demuths. vegetables are our passion.

Vegan Puddings

2012-02-13T17:11:00.001Z

Last week we hosted our first ever Vegan Puddings course at The Vegetarian Cookery School, led by our esteemed chef Helen Lawrence. Despite terrible weather, the turnout was fabulous and the food even better. Today, Helen writes about the dishes we made using entirely animal-free ingredients, including her tips on vegan baking, and our recipe for vegan chocolate mousse.

A day of baking cakes, desserts and treats. without eggs, milk, cream or butter - can it be done? The short answer is yes. Here's the longer answer:

Some people think you can't make delicious desserts without dairy or eggs, but last week we spent the day proving the case for vegan desserts. The dishes ticked all the boxes of what a good dessert should be. We didn’t omit sugar or fat (let's face it, a dessert usually tastes good because of the sweetness and the fat). The other elements of raising and binding were all easily achieved using various animal-free ingredients:

For sweetness, we didn’t use honey but we used golden castor sugar, maple syrup, agave syrup and golden syrup.
For fat, we used cold pressed oils, coconut cream and soya milk to replace butter, cream, and milk.
For binding and raising, we used flax batter, bananas and dates, and baking powder and bicarbonate of soda to replace eggs. (Flax batter is 1 tbsp flax seeds, ground to a powder and mixed with 3 tbsp water. It thickens up and helps bind in the way an egg does.)

We started with Canadian pancakes, a simple thick batter of flour, baking powder and soya milk, with a little mashed banana and maple syrup. Dropped into hot frying pans, and cooked until crisp on both sides and puffed up. We made high stacks and drizzled maple syrup over them, and served them with fresh mango, kiwi and blueberries.

Next we made strawberry tarts with almond pastry and filled with cashew custard. Almond pastry is a forgiving pastry, very malleable. We pressed it into tartlet cases, and baked them blind. The ground almonds enrich the pastry and adds a lovely crunch.

We filled the tarts with a cashew and coconut custard, tinted golden yellow from saffron and flecked with vanilla seeds. We popped these into the oven, using arrowroot to help the custard set. When cool, we topped the tarts with strawberries and raspberries and glazed them with apricot jam. They looked and tasted so good - good enough to sell in a French patisserie.

Demuths chocolate mousse is a favourite pudding from the restaurant, rich chocolaty, creamy. To make this, we started with a dark chocolate sponge cake that we spread thin and baked until set. We cut out discs from the sponge and topped them with a whipped coconut and chocolate mousse.

To make the mousse, the chocolate is first melted with water and sugar and a shot of espresso and then thickened with corn flour to a thick paste. Chilled Coconut cream is then whisked until tripled in volume, and the chocolate mixture is folded into the coconut cream. Once set in the fridge for a few hours the result is luxurious, smooth silky chocolate mousse and rich dark moist sponge underneath. Click here for the recipe.

This class was so popular (and so delicious) we've scheduled another session of Vegan Puddings for Sunday, 20th May. Visit our website for more info. And happy baking!

Twitter Giveaway: Two spaces on our Leap Year Indian Thali Supper Club

2012-02-13T16:11:00.001Z

We're giving away two places on our special Leap Year Indian Thali Supper Club on 29th February.

To enter, tweet us an Indian dish that you would love to see served at the supperclub.

e.g. "I would love to have saag paneer at the @vegcs Leap Year Indian Thali Supperclub on 29 Feb"

We'll pick our favourite entry as the winner, who will receive two places on our supperclub AND we'll even make their winning dish.

Rules

1. Contest runs from 13 Feb - 22 Feb 2012

2. Entries MUST contain (1) an idea for an Indian dish and (2) a mention of @vegcs.

3. We will pick our favourite entry from those submitted and announce the winner on 22 Feb 2012.

4. Winner receives two spaces on the Leap Year Indian Thali Supper Club on 29th February.

Now head over to Twitter and enter to win!

Vegetarian Living | March 2012 | Rachel says

2012-02-01T09:40:00.000Z

The March issue of Vegetarian Living Magazine is now available and features my latest "Rachel says" column where I discuss the beauty of fresh olive oil and share a few tips on how to store and cook with it:

...Unlike wine, olive oil does not improve with age, and should only be kept until the next vintage. So if you have some special single estate olive oil, don’t hoard it, but use within a year. Store it in a tin or dark bottle in a cool, dark place, as light and heat damages the oil. Use your special oil for drizzling – it’s great over sourdough or focaccia bread with a rub of garlic, in salad dressings, or on soups or stews at the table...

I also share a yummy recipe for rosemary and sage focaccia, the perfect delivery device for delicious freh olive oil!

You can buy the March issue of Vegetarian Living online or click here to view the article in full.

Chinese New Year Celebration

2012-01-31T12:00:00.001Z

Chinese New Year began on 23rd January and to celebrate, we had Sachiko Saeki at The Vegetarian Cookery School's to lead a Chinese New Year Celebration cookery course. Our chef Helen Lawrence was there and wrote this blog post about her day.

For some, New Year's came and went almost a month ago. But those who came on Sachiko's course were lucky to enjoy New Year's a second time with her traditional family recipes to celebrate Chinese New Year.

New Year's food in China is different to everyday food in that the preparation will often take a day or two. Every region will have different dishes to celebrate New Year, and they will vary household to household. ‘Father’s one day old yam’ is called thus because it is Sachiko’s father's recipe and is always made the day before to allow the marinade sauce to fully absorb into the yam and tofu.

Being a special occasion, the Chinese New Year meal has a significant element of thought and planning. Some ingredients need soaking in advance, others need time and attention during the preparation. The shape and size of the vegetable cutting is important too.

But all of this is worth the effort - this is celebration food, after all, and we had the treat of deep frying as part of the cooking techniques, along with steaming and stir-frying.

We started making some seasonings. First, chilli oil, made with dried chillies, Szechuan peppercorn, cinnamon, star anise and clove, all ground up and heated in oil along with some garlic and spring onion: very aromatic yet not too hot. This was to become a dip for the mooli cake, a simple steamed loaf made with rice flour, corn flour and flecked with sweetcorn kernels and spring onion slices, fried until golden and crispy on the outside - they remind me of the texture of crumpets.

Next we deep fried cashew nuts until golden and then mixed them with salt and star anise, letting them sit to infuse in the anise flavour (it was a difficult task to leave them alone!). The cashews were used later in a stir-fried dish of fresh vegetables, unusually including cucumber, which is delicious cooked.

We delved into the world of dried Chinese ingredients, finding out how to use dried mushrooms and dried bean curd, making an amazing thick broth of cloud ear fungus, dried lily buds and bean curd, with mung bean noodles. The broth was made with a simple stock made from soaking kelp in water, plus the water used to soak the mushrooms.We then finely sliced some fresh purple sprouting broccoli, carrots and leeks, and boiled them briefly. The dish was finished with a special vegetarian "oyster sauce". It came together quickly and was so flavoursome; it got all of the sense going, from the umami flavour in the mushroom stock to the textures and colours of the vegetables: a real celebration of good food.

We also learnt the skill of making bamboo leaf parcels, stuffed with black rice, bamboo shoots and shitake mushrooms, folded and threaded into triangles, holding themselves together if made correctly!

Probably the biggest excitement of the day came with the pudding: sweet potato and sesame balls in jasmine syrup. None of us had eaten sweet potato as a dessert before and everyone was interested to taste the result. We used sweet potato, gently steamed and then mashed and held together with some rice flour. Once shaped into balls, each one was rolled in sesame seeds and then deep fried until golden. The result was extraordinary, simple flavours, soft sweet potato and a toffee apple-like surround made chewy from the caramelised sesame seeds.

On their own they were great, but with the jasmine-infused syrup they were divine.

So a really big thank you to Sachiko for sharing some of her family cooking secrets with us, and a happy new year of the dragon to everyone.

Vegetarian Living | February 2012 | Rachel says

2012-01-25T18:18:00.000Z

The February 2012 issue of Vegetarian Living Magazine is now available where you can find my borlotti bean and chestnut stew making front page news. The recipe for the stew is part of my latest "Rachel says" column, where I declare January the month of comfort food. In addition to stews, I also talk about the delights of two of my favourite seasonal vegetables: cavalo nero and cerliac.

...Cavalo nero is also known as black cabbage, Tuscan cabbage and dinosaur kale – and I rather like the latter description, as it’s an impressive statuesque plant, fine enough to grace a herbaceous border. It grows a metre high with leaves that grow upwards from the main stem. The tightly crinkled leaves are a dark emerald green, and when raindrops get caught on the leaves it creates a beautiful sight on a cold frosty morning.

You can buy the January 2012 issue of Vegetarian Living online or click here to view the article in full.

And if you just can't wait to get your hands on the stew recipe, here it is on our website: Borlotti Bean and Chestnut Stew

Healthy Recipes to Beat the January Blues

2012-01-24T17:14:00.000Z

We recently ran a Healthy Eating cookery course at The Vegetarian Cookery School to kick off the new year and get everyone's 2012 off to a delicious, healthy start. All of the recipes we made were low-fat, low-dairy, low-sugar and wheat-free. After such a cleansing, wholesome day, I really felt that my January blues were banished!

The recipes we made were just so tasty and refreshing that wanted to share a couple of my favourites with you.

First was this amazing Super Food Smoothie, which Aradhana had shown us how to make on her Raw Food Workshop (the next of which is on Sunday 11th March). The smoothie is full of nuts and seeds that get soaked overnight - I was very skeptical about this but Helen assured me that soaking nuts and seeds overnight increases their enzyme activity and makes them more easily digestible and nutritious. What I love about this smoothie is that it fills me up at the beginning of the day and I can work through to lunch time with out getting peckish. The choice of what you put in is entirely up to you (but you do need a liquidizer to wiz it all up).

We also made a Miso Ramen Soup with Shitake mushrooms and Seaweed. Here we used fresh, un-pasterised miso, Genmai miso, a soya and brown rice variety, which was sweet and salty at the same time, tempting to eat by the spoonful. The choice of vegetables is up to you. Try thinly sliced carrots, broccoli florets, purple sprouting, kale or chard.

I hope you enjoy the recipes. What are you eating this time of year to cleanse the system?

Superfood Smoothie

Serves 2-4

Ingredients

1 tbsp sunflower seeds, soaked overnight
1 tbsp pumpkin seeds, soaked overnight
1 tbsp brazil nuts, soaked overnight
1 tbsp cashews, soaked overnight
1 tbsp raisins, soaked overnight
2 dates, soaked overnight
2 apricots (unsulphered), soaked overnight
handful of fresh mint leaves
1 banana, peeled and chopped
1 pear (or apple), peeled and chopped
200-500ml cold water, added to desired consistency
Optional add-ons: a handful of blueberries, strawberries, redcurrants,blackcurrants and raspberries for a red berry smoothie or a handful of spinach leaves, parsley, watercress for a green smoothie

Method

Soak the nuts and seeds together overnight, and soak the dried fruit together overnight.
Rinse the soaked nuts and seeds, then place into a blender and whizz until finely ground.
Add the soaked dried fruit, the banana, pear and the mint and blend until smooth. A
dd your choice of berries or greens and blend, whilst adding enough water to make a smooth consistency. Only add as much water as you want, you can drink the smoothie thick or thin.

Tips

Soaked nuts and seeds add nutritional content, flavour and make for a more filling smoothie to drink as a breakfast alternative. Soaking nuts and seeds overnight increases their enzyme activity and makes them more easily digestible and nutritious.
Optional extras to boost your superfood smoothie include maca powder for energy and hormone balancing. – add 1 tsp. Spirulina, Blue-green algae or wheatgrass powders are used for alkalising the body and as a rich source of vitamins and minerals, spirulina is a source of GLA used by the body as an anti-inflammatory.

Miso Ramen Soup with Shitake and Seaweed

Dietary: Vegan

Serves: 4

Stock Ingredients:

1.5litres water
1 medium onion, quartered
2 carrots, cut in halves
2 celery stalks, cut in halves
1 leek
8 whole black peppercorns
30g dried shitake mushrooms
30g piece of kelp

Method:

Soak the kelp and shitake mushrooms overnight.
In a large saucepan put in all the ingredients, including the skins on the vegetables, bring to the boil, turn down the heat and simmer gently until the vegetables are cooked and the stock has reduced by a quarter, which takes about 1 hour. Strain the stock, keeping the liquid and discarding the vegetables.

