Warming dinner perfect for a sub-zero Friday night from Solla Eiriksdottir's Vegan at Home: Recipes for a modern plant-based lifestyle
What's in it?
230g Tempeh (sliced into 1/4 inch thick "steaks")
Two Small Turnips (cubed)
Avocado or Olive Oil for frying
2 Sprigs of Rosemary
Marinade:
2 tablespoons Avocado Oil
2 tablespoons Lemon Juice
1 tablespoon Lemon Zest
1 tablespoon Soy Sauce
1 tablespoon Maple Syrup
1 tablespoon Rosemary (chopped)
3 Garlic Cloves (crushed with the flat of a knife)
Turnip Seasoning:
1 teaspoon Mustard
2 tablespoons Avocado Oil
2 teaspoons Dried Oregano
2 teaspoons Onion Powder
1 teaspoon Paprika
1 teaspoon Dried Thyme
1 teaspoon Sea Salt Flakes
1 teaspoon Black Pepper (ground)
Spicy Tarragon Sauce:
50g Vegan Butter
1 1/2 tablespoons White Wheat or White Spelt Flour
150ml Plant Based Milk
2 teaspoons Béarnaise Essence
2 tablespoons Lemon Juice
1 tablespoon Dried Tarragon
1 teaspoon Ground Turmeric
1 teaspoon Chilli Flakes
1 teaspoon Sea Salt Flakes
1 Teaspoon Ground White Pepper
For the kale:
4 - 5 Kale Leaves or about half a bag of supermarket shredded kale (remove tough stalks and stems)
2 tablespoons Olive Oil
2 tablespoons Balsamic Vinegar
1/2 teaspoon sea salt flakes
Kitchen kit you'll need
One large chopping board
Chef's knife
Medium sauce pan, steaming basket (or a colander that can double as a steaming basket), pan lid
Baking sheet lined with Baking Paper
Roasting dish or medium frying pan
Large bowl (one if you're prepared to wash and reuse it, two if you're not)
Small saucepan
Wooden spoon
Zip-lock bag (or a container you can shake marinade and tempeh in - I used a Pyrex box with a lid which also doubled as my roasting dish)
Weighing scales
Measuring spoons
How to make it
Pre-heat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas Mark 6.
Steam the tempeh for 5 - 10 minutes.
While the tempeh is steaming, put all the marinade ingredients in the zip-lock bag (or a jar with a tight lid) and shake to mix together. Once the tempeh is steamed, add it to the bag (or other container you're using to marinate) and shake to coat with the marinade. Marinate at room temperature for a minimum of 25 - 30 minutes.
Make the turnip seasoning by mixing mustard, oil, oregano, onion powder, paprika, thyme, sea salt and black pepper together in a large bowl. Toss the turnip through the seasoning until evenly coated. Spread evenly over the lined baking sheet and bake for 30 - 40 minutes until golden.
Keep an eye on your timings! If you're roasting the tempeh you'll need to bake it in the oven for 7 - 8 minutes on each side. Alternatively you can fry in with the rosemary sprigs for 2 - 3 minutes on each side. (I baked my tempeh as this used less oil, and seemed less stressful).
While the turnips and tempeh are baking (or while your tempeh is marinating if you're frying it), prepare the sauce.
Melt the butter in a small saucepan over a medium heat. Stir in the flour, and once mixed well add the milk a little at a time, stirring continuously until the sauce thickens.
Stir in the béarnaise essence, lemon juice, tarragon, turmeric, chilli flakes, salt and white pepper. Simmer for 8 - 10 minutes, stirring occasionally to avoid burning.
{If you're frying you're tempeh, now's the time to heat the oil up and start cooking it}
Put kale, olive oil, vinegar and salt in a large bowl and massage for 2 - 3 minutes until the kale is soft.
What is Béarnaise Essence? This was a question even Google struggled to answer, and not even Waitrose could assist with. Béarnaise Essence is common in Scandinavian cooking apparently, but less commonly used in Britain where we simply use béarnaise sauce. For most sauces and base ingredients in the book Solla provides a note on how to make it - she has a mustard recipe although I used a store bought wholegrain mustard for the turnips as this was more cost and time effective. But there's no recipe for Béarnaise Essence. Essentially, this is a reduction of shallot, tarragon, and white wine vinegar. Ingredients 3 Shallots (chopped finely) A handful of Fresh Tarragon (chopped) 50ml White Wine Vinegar 2 tablespoons Water
How to make it: 1. Put shallots, tarragon and white wine vinegar in a small saucepan and bring to the boil. Let it boil until the liquid has evaporated, being careful not to let the shallots burn. 2. Once the white wine vinegar has evaporated add the water and stir through. 3. Remove from the heat and strain the liquid into a jug/jar. This is your essence and can be stored in a sealed container in the fridge until needed. The acidity of the vinegar will help preserve the essence, but I would aim to use it within 1 - 2 weeks.
The Book
Vegan at Home: Recipes for a modern plant-based lifestyle by Solla Eiriksdottir published by Phaidon is everything you'd expect from arguably the best publisher of culinary books. It's beautiful to look at with a soft pastel colour pallet on the cover and simple, clean lines. The paper quality of the pages is excellent, and the pages are a light cream matt, which helps readability under harsh lights.
Many of the recipes are accompanied by photographs which provide a visual guide for how your meal should look and plating suggestions (very useful for those of us whose approach to presentation is normally "bang it on a plate"!).
The book contains 145 recipes ranging from breakfasts, simple snacks, to more impressive dinners. Solla also takes time to explain how you can make your own tempeh, sauces, nut milks etc., which can be helpful if you're in a place where these things aren't readily available pre-made. For those who like to read about the journey of a chef, Solla shares a little about her background and vegan journey, which has helped inspire the recipes in the book. Her intention is to provide the reader with simple, easy to make, vegan recipes for a range of occasions.
