Slightly oriental lentil and rice bake

Genuine experiment this one... Basically it's an attempt at a Asian inspired lentil and rice bake. Worked pretty well. Lovely texture. The coconut didn't come through as strong as I expected but the lemon zest lifts the whole thing. Next time might get some lemongrass in there too. Worth doing again.

Ingredients:

One onion, finely chopped
Tbsp vegetable oil
One carrot, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, crushed and chopped
One cup finely chopped pointy cabbage
Tbsp chopped fresh coriander
Tbsp chopped fresh chives
Tsp chopped fresh parsley
Zest and juice of one lemon
3 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp agave syrup or sugar
1 tbsp rice wine vinegar
Tsp sesame oil
1 cup dried red lentils
200 ml vegetable stock
400 ml coconut milk
2 tbsp vegan margarine
2 tbsp corn meal
2 cups cooked basmati rice
Salt and some extra fresh coriander, to hurl in at the last moment!

Method:

Fry the onion in a large frying pan or wok until it starts to go translucent and is about to brown, around 5-10 minutes. Then add the carrot, garlic and cabbage and cook for a further ten minutes. Keep stirring by the way! Then add the dry lentils, and then the herbs, lemon juice, soy sauce, sugar, vinegar and oil. Stir through, let the vinegar cook off a little, and then add the vegetable stock and coconut milk. Leave to simmer, stirring occasionally, until the lentils are tender after 20 minutes or so. Stir through the margarine, then sprinkle over the corn meal and stir in, then cook for a further 5 minutes.

Now mix in the cooked rice. Stir through. At this point I added a little salt and some fistfuls of extra fresh herbs to add extra flavour. Press the mixture into a well greased loaf tin and cook, covered with foil, for 25 minutes.

Sugar snap peas with soya chunks

Terrible name, great product... Textured Vegetable Protein or TVP makes me feel like I've just picked up my dinner from Pets R Us. It needs a rebrand desperately and I'll be more than happy to help if the manufacturers fancy giving me a call.

When I first went veggie at 17, the market for meat free goods hadn't moved on that much from the days when tins of wheat gluten and 'nut meats' were given out as part of post-war vegetarian rations; it was all pretty bleak to be honest. One of the products that I tried, and misused terribly, was the appallingly named 'Textured Vegetable Protein'. The forerunner of Quorn and vegemince, these chunks of compressed soya flour appeared dry, tasteless and tantamount to punishment for those who had decided animals weren't on the menu.

Of course – like other meat 'analogues' - I just wasn't cooking it properly. Hurling dusty TVP into an insipid tomato sauce is guaranteed to disappoint, and there is a much better way. So tonight's dinner is, to my mind, how you do it and come up with something fabulous. Yes, it is 'pretending' to be meat, but as I've said before, unless you went veggie because of some strange aesthetic objection to the mouthfeel of meat, I don't see why this is a problem.

So tonight's dinner is TVP chunks with sugar snap peas and kale in a rich bouillon, served with basmati rice. A yummy, quick and filling tea.

Ingredients:

200g large chunks TVP
4 tbsp vegetable bouillon powder
400 ml boiling water
1 small onion
2 cloves garlic
100g sugar snap peas, chopped
100g curly kale, chopped
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tbsp cornflour
1 tbsp soy sauce
Sea salt and fresh black pepper to serve

Method:

Make up half the vegetable bouillon (2 tbsp) with 200ml of boiling water and then soak the TVP in the vegetable bouillon (or you can use vegetable stock) for a good half hour or so. This for me is critical and makes the whole dish work. We'll drain the chunks later. In a wok, fry the onion and garlic in the vegetable oil until the onion becomes transparent. Drain the TVP, and then add to the wok and toss until it starts to brown. Then add the sugar snap peas and kale and cook for 4-5 minutes until the vegetables are cooked through.

In a mixing jug, add the other 2 tbsp of vegetable bouillon to the cornflour and the soy sauce and mix through, then add 200ml of boiling water to make a rich sauce, add this to the TVP mix in the wok, and you're read to go.

To serve:

This mix - super savoury - is great with mashed potatoes but tonight I served it up with some basmati ice, pressed into a ramekin so that it made a cool little mound on the plate; gives a bit of height and structure to the dish. Add sea salt or black pepper to taste.