Miso Soup Ingredients:

2 tbsps Arame Seaweed
100g soba ramen noodles
750ml stock
4 tbsps shoyu
1 tbsp ginger juice
1 tbsp rice vinegar
100g endame beans
150g pak choi
100g shitake mushrooms
100g tofu cubes
2 tbsps miso
3 spring onions, sliced

Method:

Soak the seaweed in boiling water for 15 minutes.
Boil the soba ramen noodles in plenty of water for 4 minutes, drain and divide between 4 bowls.
Bring the stock to the boil and add the seaweed plus the soaking water and the shoyu, ginger juice, rice vinegar and endame beans, pak choi, shitake mushrooms and tofu cubes and simmer gently for a couple of minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the miso and sliced spring onions.
Pour the miso soup over the ramen noodles and eat at once.

Tips:

Ramen noodles are Japanese noodles. Soba are made from buckwheat flour. Udon and Somen from wheat flour. Udon are thicker than Somen noodles.
Arame Seaweed is shredded into very small strands and has a mild salty flavour.
Miso is made by fermenting soya beans, rice barley or wheat with salt.
Miso is very nutritious, rich in protein, minerals, B vitamins and calcium. It is a living food containing enzymes from the fermentation process and is always added at the end of cooking to avoid killing these healthy enzymes.
Hacho Miso is made from soya beans. Genmai Miso from soya beans and brown rice
Mugi Miso from soya beans and barley. Natto Miso is made from soya beans, barley, ginger and seaweed.
Look for un-pasteurised miso in the refrigerated section in your local wholefood store.

Our next Healthy Eating Course is on Friday 13th April.

Our next Raw Food Course is on Sunday 11th March

Leap Year Indian Supper Club - 29th February

2012-01-23T17:34:00.000Z

The 29th of February is a day that happens only once every four years, so we're marking the occasion with a special Leap Year Supper Club featuring one of our favourite cuisines: Indian!

The menu will be spicy, warming, exotic, Thali style dishes to share amongst each other at our two large dining tables at The Vegetarian Cookery School. The cooking of India is one of our passions and our dishes have been gathered by Rachel on her travels. The menu, as always, will be a bit of a surprised, but you can count on a Thali of exciting and delicious dishes including our popular Dosas, curries, chutneys and an indulgent sweet dish.

If you're new to the supper club thing, never fear: it's a friendly, inclusive atmosphere and you should feel free to come on your own with friends. The supper club idea is this: a fab meal prepared by chefs from Demuths Restaurant and the Vegetarian Cookery School, served at shared tables right in the kitchen cookery school kitchen. (After all, don't all good parties end up in the kitchen?)

I can't wait to sit down and raise a glass with you all over a delicious meal of seasonal, spicy, veggie delights!

The details so far:

When: Wednesday 29th February
Time: 7.30pm
Where: Vegetarian Cookery School, Bath, BA1 1LN
Menu: Indian Feast
Drinks: BYO
Price: £30 per person
How to book: Book online or Email us@demuths.co.uk. Space is limited to 20 guests, and on a first come first served basis. So book now!

Vegetarian Living | January 2012 | Rachel says

2012-01-23T16:57:00.000Z

The January 2012 issue of Vegetarian Living Magazine is now available and features my latest "Rachel says" column where I write about our recent visit with Yotom Ottolenghi, Christmas cookery and engaging the senses with colour and texture:

...Winter squashes are colourful and come in a variety of sizes and shapes, so they look strikingly beautiful piled high in a basket. Their thick skins mean they will keep until spring, too. My favourite is Crown Prince, which has a steel-grey/blue skin and saffron-orange flesh. It’s perfect for roasting in thick slices (with the skin left on for extra flavour), as it has a dark green line under the skin, which contrasts beautifully with the orange flesh.

I also share a recipe for a vibrant pomegranate and roasted root salad.

You can buy the January 2012 issue of Vegetarian Living online or click here to view the article in full.

Cooking with Carluccio

2012-01-17T17:26:00.001Z

This post is written by Jo Ingleby, former head chef of Demuths Restaurant and current tutor at the Vegetarian Cookery School. Jo recently won the Best Mushroom Dish of 2011 in a contest hosted by Carluccio's Restaurant. The prize included a fabulous day cooking Italian delights with Antonio Carluccio himself. Jo generously wrote about her day for the blog and shared some very hunger-inducing pictures of the occasion.

Back in November I was lucky to win the title of “Best Mushroom Dish 2011” for Carluccio’s Restaurant. My dish was Fresh Herb Ravioli filled with Wild Mushrooms and Chestnuts tossed in a Truffle and Tarragon Butter with Truffle Shavings. The prize was to have the dish on the Carluccio’s Restaurant menu and to spend a day cooking with Antonio Carluccio himself. Antonio has always been big hero of mine and top of my list of chefs to meet-his love of vegetables and mushrooms in particular has always meant that his are the recipe books I go to when in need of inspiration. The idea of cooking with the man himself, in his own home kitchen really is the dream prize for me.

The day began with a warm welcome from Antonio and his team. We talked mushrooms and Antonio showed me his huge collection of mushrooms made from everything from felt to wood, even the stools were mushroom shaped! Then the cooking began.

Warm Batavia Salad

First we made a warm salad of batavia, or escarole, which is a bitter leaf similar in taste to chicory but more close to lettuce in appearance. Antonio explained that this dish could be made just as well with chicory, kale or (my favourite) Cavolo Nero. Antonio fried garlic and dried chilli seeds in olive oil (not Extra Virgin which he reserves to use raw). Then he added chopped Batavia nearly filling a big saucepan, along with salted capers which were brought back from Italy and tasted amazing, really crunchy and sharp.

All of this was cooked, with the lid on, with a big splash of Carluccio’s tomato Passata until the Batavia had wilted down.

Quick Polenta

While the Batavia cooked Antonio showed me his own way of making quick Polenta which surprised me. I'm used to mixing it with boiling water, stirring well and relying on cheeses and butter for flavour. Antonio simply mixed the quick cook Polenta with salt, olive oil and hot water and set it to one side for a few minutes. He then heated the tiniest pan imaginable and added a little olive oil. He pressed the polenta into the pan to make a thick cake and cooked it until charred on one side, flipped it over on a plate and cooked the other side. He explained that this would taste like barbecued corn on the cob-and it did! The perfect accompaniment to the delicious flavour of the warm, tomatoey Batavia.

During the day Antonio shared his passion for Italian cookery, his love of all things mushroom and vegetable and his brilliant sense of humour! As well as the Vegetarian Cookery School, I also work at Redcliffe Children’s Centre in central Bristol. I work with the 120 children there, who are all under three, bringing in seasonal vegetables and other ingredients for them to explore. I encourage creativity as well as a love of vegetables, flavours and textures of food. We grow in the allotment, cook by the side of the plot and eat as soon as we pick. Antonio and his team were really interested in this as it's close to how Italian children see food as a crucial part of life and culture. We looked at my photographs of the children at the centre cooking mushrooms on the child height induction hobs, listening to the noises of the mushrooms and tasting raw and cooked vegetables.

Pasta and Porcini

As the competition had been to invent a mushroom dish, we couldn’t let the opportunity to cook mushrooms escape. Antonio showed me his way of having wild mushrooms such as porcini available all year round: he cooks them in lots of butter and garlic and freezes them for use all year round; something I’ll be doing from now on!

The mushrooms were defrosted (in hot water and then the pan) in minutes and cooked along with onions, garlic, olive oil and the secret ingredient of an Italian Porcini stock cube which smelt amazing. In another pan he cooked Bucatini, a thick spaghetti with a hole in the centre, then spooned the pasta into the cooking mushrooms.

The dish was finished with a generous grate of Parmesan-ready in just a few minutes but with the incredible flavour of porcini mushrooms and garlic.

Pizza

Before I knew it my day was nearly over…but there was still time for pizza! We made a really simple sauce of fried garlic, fresh basil, passata and olive oil and spooned this onto proved dough made with “00” grade flour topped with fresh mozzarella and lots of olive oil and salt.

In minutes the pizza was ready, unfortunately so was the taxi back to Paddington and the real world! I left full of ideas, inspiration and food after one of the most enjoyable days of my life; a pleasure to meet a food hero who lived up to and exceeded my expectations. I look forward to Autumn when the dish will go on the Carluccio’s menu and I can eat it with friends and family and a big smile!

Click here to see Jo's winning recipe for Fresh Herb Ravioli filled with Wild Mushrooms and Chestnuts tossed in a Truffle and Tarragon Butter with Truffle Shavings

Celebrating Beetroot

2012-01-06T16:46:00.000Z

Beetroot, herb, almond, apple and watercress salad with horseradish dressing

As winter settles in, exciting vegetables become harder and harder to come by and we say a little prayer of thanks for beetroot. It’s colour, sweetness and healthy vitamin content make it a welcome friend in the hard winter months.

Known in Tudor times as Roman Beet, the red beetroot was largely forgotten in England for a thousand years until the 16th Century. Since then it has gone from strength to strength, across northern Europe with both its leaves and swollen taproot prized and developed into many colours and varieties.

Beetroot is one of the most under-rated and under-used vegetable grown in Britain. Perhaps our tradition of pickling and buying pre-boiled beetroot has given it a bad reputation but beetroot is a tasty, healthy and incomparably colorful vegetable, which can be enjoyed in many different ways.

Beetroot is lovely raw in salads or roasted with cumin and balsamic vinegar; it has both a sweet and savoury taste which means it can compliment strong flavours but is also tasty alone. Although beetroot is often associated with cold climates and the cuisines of Russia, Poland and Scandinavia, it is also delicious in Indian dishes like beetroot subzi. We like to make beetroot tzatsiki to serve as a dip, or roast it with other root veg for a warm winter salad.

Try to buy fresh beetroot with the leaves still attached, they are edible and very tasty. Baby leaves can be eaten raw and larger ones treated like spinach. There are many different coloured beetroots now being grown and it is worth trying them, especially the pink and white striped Italian Chioggia variety.

To boil:

Beetroots should not be peeled before cooking, if you do all the colour will leach out into the cooking water, just boil them whole in plenty of water until the skin begins to break away from the root and the skin wrinkles (about 30 - 60 minutes, depending on size). Cool the beetroot under cold water and peel off the skin. The colour of beetroot is one of its best features but can be off-putting both because the colour spreads to other food when cooking and can stain hands, clothes and urine!

To roast:

Roast whole wrapped in a silver foil packet at 180C for 1 hour, then leave to cool and the skins will easily peel off, then slice. Or slice first ( no need to peel if the beetroots are young, if large and older peel first) and roast with a little olive oil or rapeseed oil at 180c until tender.

For more inspiration, check out the latest issue of Flavour Magazine, which finds our head chef Richard Buckley's vibrant recipe for beetroot, herb, almond, apple and watercress salad with horseradish dressing (pictured above).

Flavour Magazine | December 2011 | Beetroot

2012-01-06T16:12:00.000Z

Demuths' head chef Richard Buckley is featured in the December/January issue of Flavour Magazine along with his fab recipe for beetroot, herb, almond, apple and watercress salad with horseradish dressing.

After Christmas’s excess we all crave something light and cleansing to help lift our spirits in the crisp January air. It is a great joy to be able to do this using those lovely fresh ingredients growing right on our doorstep. This recipe uses some of our very own superfoods – sweet beetroot, crisp apple and peppery watercress – to give a big vitamin-laden treat. The fresh winter herbs add real variety of flavour as well as a dose of antioxidants and the horseradish dressing brings the whole thing together with a fiery cleansing tang.

You can find the recipe on page 36 of Flavour Magazine. Click here to read it online.

Our Favourite Christmas Puddings

2011-12-20T14:09:00.000Z

It's our final round of Christmas recipes. We started with vegetarian Christmas starters, then moved on to the much coveted vegetarian Christmas main dishes. Now we present the last course: Christmas puddings! Here are some of our favourite recipes from Demuths Restaurant and the Vegetarian Cookery School:

Dark Chocolate and Chestnut Roule

This gluten-free pud (pictured above) makes use of chestnut puree and eggs to create a rich, decadent chocolate sponge, rolled in creamy white chocolate and more chestnut puree. Delicious with caramelised hazelnuts.

