Mock Roast

Back at the start of March when the weather was wet and foggy (so not dissimilar to today's supposedly summer morning) I made a roast dinner for my tea. However it was a roast dinner with a difference as it did not use any meat.

The starting point was to make the roast potatoes. I took three medium-sized red potatoes and sliced them into roughly 5cm wide and 1cm long circles. It's important that the potatoes are not too thin so that they burn in the oven but they cannot be too thick either otherwise they will not cook properly. I heated the oven to one hundred and seventy degrees (one hundred and eighty for a non-fanned oven) and when the oven was warmed up I put a high-sided baking tray containing sunflower oil into the oven and heated for one minute. I then took the tray out, added the potatoes and left them to cook in the oven for half an hour.

The countdown was now on for the meal being ready so I set about slicing up three large white onions into small 1cm x 2cm pieces and left them to one side. I then found my Le Cresceut dish and poured enough olive oil into it to just cover the bottom. The next task was to source something that wasn't meat but would give the same taste and be as filling. I found in the freezer four Quorn Fillets and warmed them gradually on a low heat in the bottom of the Le Cresceut dish. The trick with these fillets is to cook them gradually so the oil doesn't spit and fly out of the dish. Once the fillets had gone a pale brown colour I added the onions, half a teaspoon of black pepper and some fresh sage and stirred the ingredients together periodically to keep them from sticking to the bottom of the dish.

After the potatoes had cooked for half an hour I took them out of the oven and turned them over before putting them back in the oven for a further half an hour.

It was now time to make the stuffing. I first thoroughly greased a bowl with margarine and added a pack of stuffing mixture to it together with a beaten egg and roughly (depending the instructions on the pack) a quarter of a pint of boiling water and some lemon juice. I then covered the stuffing with foil and put it in the oven with the potatoes. This meant that it would cook for about half an hour. Sometimes depending on the mixture you choose the stuffing may need less time to cook, perhaps more like twenty minutes rather than half an hour.

The next job was to make the gravy. I put a heaped tablespoon of plain flour into a measuring jug with a vegetable stock cube and gradually added half a pint of boiling water to it whilst stirring the ingredients together. It's important to add the water slowly so as to ensure the gravy is not lumpy. I added the mixed gravy to the onions and Quorn together with another half pint of boiling water mixed with vegetable stock so as to be sure the mixture did not dry up. I left this part of the meal to cook slowly on the hob so the ingredients blended together properly.

It was time for a more straightforward part of the meal. I cut up three carrots, three parsnips and a head of broccoli and steamed them for twenty minutes together with some sprouts. By the time I had prepared these vegetables and steamed them until they were soft enough the stuffing, roast potatoes and the Quorn gravy were cooked and ready to serve.

The results were top drawer and more than a match for a traditional roast dinner. The potatoes were exceptionally tasty and the sunflower oil enhanced their flavour considerably. The sage and pepper helped give the gravy the right taste and the gravy itself was reasonably thick without being too lumpy. The Quorn itself was substantial enough to make me not miss having made roast chicken and I didn't have to worry about fat or gristle as I would have done with chicken either.

The stuffing came out well and was solid without being too dry and the lemon juice helped enhance its taste. The steamed vegetables also did their job as did the can of Gin and Tonic I drank with the meal.

The finished product together with gin and tonic to accompany.