Three Alternate Vegetarian Christmas Dinners

To follow up our meat-lovers paradise alternate Christmas dinners, here are our favourite vegetarian options – just as tasty and you’re less likely to need a nap (although you’ll probably still need one).

Mushroom Wellingtons

• 4 large field mushrooms
• roughly 400g/14oz spinach leaves
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 garlic clove, chopped
• 1 egg, beaten
• a sprinkle of flour
• 1 tablespoon of picked thyme leaves
• 500g block all-butter puff pastry
• 140g Stilton, sliced

Preheat oven to 220C/200C for fan/gas mark 7. Remove stalks from the mushrooms. Heat only half the oil in a large frying pan and saute the mushrooms for 3 to 4 minutes on each side until golden and cooked, lift onto kitchen paper to dab off remaining oil.

Put the same pan back on heat with the remainder of the oil. Fry the garlic for half a minute, add the spinach, then cook for 2 to 3 minutes over a high heat until spinach has completely wilted. Add salt and pepper to your own taste and tip the spinach into a sieve and drain thoroughly.

Lightly flour your work surface and scatter with the thyme leaves. Roll the pastry out to the thickness of about half a centimetre. Using a saucer and a larger-size plate, cut out 4 circles about 5cm wider than the mushrooms (for the bottoms) and 4 circles about 10cm wider (for the tops). You may need to re-roll the trimmings.

Place the 4 smaller circles on a baking tray and top each with a quarter of the spinach mixture, ensuring that the pile of spinach isn’t wider than the mushrooms. Top the spinach with a slice of cheese, then a mushroom, smooth-side up, and top the mushroom with another slice of cheese. Brush the border of each circle with egg and gently stretch the larger circle over the mushroom, pushing out any trapped air, and press the edges together with a fork. Trim the edges with a knife and then brush each wellington generously with egg. Bake for 40 mins until golden and then leave to cool for a few minutes. Serve with roasted veg and gravy.

Chestnut, Spinach and Blue Cheese en Croûte

• 50g butter
• 500g pack all-butter puff pastry
• 500g pack leeks, thickly sliced
• 3 large eggs, plus 1 for glazing
• 3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
• 240g bag baby spinach
• 415g can of chestnut purée
• 1/2 a nutmeg, grated finely
• 200g pack whole cooked chestnuts (preferably vacuum packed), halved
• 85g fresh white breadcrumbs
• 220g pack blue Shropshire cheese, rind trimmed, diced

For the sauce

• 500ml vegetable stock
• 2 leeks, thinly sliced
• 1 tablespoon of cornflour
• 300ml pot of double cream (single cream will work if you wish to save a few calories)

Melt all the butter in a large frying pan. Add the leeks and garlic. Stir the ingredients well and cook for 10 minutes until the leeks are soft, stir a few times to make sure the leeks don’t stick. Tip into a large bowl. Put the spinach in the pan and cook until it wilts. Leave to cool and squeeze out as much liquid from the mixture as you possibly can.

Pour the chestnut purée into the bowl containing the leeks and add the eggs, nutmeg, chestnuts, spinach, cheese, breadcrumbs and seasoning. Stir until well mixed. Chill for at least an hour until the mixture firms up.

Preheat oven to 220C/200C for fan/gas mark 7. Lightly flour your work surface and roll out the pastry to a rectangle large enough to completely enclose the filling. Carefully lift onto a large, long baking tray that has been lined with baking paper and brush round all the edges of the pastry with the remaining egg. Spoon the filling down the centre of the length of the pastry, leaving the ends clear. Tuck the ends over the filling and firmly lift up the sides to wrap them round. Trim away any excess pastry as you go. Brush with more egg to glaze and make a few holes in the top so the steam can escape as it cooks. Bake for 40 minutes until golden and the filling is firm. Remove from the oven, brush with more glaze and bake for 10 minutes more.

For the sauce, heat the stock in a medium pan, add the leeks, boil for 5 minutes and take off the heat and scoop out 2 tablespoons of the leeks. Blend the rest in the pan with the cornflour using a hand blender, then cook, stirring the mixture until thickened. Add the cream and reserved leeks from earlier and warm through until piping hot.

Serve the pastry in thick slices with the sauce.

Savoy Cabbage, Red Onion and Egg Pie

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 450g new potatoes, diced
• 1 medium red onion, thinly sliced
• 450g shredded Savoy cabbage
• 1 crushed garlic clove
• 1 teaspoon of cumin seeds
• 1 crushed dried chilli
• 1 slab of shortcrust pastry made with 2 tablespoons of lightly crushed cumin seeds
• 4 medium eggs
• 1 tablespoon of milk (to glaze)

Preheat the oven to 200C/180C for fan/gas mark 6. Heat a tablespoon of oil in a large frying pan and gently cook the potatoes and onion for around 10 minutes or until golden and tender. It may be necessary to do this in two batches. Season and set aside.

Heat the remaining oil in the pan and add half the cabbage, garlic, cumin seeds, chilli, seasoning and 1 tablespoon water and cook for 3-4 minutes until the cabbage wilts and is tender. Remove from the pan and repeat with the remaining ingredients.

Roll out half the pastry and line a 20cm pie plate (or smaller/larger dependent on how large your slab of pastry is). Place the potatoes and onions in the bottom and top with the cabbage mixture. Make four wells in the cabbage and crack an egg into each.

Brush the pastry border with water and roll out remaining pastry which will form the cover of the pie. Place the cover on whilst trimming the edges and pinching together to seal. Brush the pastry with milk and make a hole in the centre to allow steam to escape. Place on a baking tray and cook for 25-35 minutes until crisp and golden.

The Author:

These are our favourite vegetarian Christmas roast recipes – if you have any that you want to share with fellow readers then please contact us using the above link, through our Facebook page http://www.Facebook.com/christmassed1