Recipe: Dark Chocolate and Chestnut Roule

Sticky Toffee and Ginger Puddings

Our version of the classic sticky toffee pudding. Seriously rich and wonderfully fragrant, this pudding gets a double ginger kick with both ground ginger and crystallised ginger. It is also easily made vegan with the use of soya milk in batter.

Recipe: Sticky Toffee and Ginger Puddings

Boozy Chocolate Truffles

You really can't go wrong with good truffles. We give ours a boozy kick a bit of brandy or rum in the chocolate ganache that forms the rich epicentre of these chocolate goodies. We like to roll ours in several different coatings - pistachios, cocoa, chopped cranberries, crystallised ginger - which makes for a nice selection of varied truffles that look beautiful on the plate.

Recipe: Boozy Chocolate Truffles

Christmas Tree Cookies

This recipe is a bit of fun, especially for kids: spiced festive cookies for hanging on the Christmas tree. They're easy to make, fun to decorate and are easily made dairy-free, gluten-free or vegan.

Recipe: Christmas Tree Cookies

Vegetarian Christmas Main Dishes

2011-12-15T11:38:00.001Z

Less than two weeks until Christmas - how is your menu planning going?

Last week we posted our recipes for vegetarian Christmas starters. Today, we continue our round-up of vegetarian Christmas recipes with our collection of main dishes (and their requisite accoutrements!).

The trouble we always have with Christmas mains is that all of these dishes are so marvellous, we want to cook them all. So, maybe a nut roast on Christmas Day, and a festive Bastilla on Christmas eve? But where does that leave the exquisite wild mushroom, ale and salsify pie? There's always Boxing Day…

Without further ado, the recipes!

Demuths Christmas Roast

"Some people may see nut loaf as old fashioned but we think that cooked with enough care this humble, comforting, vegetarian classic can be turned into something quite special." That was our head chef Richard writing in our recent newsletter about the nut loaf currently on our Christmas menu at Demuths Restaurant, and this recipe follows the same principles.

Made with lentils, cashews, sunflower and pumpkin seeds, plus a smattering of spice from chilli and ginger, this vegetarian Christmas roast is exquisite with Shallot and Calvados Gravy.

Recipe: Demuths Christmas Roast with Shallot and Calvados Gravy

Festive Bastilla

This is our version of the Moroccan pie which traditionally is made of pigeon! Instead, we fill ours with lentils, veggies, herbs, pine nuts, feta and fragrant spices. This recipe is enough to serve about 6 and makes a large snake shaped pie to serve as a centre piece on Christmas Day. The feta can be omitted for a vegan bastille, and you can also make it as individual pies. Traditionally, bastille is sprinkled with icing sugar, cinnamon and flaked almonds.

Recipe: Festive Bastilla

Festive Filo Rotolo

“Rotolo” is an Italian dish, traditionally made with sheets of pasta - Rotolo means “Roll”. We simplify things by using fill pastry, layered with squash, artichokes, walnuts and spinach. Rolled up, baked, then sliced, this retool makes a visually stunning and delicious centrepiece for Christmas dinner. Any leftover filling can become another meal or part of a feast. The Rotolo can be frozen and cooked from frozen or defrosted a little before cooking, brushed with melted butter or olive oil, and cooked until golden.

Recipe: Festive Filo Rotolo

Wild Mushroom, Ales & Salsify Pie

A warming, richly flavoured pie is always welcome at Christmas dinner. This vegan pie is filled with wild mushrooms and veggies seasoned with marmite, mustard, thyme and, of course, ale and salsify.

Salsify is a native of southern Europe with white flesh and creamy skin. It's popular in Italy and Spain with a subtle taste somewhere between a globe artichoke & asparagus.
Recipe: Wild Mushroom, Ales & Salsify Pie

Sprouts roasted with leeks and chestnuts

I think both vegetarians and meat eaters will agree that it's just not Christmas without roasted veg. Many of you on Twitter mentioned brussels sprouts specifically. This is our take on roasted brussels sprouts, with chestnuts and leeks, punctuated by lemon zest, sage and sherry. Delicious scattered with pomegranate seeds.

Of course, all of these go brilliantly with a bit of Cranberry Gin and Tonic!

Be sure to check out our previous blog post on recipes for vegetarian Christmas starters. You'll also find loads more vegetarian Christmas recipes on our website.

What are your favourite recipes for vegetarian Christmas main dishes? Let us know in the comments, on Twitter, or on Facebook. We'll post a round-up of YOUR favourite recipes to the blog!

Vegetarian Christmas Starters

2011-12-08T21:18:00.001Z

This is the first in a series of blog posts summing up our favourite Christmas recipes. After all, one of the best things about Christmas is planning the Christmas meal. In a way we're kind of lucky - we get to enjoy this far ahead of the holiday in planning our Christmas menu at Demuths restaurant (currently going strong and running until the end of the year). And there's plenty more where that came from.

So whether you want to add a few vegetarian dishes to your Christmas feast, or are looking to create an entirely vegetarian menu, we hope to offer some ideas for beautiful, celebratory vegetable-based dishes that sing of festive cheer. We'll also share some of the great ideas for vegetarian Christmas dishes we receive here and on Twitter.

This first post focuses on vegetarian starters. We'll follow later with vegetarian mains and puddings. Now, on with the recipes!

Celeriac and Potato Rostis

These little bite-sized nuggets of bliss (pictured above) are simply beautiful to look at, and with a flavour to match. Served on a slice of griddled bread, they make a lovely canape. They're also vegan, wheat-free and delicious with caper tartar (below).

Chestnut Mushroom, Hazelnut and Smoked Tofu Pate

This pate is a popular mainstay on our cookery courses, made of smoked tofu, roasted hazels and flavoursome chestnut mushrooms. It's an earthy mix, to which we add a splash of brandy for a Christmas lift. Delicious served with toasted bread, or as a dip with crudités.

Chive & Caper Filled Gougeres

A gougeres is a baked savory choux pastry made of choux dough mixed with cheese. In our recipe, we use parmesan to create a delightfully savoury little pastry ball. Then, to make it extra special, we fill it with cream cheese or labna spiked with chives and capers.

Caper Tartar

This tartar is delicious with Celeriac and Potato Rostis, but you can also serve it simply with bread, raw veggies or any other dipping devise you can think of.

Caramelised Hazelnuts

More of a snack than a starter, but delicious all the same. You can even get extra festive by forming your caramelised hazelnuts into a nut pyramid, drizzled with chocolate - like an edible Christmas tree!

Cranberry Gin

Ok, so this one's not an edible starter, but it's certainly lovely to start with all the same.

What are your favourite vegetarian starters?

We know lots of you have tackled numerous nut roasts, pies, casseroles and other main dishes - but what do you like to start with at your Christmas feast? Let us know in the comments or on Twitter!

The joys of fresh olive oil

2011-11-30T06:13:00.001Z

I’ve just had a wonderful experience picking olives to press for olive oil in Tuscany, high up in the hills north of Arezzo, cold frosty misty mornings moving into warm sunshine and then to clear starry nights.

In one day 7 of us picked 250kilos of small black mountain olives, first we laid out a big net on the ground under the olive tree, rolled up the edges so that none of the olives rolled out, then with big combs the size of two hands we combed the feathery branches and the olives fell into the net. In a well-tended olive grove, the trees are no more than head height, with all the olives on the outside and so easy to harvest - these trees were more irregular so we had to climb up into them to get the olives down. For the fiddly trees we used cane baskets strapped our fronts and picked the olives into the basket with our fingers.

Once the olives were picked, we carefully gathered up the net, easing the olives into a corner and then gently poured them into big plastic boxes, each holding approx 25 kilos, being very careful not to drop any into the grass.

We did this for tree after tree, until dusk fell, trying to get as few leaves and twigs into the boxes as possible. Some trees had more green than black olives, but that didn’t matter, they would all be turned into oil. The olives must be pressed within 24 hours, as they begin to oxidize from the moment they are picked.

Pressing olives into oil

We piled 11 boxes of olives into two cars and drove to the local olive press. An ultra clean modern press, using a steel press rather than traditional millstones.

We emptied our olives into a huge box that was then put onto a forklift and taken to be weighed (250kilos) - last year they had got nearly 400kilos, everyone was saying the harvest was down due to a dry summer.

The olives then went up a mini escalator and into a water bath, where the leaves and twigs floated to the top, then up again into the press to be crushed, stones and flesh, then into a mixer. At this stage it looked like brown porridge, then into a centrifuge, where the oil and water are separated, then the oil is filtered and pours in a steady green stream into large 20 litre stainless steel flagons, as the oil poured in, we tasted it, thick, unctuous with a strong peppery flavour, so strong that it hit the back of your throat and made you take a gulp.

We weighed our oil which came to 39litres 14.5% of olives to oil and the whole process had taken less than 2 hours. It felt rather like we had taken a vast amount of hand picked beautiful olives and came out with rather small stainless steel flagons!

At the back of the press was a vast pile of the olive residue pomace (with the oil pressed out) which looked and felt like garden hummus. This would sold on to be pressed again for lesser quality olive oil.

As an olive oil novice, I found it very exciting to be able to see the whole process and within two hours to be able to drink the new oil, the freshest and peppery oil that I have ever tasted.

Unlike wine, the fresher the olive oil is the better, and olive oil is supposed to only last until the next vintage. We did taste and compare the 2010 with our new 2011, and the older one had lost the peppery sharpness and was more subdued and rounded, still jolly good in my mind.

So if you have some special single estate olive oil, unlike wine don’t hoard it thinking it will improve, but use it within the year, keep it in a tin or in a dark bottle as light damages the oil, as does heat, so store in a cool dark place. Use your special oil for drizzling – it’s great over sourdough or focaccia bread with a rub of garlic, in salad dressings, poured into soups or stews at the table.

For cooking, don’t cook with your best olive oil as heat will destroy the flavour and the goodness. Instead, use a lesser quality extra virgin olive oil for cooking, I always buy extra virgin as it guarantees that the oil has been pressed without the use of chemicals.

Picking the olives was hunger-making work and we were rewarded with a Tuscan bean soup with fresh olive oil on the table to spoon into the soup. It was delicious, served with Tuscan bread (traditionally made with no salt) and, of course, a drizzle of fresh olive oil.

Tuscan Cavalo Nero and Cannellini Bean Soup

Dietary: Wheat-free
Serves:4-6

Ingredients

400g tin of cannellini beans or other white beans, or 100g dry beans, soaked overnight and boiled until soft (approx 1 hour)
1 large onion, chopped
2 medium Potatoes (approx 400 g) -peeled and cubed into 1 cm chunks
2 sticks of celery, chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
Bouquet garni of bay, thyme, rosemary
1 litre vegetable stock
Olive oil to fry
Salt and pepper
A squeeze of lemon juice
A handful of cavalo nero, stripped off the stem and chopped

Toppings

Extra virgin olive oil
Parmesan style cheese, grated

Method

Rinse the cooked beans.
Heat olive oil in a large saucepan and add the onions, and celery, cook for about 10 minutes and then add the garlic and potato and cook for another 5 minutes, stirring all the time to coat the potatoes. Add the beans, bouquet garni, stock and simmer for approximately 15 minutes, or until the potatoes are soft.
You can leave the soup chunky or puree into a smooth consistency
Season to taste and add a little lemon juice. Just before serving add a handful of cavalo nero, this will cook in just a couple of minutes.
Taste again for seasoning and then serve in bowls, drizzled with as much extra virgin olive oil as you like and grated parmesan style cheese.

Olive Picking & Pressing, a set on Flickr.

Inspiring Young Chefs

2011-11-03T09:54:00.000Z

Last week saw our Young Vegetarian Chef Competition come to an exciting climax at our Masterchef-style cook-off where each of our six finalists prepared a dish in a set amount of time to be judged by our own Rachel Demuth and Tom Herbert of Hobbs House Bakery.

When we first set out to host the competition, we did it with the aim of inspiring young people to put on their aprons and get cooking. But in the end, it was the young chefs who inspired US, not only with their delicious dishes, but with their enthusiasm, optimism and creativity.

