This is hearty warming winter dish packet with flavour and nutrition and it makes the perfect vegan Christmas dish.
Serves 6-8
Ingredients
5 Clearspring Shiitake Mushrooms
2tbsp Clearspring Tunisian Olive Oil
1 small onion, diced
1 carrot, peeled and diced
1 stick celery, diced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 sprigs thyme, taken off the stalks
2tbsp Clearspring Soya Sauce
100g dry Puy lentils
5g Clearspring Kombu
2tsp Clearspring Brown Rice Miso
140g brown bread crumbs
75g ground almond, toasted
3tbsp sesame seeds, toasted
Method
- Soak the shiitake in 1L warm water for about 10 minutes, or until soft. Remove and discard the stalks and then finely chop the mushrooms. Reserve the soaking liquid.
- Heat the oil in a pan and fry the onion, carrot and celery for 5 minutes, now add the garlic and thyme and fry for a further 2 minutes.
- Add the lentils, soya sauce and then the kombu and shiitake soaking liquid.
- Let the lentils boil rapidly for 10 minutes and then simmer for a further 35 minutes or until the lentils are soft. Stir the pot every now and then.
- Now turn on the oven and set to 190?C.
- Take the kombu out of the lentil pot and put in a blender with half the lentil mix and the miso. Blend until smooth and then put back into the lentil pot.
- Stir in the rest of the ingredients and a good twist of black pepper and stir until all the ingredients are evenly mixed.
- Pour the mixture into an oiled 1kg loaf tin and bake for 1 hour.
- When it is ready, remove from the oven and allow to rest for a couple of minutes. Use a palette knife to loosen the edges and then turn out onto a plate or chopping board.
- Serve with either onion or shiitake gravy.
Variation:
If you don't have much time you can use 1 tin of brown lentils instead of dried puy. Cook the vegetables until they are tender, add the lentils, kombu and then the stock - you will need a lot less stock, simmer for around 5-10 minutes or until the lentils are just starting to become really soft then continue with the method above from step 5.