As a full sized hardback, to avoid damaging the spine I didn't put this on my book stand. There's limited worktop space in my kitchen and the size of the book meant I placed it on the table and went backward and forward to it while cooking, which was less than ideal. But this is down to the practicalities of my workspace and absolutely not a mark against a book that is designed to look beautiful as well as be functional.
As there were a lot of components to this meal I needed to take time to digest the instructions, work out back timings and plan how to approach the recipe in a logical way. But this is no different to how I'd approach cooking Sunday lunch - and this meal has far fewer moving parts than that. The instructions are clear and easy to follow, with each element of the meal being given an individual paragraph so you can focus on that element.
Where Solla uses an ingredient you can make (such as mustard), she provides you with the page reference taking you to the relevant recipe or note. My only criticism is that instructions on how to make béarnaise essence would've been helpful and saved a lot of googling and anxiety!
I enjoyed working from the book, and I'm glad I've finally taken it down off the shelf. As this was a more complex recipe I'm going to hold off rating and recommending the book until I've worked with it more, but I will definitely be cooking from it again.
How it turned out
This week I had some tough things to deal with and wanted to give myself a treat and something to look forward to at the end of the week, hence going for a proper meal.
I prepared the béarnaise essence on Thursday and then cooked dinner on Friday. From start to finish this took around 1 hour and 20 minutes for prep and cooking. Things were complicated somewhat as I not only made the recipe as written, but also made a "normal person" version of the meal for my partner, replacing the tempeh with chicken and turnip with baby potatoes. Everything else remained the same - making a vegan and non-vegan sauce was a step too far!
Because I was effectively making 4 servings of a recipe based on serving 2 people (due to the quantity of tempeh and chicken cooked) I should have doubled up the marinade. I didn't, but the tempeh was still very flavoursome, with the lemon and herbs balancing well (I'm told the chicken was also tasty).
The sauce had a spicy kick to it, and using a coconut plant based milk possibly gave it a flavour that a more neutral milk, like oat, wouldn't have added, but it was a good accompaniment, enhancing the flavour of the marinated tempeh.
The turnips were a real surprise. I've got nothing against them as a vegetable, but they are one I don't tend to eat much/at all. The seasoning was herby and baked into the flesh of the turnip, complementing its natural flavour and matching with the marinade used for the tempeh. The only change I made was switching the onion powder for celery salt, and using marjoram instead of oregano - I thought I had oregano in the cupboard, but it turns out I've run out and I was not heading out to the shop just for one jar of herbs!
The kale was really simple to prepare, and the dressing was light and worked to enhance the other flavours on the plate. I didn't have balsamic vinegar, so used a sherry vinegar instead, which may in the end have a better flavour profile given the intensity of the other elements on the plate.
Overall, this meal while initially daunting, was simple and stress-free to cook, very enjoyable to eat and exactly what I needed after a hard week!
My partner picked up a bottle of JP Azeitao Tinto, a blend of Syrah, Castelao and Aragonez grapes, from a local independent wine merchant. This Portuguese red goes with pretty much anything, and is best enjoyed slightly cooler than other red wines, which given the freezing temperatures at present is a good thing as keeping the house warm is a challenge.
The shopping list for this meal was big, mainly due to needing to stock up on some store cupboard items, including avocado oil - which at over £4 a bottle isn't cheap. You could switch this out for a cheaper oil, as it's mainly used in the marinade and seasoning.
The total cost of my basket was £27.51 (this excludes the chicken and potatoes, but did include a 3 for 2 on plant based protein which I took advantage of).
The recipe recommends using smaller turnips which have a sweeter flavour, but the supermarket I shopped at prices turnips by unit, not weight, which meant that by choosing the smaller turnips I paid more than I would had I opted for a single large turnip. Think about whether unit procing or price by weight is more cost effective when shopping, and if you have the option of a local fruit and veg shop, please support them over the big supermarkets! You'll generally find fairer pricing, better quality produce, and are supporting a small business.
The recipe makes two servings, so looking at the quantities of ingredients used this works out at about £5 - £6 a serving. It's a pricier meal, especially if you need to stock up on ingredients, but for what you produce at the end it's well worth the expense, and still cheaper than a meal out.
Nutritional Values
Tempeh Steak, Turnips and Kale
(based on 2 servings, no additions or alterations to the base recipe)
Calories | 714 |
Total Fat | 50.1g |
Saturated | 6.3g |
Trans | 0g |
Polyunsaturated | 10.6g |
Monounsaturated | 31.7g |
Cholesterol | 0 mg |
Sodium | 652.7mg |
Total Carbohydrates | 52g |
Dietary Fibre | 12.4g |
Sugar | 17.7g |
Protein | 25.8g |
Calcium | 30.3% |
Iron | 29.6% |
Potassium | 939.2mg |
Vitamin A | 26.6% |
Vitamin C | 125.1% |
Vitamin D | 0% |
Spicy Tarragon Sauce
(total values for quantity made)
Calories | 252 |
Total Fat | 25.7g |
Saturated | 15.5g |
Trans | 0g |
Polyunsaturated | 0.1g |
Monounsaturated | 0g |
Cholesterol | 0mg |
Sodium | 1.7mg |
Total Carbohydrates | 4.3g |
Dietary Fibre | 0.8g |
Sugar | 1g |
Protein | 0.9g |
Calcium | 8.1% |
Iron | 4.8% |
Potassium | 81.3mg |
Vitamin A | 1% |
Vitamin C | 6.4% |
Vitamin D | 0% |
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