I believe BBC Bristol's short video captures this best in the lovely little scene where Callum has to improvise:

Click here to play the video in a new window.

In the end, the winner of the 11 – 12 Age Group was Eve Singleton and of the 13 - 16 age group was Zipporah Santer, both of whom created recipes that were worthy of any restaurant, and might just inspire you as much as they inspired us:

Eve's recipe for Chickpea and Apricot Tagine

Zipporah's recipe for Moroccan Filo Parcel with Jeweled Couscous

The event left us super-charged to get more young chefs in the kitchen. Information about the Young Vegetarian Chef Competition 2012 is already on our website, and we've got our next Young Chefs Cookery Course slotted for 16th February 2012. It's such a thrill to see young people get excited about cooking, and we hope our competition and courses continue to encourage more budding young chefs to exercise their culinary might!

Related Links:

Young Vegetarian Chef Competition 2012
Young Chef Cookery Course
Press release about the 2011 competition
Flickr photos from the 2011 competition
BBC Bristol video of the 2011 competition
Eve's recipe for Chickpea & Apricot Tagine
Zipporah's recipe for Moroccan Filo Parcel with Jeweled Couscous

Talking Chillis with Dan Reed

2011-10-27T17:12:00.000+01:00

Dan Reed came on our Mexican Cookery Course this month and brought with him a huge assortment of unusual chillis that he grew himself. We were so fascinated by his passion for chillies that we couldn't resist asking him more about them. Dan has graciously given us permission to share his knowledge and experience in this interview - our first interview on the Demuths blog!

What drew you to growing chillies?

From a relatively young age I've had an interest in hot food. I have fond memories of my growing up and my dad making big pots of curry for the family (and a smaller saucepan of veggie curry for me!) I guess my tolerance to the hot food has developed over the years, and I've found myself eating hotter and hotter meals. Growing chillies developed over time. I was given my first plant by a friend, it was a Ring of Fire! When I realised how easy it was to grow them, I started planting more and more seeds.

Do you have a favourite chilli? Why?

Initially, I was drawn to the different varieties by their appearance - the colours, size and some amazing shapes. But over time I came to appreciate that some would germinate faster than others, or grow quicker, produce more chillies than others, and of course some varieties were much hotter than others. I have a couple of favourites. The Lemon Aji, for its amazing yellow colour, it grows pretty quickly and has a high yield of pretty hot fruit. The Trinidad 7 Pot is a firm favourite at the moment, its called the 7 pot, because locally its renowned that one chilli will service seven pots of stew. That's one chilli per family for a week - Bonkers. The Trinidad Scorpion is related to the 7 pot, and currently the worlds hottest chilli, rating 1.4 million scoville units, I guess I don't need to say much more about that! Whilst I'm quite interested in the Trinidad hot chillies, they really are so hot that you can't really do too much with them without causing tremendous amounts of pain and suffering! The faithful old Jalapeno will always hold a dear place in my heart though, being an avid fan of Mexican cuisine, and especially as I've just liberated my dads smoker... Chipotles here we come!

Are chillis just a hobby or would you like to do it more professionally?

At the moment growing chillies are just a hobby, though I give a number of both plants and fruit to friends and family. There is a huge interest in chillies, and different varieties are becoming more commonplace in the supermarkets and high street. I would love to get into chilli growing on a more commercial basis. I make my own hot sauces, and would definitely love to see a bottle or two for sale on a shop shelf somewhere.

Can chillis be grown indoors? During what times of year?

Chili plants are perennial, meaning they will live through an autumn/winter, and will often live for a few years given the right conditions. Though when you consider the temperature differences between the UK and their native countries (South America, Asia, India, etc) our winters get much colder, too cold for a chilli. They will grow outdoors in the Spring and Summer months, though should be brought indoors when the weather starts getting colder, I'd say from October onwards. They will happily live on a sunny windowsill or conservatory during the colder months, and can be put back outdoors when the weather starts warming up again, but this should be done over a few days, gently acclimatising the plants to the outdoor conditions. Potted plants can be grown indoors all year round, though you must ensure that when they start producing flowers and fruit that a nutrient is added to the soil such as tomato feed. Having experienced such a poor summer, I've just invested in a grow tent which is a thermal reflective tent which enables you to grow plants all year round. Hopefully I'll be picking fresh chillies for Christmas!

What types of chillis do you recommend people grow at home? Any growing tips for getting the best crop?

Generally speaking, the hotter the chilli, the longer (and slightly more difficult) they take to germinate and grow. The biggest thing to consider though is the tolerance you have to the capsaicin (the stuff that gives you the burning sensation, and makes chillies hot) levels of a chilli. If a chilli is too hot for you to eat, why grow it?! With that in mind, I'd suggest a slightly milder chilli to start with, and work up from there. The good classics to start with are Jalapeno, Piri Piri, Cayenne, Tabasco, Birds eye, etc, but this is just a personal opinion, other Chileheads would more than likely suggest their own favourites.

Growing wise, I'd suggest putting them in the ground will more often than not get you a bigger plant. Though if you are only able to grow in pots, upgrade the pots in small increments (don't go straight from a small seedling pot to something you'd stick a tree in!) It will take a little more effort, but your plant will be better for it. Once the fruit have started growing, and are ripe, don't leave them on the plant, the more you pick, the more it will produce. If you leave them on there, the plant will think that its produced everything it needs to because the fruit are still sitting on its branches. I've also recently read that growing the plants on their sides encourages the side shoots to grow, which apparently have a higher yield of fruit, though I haven't tried this one yet.

How do you use your chillis? What types of dishes and cuisines?

I put chillies in pretty much everything, I've been making sauces a lot lately which also goes on top of pretty much everything too. Cooking with fresh chillies is my preference, but if I ever have more than I can deal with, I'll chop them up and freeze them in ice cube trays. That way they're prepared and ready to throw into the next meal. My favourite cuisine has to be Mexican, I'm also a big fan of both Indian and Lebanese food. Given the choice, I would normally rather a selection of smaller dishes to one big one. I've picked up some great recipes from Demuths cookery classes, I'm particularly loving the Huevos Rancheros we made, and have eaten it a good half a dozen times over the last fortnight!

Big thanks to Dan Reed for taking the time to talk chillies with us. Dan lives in Cardiff with his wife, Wendy, and two kids, Oakley (2 and half years) and Maya (8 months) old. He works for a firm of solicitors in the Brecon Beacons on a part time basis, and also with his wife Wendy in her company, science made simple.

Young Chefs Celebrated at the Vegetarian Cookery School Competition

2011-10-26T16:46:00.004+01:00

Young Vegetarian Chef of the Year Competition 2011, a set on Flickr.

PRESS RELEASE

October 2011

YOUNG CHEFS CELEBRATED

AT THE VEGETARIAN COOKERY SCHOOL COMPETITION

The Vegetarian Cookery School in Bath launched its first national competition on Tuesday 25th October to find the Young Vegetarian Chef of the Year 2011.

This exciting new contest was open to enthusiastic and creative young chefs in two categories, aged 11 – 12 and 13 – 16, who enjoy cooking with seasonal produce – they did not necessarily have to be vegetarian.

Three finalists from each age group were invited to attend the finals day to compete for podium position. There will be one overall winner of each group, with runners up and prizes for all participants.

Rachel Demuth, chef proprietor of the Vegetarian Cookery School and the Award-winning vegetarian restaurant Demuths, said:

“These motivated young people have inspired us to launch a new national competition to encourage and reward keen young chefs with a passion for cooking exciting, original and delicious vegetable-based food.”

To enter the competition, young chefs had to cook their favourite vegetarian main course dish at home and send in a photograph with the recipe, along with a brief explanation about why they love to make their chosen dish. All entries were judged on knowledge of ingredients, preparation, skills, creativity and presentation. Chefs were permitted to use any ingredients they like in their recipes, except meat and fish.

The six shortlisted young chefs competed on Tuesday 25th October by spending the day cooking a vegetarian main course of their choice produced within a set time frame, at the Vegetarian Cookery School in Bath. They were also asked to complete a quiz to test their knowledge of ingredients.

The line up is as follows:

11-12 Age Group

Eve Singleton (12) from Rugby,
Mitali Atkins (11) Bath
Callum Cockburn (12) Harwell, Oxford

13 – 16 Age Group

Solstice Wilson Garner (13) Bath
Zipporah Santer (15) Hawkhurst, Kent
Alice Davies (13) Bieuzy Les Eaux, France

Judging the competition was Rachel Demuth of Demuths Restaurant and The Vegetarian Cookery School and guest judge Tom Herbert of Hobbs House Bakery. Tom is best known for his BBC TV series In Search of the Perfect Loaf and also co-presented the major BBC production Turn Back Time. Fresh out of college, Tom won Young Baker of the Year and continues to win awards for the family firm, Hobbs House Bakery. Tom's family has been baking bread in the Cotswolds for five generations.

The young chefs delivered exquisite dishes to a very high standard; all dishes would easily fit into a restaurant menu. Rachel said:

“It’s so exciting for the future of Vegetarian Cooking that these young Chefs have produced dishes of such a high quality.”

Tom said of Eve’s winning dish: “It would make my evening if I was served food this good, made me grin.” Of Zipporah’s dish: “a new crown for positively vegetarian cooking, bejeweled and delicious, totally Moorish”

The winner of the 11 – 12 Age Group was Eve Singleton and Zipporah Santer from the 13 – 16 Age Group. Runners up were Solstice Wilson Garner and Mitali Atkins.

Eve and Zipporah were awarded a set of professional chef pans from NEFF, a Complete Baking Kit from Hobbs House Bakery and a one-day cookery course at The Vegetarian Cookery School. Runners up received a Rangemaster Gadget Pot and a Rangemaster Mercara Stripe apron and oven glove and a £20 Kitchens voucher. All the finalists received a signed Green Seasons cookbook by Rachel Demuth.
For full details of all prizes, competition sponsors, competition terms and conditions, please visit: www.vegetariancookeryschool.com

NOTES TO EDITORS:

The Vegetarian Cookery School is the finest exclusively vegetarian cookery school in the UK. The School is run by chef Rachel Demuth, author of three vegetarian cookery books and owner of Demuths, the award-winning vegetarian restaurant in Bath. For full competition details visit: www.vegetariancookeryschool.com

For photographs, interviews or further information, please contact
Roz Golding on tel: 07917 110765 or email: roz_golding@yahoo.co.uk

Young Vegetarian Chef of the Year Competition 2011, a set on Flickr.

Mexican Supperclub Recap

2011-10-24T10:23:00.001+01:00

Last Wednesday was our second supper club at the Vegetarian Cookery School. This time we went with a Mexican theme to take advantage of the season's fresh hot chillies, sweetcorn, squashes and the last of the tomatoes and tomatillos.

The whole evening was spectacular, thanks largely to a great turn out from our keen supper-clubbers, many of whom had never before eaten Mexican food! I think they'll agree that our chefs Helen Lawrence and Jo Ingleby, both former head chefs of Demuths Restaurant and current tutors at the cookery school, gave them a pretty stellar introduction to Mexican cuisine in their smashing tasting menu:

Mexican Supper Club Menu

Totopos

(Homemade tortilla chips)

Green Tomatillo Salsa

Chipotle Salsa

Tequila Guacamole

Sopa de Maize

(Sweet Corn Soup)

with green chilli and sour cream

Tamales de Rellenos de Calabacin (recipe)

(Tamales filled with squash)

Served with mole sauce (recipe)

Handmade Corn Tortillas

With

Hongas con chilli

Frijoles Negros Refritos (recipe)

(Refried black beans)

Ancho cream

Poblano Chillies

Filled with Mexican rice

Tequila & Contreau Sorbet

Dark Chocolate Torte (recipe)

with mango chilli slices

With so many people new to Mexican cuisine, and a handful of oddly shaped hot chillies decorating the table (courtesy of our friend Dan who came on our Mexican cookery course the week before), the food provoked so much fabulous conversation. What's in mole sauce? How do you make a tamale? How do you season the black beans? What are these bizarre chillies? And how do you do a tequila slammer? (Jo stepped in to demonstrate that one.)

A few dishes seemed to inspire more "mmm"'s and "aaah's" than others - sweetcorn soup, tamales with mole sauce, refried black beans, and the chocolate torte with mango chilli slices. Lots of diners wanted recipes, which we've been dutifully posting on the Vegetarian Cookery School website with our other Supper Club Recipes.

