Well obviously you can’t have vegan meatballs but these nut-roast equivilents are incredible. That’s from a non-vegan too! We had a glut of hazlenuts this year, prompting a search for a suitable recipe. This one came to light and it is recorded here to use again (and again). We served them with a rich onion gravy which is more trouble but a lot better than vegan Bisto gravy. You could use that instead though. Here’s a generous recipe for two, easily scaled up.
For the gravy,
- 1 small onion
- 1 clove of garlic, crushed
- 2 tbs olive oil
Sweat the onion gently in the oil for at least 10 minutes. Add
- 1 tbs plain flour
Stir into the cooked onion and cook on for a minute or two. Add
- 300ml hot vegetable stock
- 1 tsp Marmite
- 1 tsp dark soy sauce
- 1 rosemary sprig
Stir gently and cook until thickened. Remove the rosemary and either strain and serve, or leave the onions in.
For the nutballs:
- 150g mixed nuts (we used hazlenuts, cashew nuts and almonds). No need to skin or blanch.
Add enough boiling water to cover. Let stand for two minutes then drain. Meanwhile in a frying pan, gently cook:
- chopped small red onion
- 2 crushed cloves of garlic
- 1 celery stick, chopped
- 1 carrot, grated
- 75g mushrooms, sliced
- 1 tsp fresh thyme leaves or a small pinch dried
- 2 tbs olive oil.
Fry until slightly coloured. Add to a food processor with:
- the soaked nuts
- 1 tbs peanut butter
- 50g ground almonds
- 50g breadcrumbs (or panko)
- 3 tbs gram flour
- salt and pepper
Pulse until mixed, you want some texture but it needs to be sticky enough to bind. Now roll into balls 30-40cm diameter. Wipe out your pan and reheat some oil. Now fry your nutballs, jiggling around to get some colour on all sides for about 10 minutes. Then put in an oven at 180C fot 10-15 minutes to cook through and colour up. Serve with the gravy and new potatoes or mash and some wilted or steamed greens.