Mock Roast

Christmas Eve had been a very enjoyable day as it largely consisted of a trip to the pub in the afternoon and another one in the evening with plenty of good company. On Christmas morning after swapping presents with a few family members and taking the dog a walk to a deserted local wood I got down to the task of preparing Christmas Dinner. It was a Christmas Dinner with a difference as it contained no meat.

The album of choice, which was also my Christmas present, was the eponymous debut album by German Electronica duo Neu! Released in 1971 the album still sounds ahead of its time today and its minimalist ambiance has influenced everyone from David Bowie to Joy Division and Sonic Youth.

I took a white onion and diced it up finely. I then boiled it in a small saucepan of water for around twenty-five minutes until soft. While the onions boiled I greased an ovenproof Pyrex dish with margarine and added a box of shallot stuffing mix. to the dish. I then beat one egg in a separate bowl and when the onion had boiled sufficiently I poured it and the boiling water into the bowl with the stuffing mix and stirred everything thoroughly together so as to turn the contents of the bowl into a sticky but flavoursome paste. Once I had spread the stuffing evenly throughout the bowl with a butter knife I squeezed the juice of half a lemon over it and left the bowl to stand for around 30 minutes.

I peeled six white potatoes and then cut them into roughly five centimetre wide and one centimetre thick pieces. I put the potatoes to one side and prepared some sprouts by washing them in a bowl of ice cold water and then cutting their bottom ends off as well as removing the outer leaves. I also prepared five carrots by peeling them and topping and tailing them in the usual way before slicing them width-ways so that they looked the shape of pieces from the popular game 'Connect 4'.

In two medium sized baking trays with high sides I added enough sunflower oil to each so that oil covered the bottom of the trays. I pre-heated the oven to 170 degrees (180 degrees if you're not using a fan oven) and when the oven reached the correct temperature I placed the oil-filled baking trays in the oven for one minute so as to warm the oil up. I then took the trays out and added the potatoes which I left to cook for thirty minutes.

While the potatoes cooked I added four ounces of plain flour and two ounces of margarine to a mixing bowl together four sliced sage leaves. I rubbed the flour, margarine and sage together until they took on the shape of golden breadcrumbs interspersed with small pieces of green. Next I added two table spoons of unsweetened Soya Milk to the mixture and stirred it all together with a butter knife until I had a pliable pastry.

I rolled the pastry out and then cut it into pieces large enough to wrap around the centre of six Quorn vegetarian sausages which I had also plucked straight from the freezer. I added the newly wrapped sausages to a greased baking tray.

Also obtained from the freezer were four Quorn chicken style fillets that I added to my Le Cresceut dish and fried slowly in olive oil for fifteen minutes. I then added a hint of black pepper, five diced shallots and three large white onions that were also diced. After the onions and shallots had cooked long enough to become translucent I added a pint of chicken stock and made a thick gravy with quarter of a pint of boiling water and half a tablespoonful of flour as well as one chicken stock cube. I added the gravy to the Le Cresceut dish together with some more sage and left it to cook on a low light on the hob while the other parts of the meal were prepared.

The secret to preparing this meal is to make the stuffing mixture and leave it to set first. Then prepare the carrots and sprouts and then prepare the roast potatoes and leave them cooking for half an hour and while the potatoes are cooking make the pastry sausages and get the Quorn fillets cooking in the sage, onion and gravy as soon as possible.

After half an hour had elapsed I put the steamer on a high heat so as it came to the boil very quickly and I also took the potatoes out of the oven and turned each one over. When I returned the potatoes to the oven I added the sausages in pastry and the stuffing. I left the contents of the oven to cook for twenty-five minutes and while they were cooking I added the carrots and sprouts to the steamer together with some frozen peas and steamed them until I could put a fork through them easily.

I decided I wanted a white sauce to go with the sprouts and peas so I melted two ounces of butter in a saucepan and mixed this with a heaped table spoon of cornflour. I added a quarter of a pint of skimmed milk to the saucepan and stirred it into the flour and butter on a medium heat until it was thick.

After the potatoes, stuffing and sausages had cooked for their allotted twenty-five minutes the meal was ready. The question was did the lack of meat mean that Christmas Dinner would be ruined? The answer was a definite 'no' as the sausages with their strong-flavoured pastry made up for the loss of the usual pigs in blankets and the Quorn fillets were as tasty as chicken but without the worry of having to contend with fat and bone. The fillets further benefited from the sage and onion gravy as well as the liberal helpings of cranberry sauce I spread over them during the meal.

The roast potatoes were crisp and rich while the sprouts, carrots and peas found a tasteful place in the dinner thanks being covered in the white sauce.

The presence of the stuffing, which was made richer by the beaten egg and boiled onion pieces, meant there were still plenty of traditional features in this Christmas Dinner which was washed down with a bottle of champagne.

All laid out and ready to eat: easily as tasty as a traditional Christmas Dinner.