We're still new to the supper club scene, but so far the experience just keeps getting better and better. As I said in my recent Vegetarian Living column, supper clubs are such a fantastic way to meet like-minded people - it's like going to a dinner party with friends. And as one of the few vegetarian supper clubs in the UK - and currently the only supper club in Bath - I'm so happy that ours seems to be filling a much needed gap for people who like this style of dining and our style of food.

But enough gushing. The important thing is: we like this supper club thing so much, we're doing it again. Our next supper club will be on 7th December where we'll be serving a Festive Feast. Menu, as always, will be a bit of a surprise, but will always be vegetarian, and always cater for vegans and anyone with dietary restrictions.

Related Links:

Flickr Photos of our Mexican Supper Club
Supper Club Recipes
Festive Feast Supper Club on 7th December 2011
Otomi - Fantastic source of Mexican ingredients in Bristol, including the masa and corn husks required for tamales!

Mexican Supperclub, a set on Flickr.

Autumn Giveaway: Green Seasons Cookbook by Rachel Demuth

2011-10-19T09:52:00.000+01:00

Autumn may be my favourite season for vegetables, largely because it’s so hands-on. In the last few weeks I’ve been foraging sloes, picking fresh local almonds, gathering quinces, and sampling loads of different chillies. Add to this the vast abundance of squash, apples, walnuts and greens, and we’re in a vegetable paradise.

We want to know what you’ve been growing, foraging, cooking and eating this season. To inspire you, we’re offering a copy of our Green Seasons Cookbook to one lucky winner.

There is one main way to enter and several ways to get bonus entries. You must leave a separate comment for each bonus entry.

Leave a comment on our blog and tell us what you’re doing with autumn fruit and vegetables.
Post a picture on our Facebook page of something you’ve grown, foraged or cooked this season and leave a comment on the blog that you’ve done so.
Post a picture on Twitter of something you’ve grown, foraged or cooked with the hashtag #demuthsgiveaway and leave a comment on the blog with your Twitter id that you’ve done so.

Closing date: Wednesday, 2 November, 2011

Good luck!

Bath Good Food Awards: Best Vegetarian Restaurant and People's Choice Awards

2011-10-13T16:07:00.000+01:00

The inaugural Bath Good Food Awards were this month and we're truly honoured to have won Best Vegetarian Restaurant and the People's Choice Award. To receive the People's Choice Award was just fantastic - it really means our customers like what we are doing. We are passionate about producing delicious food with vegetables at the heart of the dish and to have this recognised in this way is a real boost. Many thanks to our customers for voting for us.

We were also Highly Commended in the Best Restaurant and Best Bath Institution categories. Judges praised the menu devised by our head chef Richard Buckley for its seasonal and locally sourced ingredients and said that all the dishes were well conceived and executed, and served-up by the superb, professional and knowledgeable front of house team. Comments included: “They clearly have a passion for what they do” and “It really is lick smackingly good!”

The awards were presented at a lavish award ceremony at the Guildhall on Tuesday 4^th October with over 200 guests including restaurateurs, chefs, food producers, sommeliers, and food bloggers. I felt like quite a celebrity, especially along side Bernard Aherne (above). Bernard is founder and MD of Small World New Media Ltd who operates the Guide2TheWorld websites including Guide2Bath.com and collaborated with thepigguide.com to launch the awards.

A nice quote from Bernard:

“We greatly enjoyed judging the best of the best and receiving the views of Bath’s discerning restaurant diners who nominated their favourite institutions and judged our People’ Choice winning restaurant Demuths. I would like to congratulate all of worthy winners and promise that the Bath Good Food Awards will continue to support the very best culinary talent Bath has to offer.”

We too would like to congratulate all of the winners in the Bath Good Food Awards. This city truly does have a rich community of incredible restaurants and food producers, some of the best in the UK and the world. It's a joy to live here.

The awards were decided by ten ‘mystery’ judges who spent three months visiting and dining at Bath restaurants to assess the very top institutions in twenty-four categories. They deliberated on a testing criteria of excellence from front of house to the quality and provenance of the ingredients, and the breadth and quality of the wine list to the ambience and warmth of their welcome. They explored every style of eatery from fine dining to breakfast bars, sandwich shops to international cuisine, and family friendly restaurants to the region’s top food producers.

The ‘mystery’ judges included: Guardian food and wine writer Fiona Beckett; award-winning chef, baker and writer Richard Bertinet; wine consultant and compere for the Bath Good Food Awards Angela Mount, food entrepneur and founder of Cupboard Love Preserves, Silvana Tann and Lorna Knapman director and founder of the successful Love Food Festivals.

Thank you to everyone who helped organise the Bath Good Food Awards and the great party that came with it. Thanks especially to our customers who voted for us in The People's Choice award. Where would we be without you?

Vegetarian Living | November 2011 | Rachel says

2011-10-11T11:28:00.001+01:00

The November issue of Vegetarian Living Magazine is now available and features my latest "Rachel says" column where I discuss social media and supperclubs!

...eating food is one of the most social activities in the world and yet, for chefs, it can be difficult to personalise the relationship because so much of the process happens behind the scenes. Social media has changed all that, making chef/ customer relationships more real and, most importantly, making it easier to spread the joy of good food through recipes, conversations and sharing ideas.

In my column, I discuss how the internet has enabled me to share my passion for vegetables in ways never before possible. I also share a recipe from a recent supperclub for Chilli and almond mojo rojo, universally loved by all who attended.

You can buy the November issue of Vegetarian Living online or click here to view the article in full.

What do you think of social media and supperclubs? Are you on Twitter? Facebook? How has this affected your food habits?

Apples and Pears Everywhere

2011-09-29T11:48:00.002+01:00

It seems like everyone we know has a glut of apples at the moment. Some of us even have whole orchards worth of delicious fruit. Let's face it, one can only have so many crumbles, so we've been amassing a list of ways you can make the most of the glut. Here's our run-down of recipes and events we particularly like, plus places where you can press your own apples and pears for juice.

Recipes
These Apple and Pear Saffron Samosas are one of our of favourite desserts at the Vegetarian Cookery School. Made with filo pastry, they're easy to put together and look so delightful on the plate, especially when served with a bit of Greek yogurt and honey.

And let's not forget winter salads. Here's our recipe for a refreshing Fig, Pear and Parmesan Salad with hazelnuts - a recipe that really celebrates the wonderful flavour of a good home-grown pear.

Other folks around the web have been sharing their ideas. Here are a few that we like:

Abel & Cole's idea for making Dried Apple Rings
For every apple glut there is apple chutney. We liked @restingchef's chutney recipe for its versatility and inclusion of thyme leaves!
Gloria Nicols, author of 100 jams, jellies, preserve & pickles has loads of beautiful recipes on her blog, including this crab apple and wild damson cheese, plus tips on storing bramley apples and a luscious apple gingerbread
The British Larder is another fountain of clever ideas, including apple compote to go with their spelt russet apple slice, a treat made with spelt shortbread

Store the Excess

You can keep apples and pears for quite a while in the refrigerator. BBC explains How to store apples: "Apples need a cool, frost-free environment, where they can last for weeks, even months in winter. A garage or garden shed is perfect."

Anita Tasker of Pattacakes in York Tweeted a great idea: "grate them and freeze them raw and then use them for strudel etc, after soaking in rum of course!"

Make Vinegar

The always industrious Carl Legge has posted instructions on making your own apple cider vinegar for use in salads and all your apple chutney recipes. All it takes is apples (bruised ones are ok), sugar and water. And along the way, you'll learn the joy of fermenting. Highly recommended!

Make Juice

What do you do if you have a LOT of apples? One solution is to make juice. On 22nd October, you can bring your apples to Lower Shaw Farm in Wiltshire for pressing thanks to Swindon Climate Action Network who hve been awarded a grand to buy an apple press: Everyone is invited to come along with their own apples and turn their crop into fresh apple juice. All you need to bring is your apples (or pears) and suitable containers to take your juice home. The left over crushed apples will be fed to Lower Shaw Farm's resident pigs, or composted, so nothing will be wasted. Click here for details.

More communities are hosting apple pressing, apple identification and other related workshops as part of Apple Day, a series of October events celebrating the wonderful British apple. The official "day" is October 21st, but there are happenings going on all over the UK throughout October. Check out the Apple Day website for a list of events, categorised by county.

What are you doing with apples this season? Got a recipe to share? An event worth knowing about? More clever ideas for using up lots of apples? Please let us know in the comments or on Twitter @vegcs.

Yotam Ottolenghi at the Vegetarian Cookery School

2011-09-20T10:59:00.047+01:00

"Let's talk about food all of the time."

This was one of the first things Yotam Ottolenghi insisted upon at his Eastern Mediterranean Masterclass at the Vegetarian Cookery School last Tuesday. The words set the scene for a day of rich discussion, endless food stories and constant collaboration. Ottolenghi shares our commitment to raising the profile of fresh, seasonal vegetables as the star ingredients on the plate, so it was a thrill to have him here to teach for a day.

Ottolenghi's approach to cooking was relaxed, put us all at ease, and his recipes were easily achievable. And very Ottolenghi.

He started with a demonstration: braised eggs with potato, tahini yogurt and sumac. The challenge is to cook the onions until they are brown and caramelised, which takes at least 15 minutes. As with many of his recipes, well-cooked onions are the basis of a good dish.

From Israel, Ottolenghi introduced us to several essential ingredients in Eastern Mediterranean cooking such as sumac, za'atar and freekah. Anyone familiar with Ottolenghi know that fresh herbs play a huge part in his dishes. At the same time, he takes advantage of British ingredients like kohlrabi and pickled walnuts, creating a cuisine that is uniquely his own. Fresh herbs were in ample supply, with bowls of overflowing flat parsley, mint, coriander, tarragon and delicate chervil decorating each of our cooking stations.

Good ingredients are essential, but execution is just as crucial. Ottolenghi likes to add very lightly cooked or raw ingredients to dishes, adding garlic right at the end of the cooking, or at the last minute stirring in fresh herbs and lemon zest to lift the dish. He implored us to taste and taste and taste again, to be happy with the flavour and seasoning before serving.

"We put so much love into reading recipes and cooking food; to miss out on this critical step at the end is a shame."

It's not just the flavour and texture but the colour is so important, and that's where vegetables truely come into their own. We feast with our eyes!

"If the food doesn't look good, then that's just not good enough."

Great fresh ingredients, large bowls of colourful food, a feeling of generosity, dishes to share, to relax with and enjoy around a large table with friends and family: tenets shared by Yotam Ottolenghi, the Vegetarian Cookery School and all of the students who were there to learn from him. You couldn't ask for a better day.

Yotam Ottolenghi Eastern Mediterranean Masterclass, a set on Flickr.

Baking Bread with Tom Herbert

2011-09-14T16:35:00.004+01:00

Tom Herbert Bread Making, a set by Vegetarian Cookery School on Flickr.

We had a productive day last Friday baking bread with Tom Herbert of Hobb's House Bakery at the Vegetarian Cookery School. We made Focaccia, Soda Bread, Sourdough, Pizza Dough and Pita Bread. It was hard work, and by the end of the day we were sore from all the kneading, rolling and baking. But it was so worth it! A delicious, rewarding day with one of UK's best bakers. Thanks, Tom. Looking forward to seeing you in 2012.

Vegetarian Living | October 2011 | Rachel says

2011-09-02T11:27:00.001+01:00

The October issue of Vegetarian Living Magazine is now available and features my latest column where I expound on the autumnal delights of stuffed vegetables.

So why are stuffed vegetables so popular? I believe it’s because everyone loves a parcel with a delicious surprise inside, but there’s also an appreciation of the skill involved, of turning a simple vegetable into something more interesting than it appears at first.

In my column, I talk a little history and a lot of cooking ideas, including variations on fillings for various veg like tomatoes, peppers, mushrooms and squash. It was hard to choose a favourite stuffed vegetable recipe, but I eventually settled on tomates farcies, a recipe from our French cookery holiday at Château Ventenac on the Canal du Midi between Carcassonne and Narbonne, which is always a real treat.

You can buy the October issue of Vegetarian Living online or click on the image above to view.

Where in the world would you like to eat?

