

Sweet potato and sliced spring onion

Kale and potato

Brussels sprout and beetroot

Cauliflower and leek

What to drink: Lots of possibilities here - a crisp dry Italian white like Falanghina, a fresh Provençal rosé, a dry riesling, a sylvanier, dry cider, a pilsner, a lemon or mango flavoured soda ...

Extracted from SpiceBox: 100 Fresh, Vegan Curry House Favourites by Grace Regan (Ebury Press £20). Photography by Joff Lee and James Lee

Five-spice smoked tofu nuggets

Tofu has never been my favourite ingredient to be honest but these brilliant smoked tofu 'nuggets' from my friend Elly Curshen's book Let's Eat are positively addictive.

Elly writes: These things are ridiculously delicious and I can't recommend them enough. They're great on the end of skewers and dipped into the satay sauce as party food. But if you don't want to serve this as a canapé the cubes of tofu are delicious on a bed of brown rice with some pok choy and the sauce drizzled over the top. (I actually served it with a crunchy vegetable salad based on the noodle salad in Elly's book. I'm not giving the recipe for that so you have to buy it!)

The tofu you choose is important. You want to look for one that comes as a big, solid, wet cube and nearly always in a cardboard box. The recipe requires this soft, wet kind to create the steam inside the crust that makes it puff up.

Make the dressing first so the nuggets stay nice and crisp.

Note: this recipe contains peanuts

Five-spice smoked tofu nuggets

Vegetarian, vegan.

Makes 8 (although I cut them slightly smaller to make 16. That might serve 4 at a pinch though don't bank on it)

1 x 225g box of smoked tofu
2 tbsp cornflour
¼ tsp Chinese five-spice powder
a large pinch of smoked paprika
300ml vegetable oil
2–4 tbsp Satay Dressing (see below)
flaked sea salt

Lay the block of tofu on a few sheets of kitchen paper. Fold another sheet of kitchen paper and use to press down gently on the top to absorb the moisture.

Cut the tofu up into 8 (or 16) equal-sized cubes. Put the cornflour in a shallow bowl, add the five-spice powder and paprika and mix well. Toss the tofu cubes in the spiced cornflour until they are dusted on all sides.

Pour the vegetable oil into a wok and place over a high heat. Once hot, shake off any excess flour then very carefully lower each nugget into the hot oil using a slotted spoon or tongs. Deep-fry, turning regularly (and very carefully), for 4–5 minutes until all sides are golden brown and crisp. Remove the tofu from the pan using a slotted spoon or tongs and drain on kitchen paper.

Sprinkle the cubes with flaked sea salt while they are still hot – this helps to keep them crispy. Put them on to skewers and serve with the dressing for dipping.

Satay dressing

Makes 6 portions

1 tsp light soft brown sugar
2 tsp lime juice
4 tbsp peanut butter (smooth or chunky is fine, and I actually find the cheaper, bog-standard versions work best)
3 tbsp rice wine vinegar
1 tbsp soy sauce
1¼ tbsp vegetable, sunflower or rapeseed oil
1¼ tbsp Sriracha (or more to taste)
2 tbsp sesame oil

Dissolve the sugar in the lime juice, then put it into a blender with all the remaining ingredients and blend until smooth. Taste and adjust as you see fit. That’s it. Once made, it will keep fine in the fridge in a jar for ages.

What to drink

The sauce is more important than the nuggets when it comes to finding a pairing. Winewise I'm thinking an off-dry riesling or young semillon. A medium-dry cider would also be good.

Elly Pear's Let's Eat is published by Harper Collins at £20.You might also like to try Elly's Smoked Salmon and Radish Salad from her first book, Fast Days and Feast Days.

Baingan Bharta - roasted smoky aubergine

I've been lucky enough to eat my friend Romy Gill's food on many occasions - she's an inspired home cook - so it's great to finally see her recipes in print.

This is one of her favourites from her lovely new book Zaika, which she describes as her 'ultimate desert island dish'.

Romy writes: The beauty of Indian food is that it not only has regional dishes but families cook each of these in so many ways. If you don’t like one method, you can just cook it another way! Baingan bharta with dal and roti would be my ultimate desert island dish; the perfect balance of smoky aubergine and the warmth of the green chillies is so divine.

The aubergines are roasted on the hob and then left to cool down before peeling off the skin and mashed; this recipe is how my mum made it, so I give her all the credit.

30 minutes

SERVES 3

2 medium-sized aubergines

6 tsp rapeseed oil

1 tsp cumin seeds

3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced

3 medium onions, finely chopped

3 green chillies, seeds in, finely chopped

2 tomatoes, finely chopped

20g coriander leaves, finely chopped

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp ground turmeric

1 tsp salt

Roti, to serve (there is a recipe in the book)

Roast the aubergines over a gas burner on the hob over a medium heat using a pair of tongs to hold them, or under a preheated hot grill. Either way, turn the veg regularly for even roasting. Allow to cool, then when cool enough to handle, peel off the roasted skin. Mash the flesh in a large bowl.

Heat the oil in a pan, add the cumin seeds, then add the garlic and stir for 1 minute. Add the onions and chillies, cook for 4–5 minutes over a high heat and keep stirring. Once the onions are translucent, add the chopped tomatoes and coriander to the pan and cook for 3–4 minutes. When the tomatoes have broken down into the onions, add the rest of the spices and salt and mix together well. Finally, stir in the mashed aubergine and cook for 5 minutes over a medium heat.

Serve with roti.

What to drink: I'd probably drink lassi with this or one of the lovely soft drinks in the book but you could drink a light aromatic white like a sylvaner or riesling (I know Romy's favourite is the Kung Fu Girl riesling) or a rosé.

Extracted from Zaika: vegan recipes from India by Romy Gill, published by Seven Dials at £20. Photo ©Del Sneddon.

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