2011-08-15T14:39:00.003+01:00

The random number generator has spoken and the winner of our Green World Cookbook Giveaway is Kate Ford, aka "thevegspace"!

Kate is the author of The Veg Space blog, a wonderful site devoted to modern vegetarian cooking ("not a nut cutlet in sight," she says).

We asked entrants where in the world they'd like to go to sample its regional cuisine. Here's what Kate said:

... it has to be Thailand - there are so many Thai restaurants opening up on the high street and I fear their food is beoming 'anglicised' and green thai will be the new tikka masala! Would be fabulous to try really authentic thai food.

In fact, there was a definite Asian flair to people's responses:

I would love to learn more about Vietnamese vegetables and herbs, amazing flavours and would love to grow them here in our demo garden for our workshops. Francoise Murat

I'm going to go with Thai - I'm convinced that as a buddhist country there must be a wealth of vegetarian dishes that you never seen in western Thia restaurants.
Matt Thrower

I'm another one who'd like to visit India. Both the archaeology and the food mean an awful lot to me. (Erika)

I'd love to visit Vietnam - all I've seen looks to intriguin. (Edinburgh Foodie)

I'd like to visit Japan, to try some authentic veggie sushi! :) (Veggie Advisor)

Thank you all for your thoughtful responses. It's so interesting, and really helps us understand which types of cuisines we should feature at the cookery school (for those folks who can't necessarily make it to the country itself). Reading your responses, it's no surprise that Southern Indian Thali and Thai and Vietnamese are two of our most popular courses!

There were also two calls for Mexico from Chutney and Spice and Adrian Salamon. It seems Mexican cuisine is slowly making its mark here in the UK, and we're riding the wave with our upcoming Mexican course, Mexican Evening Workshop and Mexican Fiesta Supper Club,

Congrats again to Kate, and best of luck to everyone on our next giveaway (coming soon!).

Now who's ready to book a holiday to one of these wonderful places? And where will it be?

Mexican Fiesta Supper Club - 19th October

2011-08-08T15:21:00.000+01:00

We so enjoyed our first Supper Club that we were barely finished with the washing up before we were planning our second. At last, we've set a date and a very exciting theme.

On 19th October, we'll be doing a Mexican Fiesta Supper Club to make the most of the fantastic chillies that are grown in the West Country. We will mix in some gorgeous local pumpkins, squash & wild mushrooms & make a fiesta of it.

The details so far are:

When: 19th October
Time: 7.30pm
Where: Vegetarian Cookery School, Bath, BA1 1LN
Menu: A Mexican themed tasting menu, with local fresh chillies.
Drinks: BYO
Price: £30 per person
How to book: Book online or email us@demuths.co.uk. Space is limited to 20 guests, and on a first come first served basis. So book now!

The supper club will, of course, be vegetarian, and will happily cater for vegans and anyone with dietary restrictions (gluten, nuts, etc), but please let us know in advance.

I look forward to meeting new people and seasoned supper clubbers on wednesday 19th October!

If you've never been to a supper club, the basic idea is this: a fab meal will be prepared by chefs from Demuths Restaurant and the Vegetarian Cookery School, served in the intimate setting of the Cookery School. After all, don't all good parties end up in the kitchen? I hope so. And I can't wait to sit down and raise a glass with you all over a delicious meal of seasonal, veggie delights.

Roasted Pumpkin, Walnut and Feta Salad

2011-08-04T17:39:00.000+01:00

What a glorious weekend we had, with beautiful weather and our Seasonal Sumptuous Cookery Days keeping us blissfully busy on the hunt for the best produce in Bath. Of course, the hunt wasn't very hard - the Southwest of England is bursting which phenomenal fruit and veg, as well as artisan cheesemakers and top notch food producers, many of whom can be found in Bath. We had a blast this weekend meeting some of them and turning their goods into delicious meals.

It began on Saturday at the Bath Farmer's Market. Amongst the many stalls we visited was Homewood Cheeses who makes a selection of gorgeous sheep cheeses, including a pickled ewe's cheese that is akin to feta. We love this, and feature it frequently on the menu at Demuths Restaurant.

Sunday brought us to Castle Farm, an organic farm just outside of Bath where you'll find the most awe inspiring pumpkin patch around.

Naturally, we couldn't resist taking one of these beauties home with us. This single pumpkin should last us through summer!

What do you do when life gives you pumpkins and pickled ewes cheese? You make a delicious salad, of course, involving roast pumpkins, fresh cheese, and some walnuts for crunch and texture. This roasted pumpkin, walnut and feta salad was one of the highlights of our cookery weekend. Of course, there was plenty more food where that came from - edible flowers, tomatillos, courgettes, spinach, rhubarb, pink fir potatoes, tomatoes, raspberries, loads of fresh herbs - all found in and around Bath, many of which were picked the same day we cooked with them. You really can't get more seasonal - or more sumptuous - than that.

Roasted Pumpkin, Walnut and Feta Salad

Serves: 6

Ingredients:
400g pumpkin flesh
4 garlic cloves
pinch of salt
2 tbsp olive oil
freshly ground black pepper
60g walnuts toasted in salt and olive oil
100g feta cheese (or pickled ewes cheese if you can!)
3 tbsp finely chopped fresh oregano
olive oil and balsamic vinegar for dressing

Method:

Pre-heat oven to 190C/Gas5.
D-skin and de-seed the pumpkin and chop into small cubes.
Crush the salt and garlic together to a smooth paste and then mix in the olive oil.
Place the pumpkin in a baking dish and stir in the garlic oil.
Roast the pumpkin in thepre-heated oven for 40 minutes or until the pumpkin is soft.
Leave the pumpkin to cool, add a good twist of black pepper.
Roast the walnuts with a little oil and salt in the oven for 5-6 minutes.
Crumble up the feta cheese and chop the oregano.
Serve the pumpkin on a plate, sprinkled with the feta, walnuts and oregano.

Tips: Serve the above on top of a green salad of interesting leaves, fresh herbs and edible flowers and lay out on a salad plate. Finish with a simple drizzle of good quality olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Flavour Magazine | July 2011 | Leading Female Chefs

2011-07-28T09:00:00.002+01:00

Flavour Magazine is currently running an article called Leading Ladies: Inspiring stories from our favourite female chefs. It's a thrill and an honour to be included alongside Amy Hunt of Oak and Glass, Laura Hart of Hart's Bakery, Fiona Were of Greenbank Hotel and celebrity chef Angela Harnett.

You can read the article online or view the issue in full (we're on page 30).

Giveaway: Green World Cookbook

2011-07-27T09:00:00.002+01:00

It's time for another giveaway, and this time we have a copy of our classic Green World Cookbook featuring some of our favourite recipes from the restaurant. Here's a "taster" of some of the recipes:

Andalusian Baked Eggs
Green Pea, Feta and Mint Pate
Thai Red Curry
Spinach, Red Pepper and Ricotta Tart
Smoked Tofu, Puy Lentil and Spinach Salad
Oyster Mushroom and Courgette Tagliatelle
Indonesian Black Rice Pudding

I'm getting hungry just revisiting the index. The cookbook is full of recipes for starters, mains, puds, light meals, snacks, easy meals and foods for special occasions.

RULES

The giveaway is open to anyone in the UK. The winner will be chosen using an online randomiser and announced in a subsequent post. When commenting, please leave your e-mail address so I can contact you if you win.

There is one main way to enter and several ways to get bonus entries. You must leave a separate comment for each bonus entry (this is very important because it allows me to keep track of all your submissions).

For a chance to win please leave comment and tell me where in the world that you'd like to visit to sample its regional cuisine.
For a second chance to win please tweet the following message on Twitter and comment on the blog with your twitter ID telling me you've done so: "I've just entered a chance to win Rachel @Demuths Green World Cookbook! http://ow.ly/5Ohmt"
For a third chance to win, like the Vegetarian Cookery School Facebook page, and comment on the blog telling me that you've done so.
For a fourth chance to win, like the Demuths Facebook page, and comment on the blog telling me that you've done so.

Closing date: Wednesday, 10 August, 2011

Good luck and happy cooking!

Supper Club Recipes: Lebanese Flat Breads with Sumac, Courgettes & Feta

2011-07-26T16:41:00.001+01:00

Given that we just posted our Chilli & Almond Mojo Rojo recipe, it seems only fitting to post the recipe for the Lebanese flat breads that we served it with.

These flat breads are a lot like mini pizzas, topped with olive oil, fresh thyme, courgettes, sumac and a sharp crumbly cheese like feta. At the supper club, we used our favourite: Homewood Park's pickled ewe's cheese (@HomewoodCheeses on Twitter, available at Bath's Farmer's Market).

If you've never used it, sumac is the dried red berries of a Middle Eastern bush called ‘rhus coriaria’ and has a sour flavour. It's become more popular recently thanks to chefs like Yotam Ottolenghi using it in their recipes, and you can usually find it in most grocery stores.

Serve this flat bread on its own or with some spicy Chilli & Almond Mojo Rojo.

If you do make any of our recipes, we would love for you to share the results, in words or in pictures, either here in the comments, on Twitter, or on Facebook.

Lebanese Flat Breads with Sumac, Courgettes & Feta

Serves: 6, makes 12 Flat breads

Ingredients:

500g unbleached white bread flour
1 level tbsp dried yeast 1 heaped tsp instant dry yeast
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
4 tbsps extra virgin olive oil
250ml warm water

Topping:
4-6 tbsps olive oil
2 tbsps finely chopped fresh thyme
1 tbsp sumac
2 courgettes, thinly sliced
200g feta, crumbled

Method:

Whisk together the yeast, sugar & water, cover with cling film & leave in a warm place until frothy, which takes about 10 minutes.
In a large bowl mix the flours & salt together, then add the olive oil & stir in the frothy yeast mixture.
Mix by hand or in a Kenwood with a dough hook to a soft ball consistency, the dough should be sticky, so don’t be tempted to add more flour. If its too dry add a little more water.
If using instant dried yeast, mix the flour and the yeast together and then mix in the salt and olive oil and add the warm water and then continue as above.
Turn onto a floured surface & kneed for 5 minutes or until the dough is smooth & elastic.
To knead the dough use the heel of your hand or hands to gently push the dough away from you. At the same time, use your other hand to rotate the dough towards you, guiding it slowly around in a circle. Continue kneading for 5 minutes.
Divide the dough into 12 pieces each weighing approx 65g each and roll them into soft balls. Lightly flour the work surface and flatten each one with the palm of your hand or with a rolling pin until about 5mm thick and round in shape. Brush the tops with olive oil. Mix the topping ingredients together to form a paste. Sprinkle the topping ingredients over the surface of each round and leave to rise for 20minutes.
Pre-heat the oven to 230C/Gas 8, putting in 2 large oiled baking sheets halfway through the heating period. When the oven is up to temperature, slide the flat breads onto the hot baking sheets, and bake for 8 minutes. Don’t open the oven while they are baking as it will stop them puffing up.
Put them on to wire racks to cool, they should be soft and puffy.

Tips: Sumac is the dried red berries of a Middle Eastern Bush ‘rhus coriaria’, has a sour flavour and is a flavour enhancer. Can be used as a substitute for lemon.

Vegetarian Living | August 2011 | Rachel says column

2011-07-25T17:42:00.001+01:00

The August issue of Vegetarian Living Magazine is now available and features my latest column where I offer suggestions for creating a delicious mezze as a quick fix to family supper.

Coming home after a holiday, the kitchen garden is overgrown, your courgettes are the size of marrows, the children are bored and the fridge is empty… So how do you get good food on the table quickly?

Check out the magazine for my answer, which includes a fast and delicious recipe for Lavash bread and tahini dip.

You can buy the August issue of Vegetarian Living online or click on the image above to view.

Supper Club Recipes: Chilli & Almond Mojo Rojo

2011-07-22T10:42:00.000+01:00

After such a successful first supper club at the cookery school, we've decided to continue the tradition of sharing food by posting all of the recipes from the supper club on the cookery school website. You can view them here: Supper Club Recipes.

In addition, we thought we'd start a series of blog post featuring specific recipes, starting with Jo Ingleby's Chilli & Almond Mojo Rojo.

This was one of the most raved-about dishes at the supper club, though it isn't really a "dish", per say, but rather a dip to go with bread or anything else you can think of. At the supper club, we served it with Lebanese flatbreads with sumac, courgettes and Homewood Park pickled ewes cheese. What about you? How do you take your mojo rojo?

Chilli & Almond Mojo Rojo

Dietary: Vegan

Serves: 8

Ingredients:
3 red peppers
4 red chillies
3 cloves garlic-finely chopped
150g blanched almonds – toasted until golden
150ml olive oil
1 1/2 tsp cumin-roasted and ground
1 1/2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 1/2 tsp smoked paprika

Method:

Roast the chillies and pepper until blackened and then place in a bowl covered in clingfilm until cool.
Peel and rip apart the peppers and chillis, discarding the seeds and stalks.
Toast the cumin in a dry frying pan until fragrant and then grind in a large pestle and mortar.
You can make this sauce in a blender or a large pestle and mortar-start by blending or grinding the garlic then add the peppers and chilli, almonds and the oil, vinegar and spices. Taste and add seasoning to taste.

Our First Supperclub

2011-07-14T08:19:00.002+01:00

Last night we hosted our first ever supper club at the Vegetarian Cookery School. Helen Lawrence and Jo Ingleby, both former head chefs of Demuths Restaurant and current tutors at the cookery school, where there with their chef's aprons on to serve up a scrumptious seasonal taster menu. But more importantly, we had a fantastic turnout - it was the guests who made this a fun, convivial evening of great food and superb conversation. So thanks, everyone, for making our first supper club a success.

We were deliberately vague on the menu - largely because we didn't know what we'd be cooking until our trip to Castle Farm on Wednesday morning! There we picked up armfuls of fresh herbs, edible flowers, courgettes, raspberries, blackcurrants, fresh peas, broad beans - we went a little crazy. So we took it all and turned it into this menu:

Salmorejo with handmade picos (recipe here)
Salad of fresh peas, broad beans and purple potatoes with Homewood Park Ewes Cheese
Chili and almond mojo rojo
Lebanese flatbreads with sumac, courgettes and Homewood Park pickled ewes cheese
Slow roasted baby aubergines with tomatoes and peppers
Saffron pilaf with caramelised onions
Wild herb and edible flower salad with blackcurrant vinegar dressing
Strawberry and rosewater granita
Summer berry tartlets with our own cassis coulis

Given all the empty plates, with think everyone enjoyed their meal. If you were there, what were your favourite dishes? If you weren't there, what do you think would have been your favourite dish? Let us know - we're very happy to share recipes and, who knows, we might run a blog series (or dare we say a book?) of your favourite supper club recipes.

We had such a fantastic time last night that we're already thinking about our next supper club - we're thinking definitely one in November, to take advantage of our great view of the Bath fireworks. But who knows if we can wait that long... watch this space for updates.

In the meantime, here are some pics from yesterday. Thanks again to everyone who came, including Tweeters SandySom, scrapiana, EmmmaB, RealGandy, jazzcleo and KingMonkeymedia. It was a joy to have you for supper at the cookery school and hope to see you again soon at the next one.

Salmorejo: Andalucian gazpacho-style dip

2011-07-06T16:36:00.000+01:00

One of the more popular dishes on our Anadlucian Tapas Course is this gazpacho-style dip called Salmorejo, a puree of tomato, peppers, garlic, herbs, and the magic ingredient, a bit of bread to thicken things up.

This is a typical Andalucian tapas served in bars in small dishes with “Picos” (small bread sticks). Served with a glass of cold Orchard Pig Apple Juice, this is a light, refreshing dip for a warm summer day, perfect for parties and can be personalized with various toppings such as hard-boiled eggs, diced cucumbers, peppers and chilies.

Salmorejo Gazpacho style dip

Dietary: Vegan option

Makes: A large bowl of Salmorejo, plenty for a tapas party - halve the recipe if you are making it for fewer people.

Ingredients:
500g tomatoes, cored
1/2 green pepper, deseeded and roughly chopped
1/2 red pepper, deseeded and roughly chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped
150g white bread
75ml extra virgin olive oil
50ml sherry vinegar
2 tbsp tomato puree
1 tsp paprika
1 tbsp soft brown sugar
salt and pepper

Toppings:
Chopped hard-boiled eggs (optional)
Peeled and finely chopped cucumber
Finely chopped red peppers or chillies
Fresh flat leaf parsley

Method:

Soak the bread in water, leave for 10 minutes and then squeeze dry. Place the garlic and peppers in a large food processor and puree until smooth. Add the tomatoes and blend again.
Add the damp bread bit by bit, mixing well in between each bit, then add the oil and sherry vinegar, tomato puree, paprika and sugar and blend again.
Season to taste.
Top with your choice of topping-traditional ones include chopped hard boiled eggs, diced cucumber, red pepper and chilli.

Tips: The tomato puree in the recipe is added to compensate for the colour and flavour of English tomatoes! If you are using ripe, tasty tomatoes you may wish to leave out this ingredient.

Congratulations to the winner of our evening cookery course

2011-07-05T05:33:00.001+01:00

A hearty congratulations to Claire of Badschnoodles' Blog who was randomly selected as the winner of our Vegetarian Cookery School evening course giveaway. We have emailed you with the details and look forward to welcoming you at the cookery school!

Just wanted to give a shout out to EVERYONE who entered the course with such wonderful words about foods they'd like to learn to cook, some of which we do offer as courses, or have offered in the past. It really helps us decide how we should structure our courses going forward...

Japanese, including sushi and beyond (perhaps we should revisit our Sushi & Japanese New Year's Feast!)
Thai, including curries and what to do with all those delicious spices (we do run a Thai & Vietnamese course, and a Thai Evening course).
The "perfect" loaf of bread (our Tom Herbert bread baking course is already full, but perhaps we need to add more baking to the list)
Lots of calls for Indian cookery, including iddly and wada breakfasts and masala dosa (we've run Indian cookery classes in the past and are sure to add more in the future - stay tuned!)
Italian, such as making your own pasta (Southern Italian Summer Cooking and Flavours of Italy are two of our favourite courses, and we recently had a great time making fresh pasta with Silvana de Soissons)
Middle Eastern Cuisine such as Lebanese and Moroccan Mezze, and what to do with those ingredients like Saffron, Orange Blossom and Rose Water (we have our Totally Moorish and Moroccan Masterclass coming up)
Oriental dishes like dim sum and simple stir fries (we just added Far Eastern Asian Feast to our course list)
"To crack a souffle would be good" - we heartily agree.

Italian fresh pasta evening with Silvana de Soissons

2011-06-23T05:46:00.001+01:00

Earlier this month, the wonderful Silvana de Soissons came to the Vegetarian Cookery School to teach Fresh Pasta Making, attended by our chef Helen Lawrence. Here are Helen’s notes from that delicious evening:

I learnt so much from our pasta evening with Silvana, a true Italian food goddess, full of enthusiasm and with a passion for food and eating good quality, local ingredients. She brought inspiration and a great depth of knowledge of Italian cuisine, herbs and nutrition to our evening class. She is a well renowned teacher and writer, and founder and editor of the fantastic Foodie Bugle online magazine at www.thefoodiebugle.com, a vital visit for anyone interested in food in all its aspects. She writes about cookbooks, local producers, chefs, foodie events, supper clubs and much, much more.

During a relatively short evening, there was so much knowledge to absorb, and I want to share some of what I discovered.

Pasta is traditionally a food of Southern Italy. Silvana’s mother, who is from the North, grew up eating polenta, risotto, soups and stews and ate her first pasta dish in her 40’s. Fresh egg pasta as we made is called Pasta Emiliana and is from the region Emilia-Romagna, what Silvana called “the heartland of Italy”, traditionally known for its egg pasta and filled pasta.

A favourite word of the Italians is ‘frugal’. Everything is used and nothing is wasted. People generally still have a good knowledge of wild plants, herbs, flowers and how to use them. Stocks are a basis in so many Italian dishes; all peelings and scraps are put into stocks, with nothing wasted. We cooked our pasta in fresh tomato stock, which we then reduced and ate as a soup. The vegetables in the stock weren’t wasted, either. After straining from the stock, Silvana suggested grilling them, topped with a little mascarpone and fresh herbs. All pasta trimmings either went into the remaining stock to be eaten in the soup, or could have been baked with a little oil and salt, or fried as a crispy pasta snack.

Making the pasta

First, we made our pasta dough. The proportions are so easy to remember: 1 medium egg per 100g of flour -‘00’ extra fine pasta flour is essential.

We kneaded the dough by hand and worked it until it was smooth, glossy and soft. Soft, however was a relative term; it was much tougher kneading pasta dough than bread dough and we all worked up a bit of a sweat. Of course, at home we would probably use a machine to help with the kneading, but there was certainly a therapeutic effect to working the pasta dough by hand.

The next step was to allow the dough balls to rest. We shaped them into flat discs, covered with cling film and chilled for 20 minutes. We found that even the balls of dough that looked a little dry going in moistened up in the fridge very well.

When the discs came out we cut them into quarters and rolled each piece by hand with a rolling pin to flatten them slightly, and develop a longer shape with a pointy end. Each piece was then rolled through the machine.

For the rolling you must use fine semolina to make sure the pasta doesn’t stick to the machine, but don’t use flour, as the pasta only absorbs this and then dries out and can crumble. Because the pasta was so fresh, we didn’t need to pass it through the thinnest setting. Another tip from Silvana was that if the pasta breaks apart as it gets thinner, let it rest as a thicker sheet to dry out slightly before rolling it through the thinnest settings.

The machines we used ran from 1 as the widest and 6 as the thinnest. We started at setting 1 and ran the pasta through twice, then twice at setting 2. Then we folded the pasta in half to fold in the point. We ran it through the machine once more, then once at setting 3 and 4 before moving up to setting 5 for a final roll.

Silvana’s tip to keep the point at the end of the pasta initially helped us feed the pasta through easily so that it caught quickly between the rollers. I was impressed by Silvana’s skill of feeding the pasta through in a continuous circular motion, as the strip was almost through the machine, she flicked the end over and fed it back into the machine so its ‘nose followed its ‘tail’. All performed at high speed; something for us to aspire to!

In the spirit of experimentation, whist imagining myself as an true Italian Mama before the days of the pasta machine I decided to try rolling a piece of pasta out by hand. It was tough going and I had to press so firmly on the pin that my hand did hurt a little, however the results were very good and didn’t take much longer to do than with the machine. So for those without a pasta machine (of which Silvana recommends buying the more expensive versions such as those by imperia) I can now report that it is very possible to make great pasta by hand, albeit with plenty of energy expended.

One thing to note was not to make any of the pasta strips too long as it makes them difficult to handle and ultimately difficult to eat. Also, try to make sure all the pasta was rolled to the same thickness so it all cooks evenly. Once we had a pasta sheet we rolled some of them through an attachment to make tagliatelle and tagliolini, which is thinner than tagliatelle. We also kept a sheet to make herb pappardelle.

Herb pappardelle

My favourite pasta of the night was the papardelle herb pasta.

We rolled out a flat sheet, then brushed it with beaten egg and laid out herbs and herb flowers along the bottom length.

The herbs came from Silvana’s garden and included cat-mint, tarragon, lovage, chives, oregano, fennel, parsley and thyme flowers. The only rule was not to use ‘hard herbs’ like rosemary - no tough stalks allowed.

The pasta sheet was then folded in half, gently pressed into place with a finger, then run through the machine on setting 5 to get the right thickness. We ran a rolling cutter down the length to neaten the edges. Silvana explained that every type of pasta traditionally has a characteristic width measurement, so we cut the pappardelle in half to make two strips, each 1.5cm wide. The most beautiful thing about them was the pattern the herbs it made as they were rolled through the machine. Holding them up to the light they looked like little pasta artworks.

Pasta sauces

We made some fabulously simple and delicious sauces to go with the different pastas we made. For a quick basil and pinenut pesto, we used a Parmesan-style cheese called Old Winchester that is vegetarian and has that delicious dry saltiness characteristic of Parmesan.

We also made a fresh herb dressing using all of Silvanas garden herbs, some lemon zest and juice, and some toasted pinenuts, mixed through the pasta with olive oil, a little balsamic vinegar and some curls of ‘parmesan’ cheese. I loved this with the lemon zest. So fresh, and you could use any wild herbs and leaves like wild rocket, dandelion or sorrel.

The biggest revelation was the breadcrumb sauce. Silvana made a breadcrumb, parsley and garlic sauce that we tossed through some spaghetti. I discovered that Parsley is the real national herb of Italy, as apposed to basil which I had hadn’t realised. The key to this dish - as with all Italian cooking - is the quality of the ingredients. There is nowhere to hide, no fancy techniques; it’s all about the produce. So we used an artisan white sourdough made for us by our favourite local bakery, Thoughtful Bread. plus Silvana’s flat leaf parsley, large French garlic cloves, Cornish sea salt and the best quality, cold pressed, new season extra virgin olive oil. The garlic was fried gently until soft in the oil along with salt and some pepper. We then added breadcrumbs and more olive oil and cooked until the breadcrumbs were golden and crisp. Finally, we added the parsley, then freshly boiled pasta, along with a little of the cooking stock. The dish was surprisingly light and of course absolutely delicious!

The last thing to mention is that making fresh pasta can be quick and easy and the eating of it is so worth the effort that does goes in. The leftover pasta can be dried on tea towels on trays. Once dried, the pasta keeps for months. Just don’t store it up in Tupperware, rather, store it somewhere cool and dry, wrapped in thin paper or baking parchment so it can breath.

Remember, eat happy and eat well. Mangiare bene!

Click here to view all photos from our Fresh Pasta Making course on Flickr.

Best Veggie Restaurants | Waitrose Weekend

2011-06-22T14:07:00.000+01:00

Just wanted to share a clip from a recent issue of Waitrose Weekend magazine (26 May 2011), during National Vegetarian Week. We were very grateful to be listed amongst the UK's best vegetarian restaurants. Other great restaurants that made their cut:

What do you folks think of their choices? Any restaurants you would add to the list?

Thanks again to Waitrose for including us!

Young Chef Competition in delicious magazine

2011-06-20T09:15:00.001+01:00

This month we're thrilled to be featured in the July 2011 issue of delicious magazine where our Young Vegetarian Chef of the Year competition is covered in the foodbites section.

We feel very passionately that young people should be encouraged to get cooking and are very excited that delicious has given this some attention in the latest issue. Our heartfelt thanks to the magazine, to Neff (our sponsors) and to all the young chefs who've already submitted their entries.

To read more about the competition (including the exciting prizes!), head over to the Vegetarian Cookery School's website:

Young Chef Competition.

Emma Rose Art Exhibition at Demuths

2011-06-14T14:22:00.000+01:00

This week, we are delighted to be showcasing Emma Rose's wonderful vibrant paintings at Demuths Restaurant.

Emma was shortlisted for the Bath Life Arts Award and is the originator of The Art Salo. Affectionately known as the Rothko of Wellow, her vibrant artwork is beautiful, striking and collectable. And they really bring a refreshing breath of color to the restaurant - we think they match the food brilliantly.

Event: Emma Rose Solo Exhibition
Date: 13th June-17th July 2011
Venue: Demuths Restaurant, 2 North Parade, off Abbey Green, Bath BA1 1NX
Times: 12.00-3.30 & 5.00-9.00
Tel: Emma Rose; 01225 837 809
Website: www.emmaroseartworks.com

Supper Club - 13th July - Book Your Place Now!

2011-06-07T09:20:00.004+01:00

I've been so inspired by the wave of supper clubs happening around Britain that I've decided to host my own - and what fun it's going to be! The idea is this: a fab meal prepared by chefs from Demuths Restaurant and the Vegetarian Cookery School, served in the intimate setting of the Cookery School. After all, don't all good parties end up in the kitchen? I hope so. And I can't wait to sit down and raise a glass with you all over a delicious meal of seasonal, veggie delights.

The details are, well, a little vague so far, but all will be revealed in due course. The important bits are as follows:

When: 13th July
Where: Vegetarian Cookery School, Bath, BA1 1LN
Menu: A seasonal tasting menu is being planned as we type.
Drinks: BYO
Price: £25
How to book: Email us@demuths.co.uk. Space is limited to 20 guests, and on a first come first served basis. So book now!

The supper club will, of course, be vegetarian, and will happily cater for vegans and anyone with dietary restrictions (gluten, nuts, etc).

Thank you much, and I look forward to meeting you all on 13th July!

- Rachel

Giveaway: Evening Course at The Vegetarian Cookery School

2011-06-06T13:02:00.002+01:00

One of the best things about running the cookery school is meeting so many avid food lovers on such a regular basis. Whether we're making a South Indian thali or fresh pasta, I'm always inspired by the enthusiasm and knowledge that the students bring to the class - I learn something new every time.

So, in the spirit of sharing the wonderful pleasure of cookery, I'm giving away an evening course at the Vegetarian Cookery School. If you haven't visited us before, we're located in the centre of Bath near Demuths restaurant in a lovely spot overlooking the Abbey.

The winner can choose from any of our upcoming evening courses. For example, in the next couple months we've got Andalucian Tapas, Southern Indian Cooking and Thai cookery on the agenda, and we're always adding more. Click here to see our full list of courses.

RULES

The giveaway is open to all readers willing to come to Bath (we can't cover travel costs, unfortunately, but Bath is a great city and worth the trip!). The winner will be chosen using an online randomiser and announced in a subsequent post. When commenting, please leave your e-mail address so I can contact you if you win.

There is one main way to enter and several ways to get bonus entries. You must leave a separate comment for each bonus entry.

For a chance to win please comment and tell me about a dish or cookery style that you've always wanted to learn.
For a second chance to win please tweet the following message on Twitter and comment with your twitter ID telling me you have done so: "I've just entered a chance to win a @vegcs evening cookery course at @Demuths Cookery School in Bath! http://ow.ly/5aVvu"
For a third chance to win, like the Vegetarian Cookery School Facebook page, and comment to tell me you have done so.
For a fourth chance to win, like the Demuths Facebook page, and comment to tell me you have done so.

Closing date: Monday, 20 June, 2011

Good luck and I look forward to meeting the winner at the cookery school!

New Season, New Menu

2011-06-02T12:18:00.000+01:00

This is one of our favourite seasons at Demuths. Asparagus, artichokes, new potatoes, and crispy young salad leaves are ripe for the picking, and we're making ample use of them in our new menu.

We're especially excited about our new season confit artichokes with smoked paprika rice, garlic lemon puree, samphire, radicchio and porcini oil (pictured above). This is one of three VEGAN mains now featured on the menu (including Urid Lentil Wadis and our gluten-free Miso Roast Aubergine).

Also on the menu:

Starter of new season asparagus with a lemon verbena and vanilla dressing, tamari reduction, leaves & a sesame tuille
Lemon Thyme Souffle with baby vegetables, white wine & herb cream, pickled mustard seed & smoked potatoes
Salad of Homewood Ewe’s Cheese baked with paprika, served with new potatoes, & roasted on a bed of thyme & lemon, lemon verbena pickled cucumber, spring onion, capers & green beans

Plus some yummy puddings:

Cashew Cream & Coconut Praline with toffee almonds & berry compote (vegan and gluten-free)
Blood Orange Posset with rhubarb compote & toasted oats (gluten-free)
Rich Chocolate Mousse on a chocolate sponge with a bitter orange sauce & a coriander & pink peppercorn tuille (vegan)

There's lots more to our new menu. Click here to view our full menus online.

Feedback? Suggestions? Likes? Dislikes? Let us know in the comments. Or come into the restaurant for a meal and a chat. We're friendly, and would love to see you.

Wild Food Forage & Elderflower Fritters

2011-05-24T05:59:00.000+01:00

Great day out foraging with wild foraging expert Christopher Robbins on Sunday in the hills outside Bath, we found burdock, comfrey, dandelion, sheep sorrel, red clover, hogweed, stinging nettle, wild garlic, water mint, wild oregano and lots of elderflowers.

And then back to the Vegetarian Cookery School to cook and most importantly eat our foraged goodies, we started with a wild garlic soup, followered by a nettle risotto, comfrey & nettle fritters with a sheep sorrel and water mint salsa and finished with elderflower fritters with sparkling elderflower cordial. The hits were how amazing nettles taste and how sweet and perfumed elderflower fritters are.

Elderflowers are in flower now, so a perfect excuse to get out in the countryside and forage! And here’s the recipe….

Elderflower Fritters

The sweet perfume of elderflowers coated in a thin tempura batter and served with thick Greek yogurt or vanilla ice-cream makes for an ethereal delight. The flower head must be picked in perfect condition with half the florets opened and the remainder still in bud. This treat can be enjoyed for only three or four weeks in any year. Harvest the elderflowers no less than an hour or so before you cook them. Don’t harvest on a rainy day as much of the nectar can be washed from the flowers.

Serves 4

Ingredients:

12 Elderflower heads

For the batter

200ml ice cold water
1 large egg, beaten
90g sifted plain white flour
2-3 ice cubes

Method:

To make the batter Pour the ice cold water into a mixing bowl, mix in the beaten egg, add the flour and roughly fold in with a fork, do not beat, the batter should be lumpy! Add the ice cubes.
Prepare the elderflowers. Shake any insects and lose florets from the heads. Cut heads into portions about 5cm across, leaving 2-3 cms of thin stalk to pick-up the fritters. Don’t wash the flowers as they water will make the hot oil spit.
Heat a lightly flavoured oil (sunflower, safflower) either in a wok or a frying pan with 1cm of oil. The oil is ready when a drop of batter bubbles and turns golden in 5-10 seconds. Don’t heat the oil further until it smokes.
Holding the portions of flower heads by the stalk, gently wipe them through the batter so they are coated all over. Touch on the side of the bowl to remove excess. Drop gently into the oil. Moving quickly, but calmly, place a few portions in the oil. Take care they don’t touch or they may stick in a mass. Remove when golden and crisp.
If using the shallow frying method, turn the portions over after 30 secs or when they are golden.
Remove from the oil and drain on paper towel.
Serve when still hot or at least warm.

Recipe from Christopher Robbins.

Thanks also to photographer Malcolm Clarke who joined us and took some lovely photos. We are planning a Wild Fruits and Nuts Forage & Cook in the Autumn.

National Vegetarian Week: 23rd - 29th May

2011-05-19T11:28:00.001+01:00

Next week is National Vegetarian Week, the UK’s annual awareness-raising campaign promoting inspirational vegetarian food and the benefits of a meat-free lifestyle.

Nationally, we're thrilled to be involved with a few choice events that should be a ton of fun:

Vintage Roots Organic Wine Tasting
24th May, 7-9pm
Vegetarian Cookery School

Come and join us for a special wine tasting hosted by Vintage Roots to showcase biodynamic wines: from Millton Vineyards in New Zealand, Chapoutier in France and from the Meinklang Estate in Austria.
Click for more info.

Ready Steady Cook Event
24th May, 7-11pm
The Polish Club, Clifton

Top chefs from Bristol & Bath (including us!) have been challenged to a Ready Steady Cook style competition to produce the most appetizing and nutritious meals inside 30 minutes from a selection of plant-based ingredients.
Click for more info.

VegFest Cooking Demo
29th May, 3pm
Bristol

Rachel will be demoing some delicious veggie fair at Bristol's mega festival devoted to vegetables - our favourite!
Click for more info.

So that's us, what about you? Doing anything special for National Vegetarian Week? Let us know in the comments!

French Cookery Holiday: Reflections On A Beautiful, Delicious Week

2011-05-17T09:17:00.000+01:00

Just back from a lovely sunny (got up to 32degrees) cookery holiday in south of France at Chateau Ventenac. The sun shone every day and we ate all our meals outside, such bliss sitting out in the evening replete with a glass or two of the local rose under a crescent moon, swifts still circling in the sky.

We did work hard! And perfected our bread skills, made fougasse and stuffed some with a chunky roasted ratatouille, also we all completed the mayonnaise challenge with hand whisks and OD on hollandaise to dip the freshest asparagus spears in along with purple artichokes.

One hit with everyone were little tarts (of course we had to make the lightest of pate brisee) filled with an almond and green olive tapenade, topped with roasted cherry tomatoes and leeks and goats cheese for those who liked it.

On the last night after our ‘ready steady cook’ market visit to Narbonne, which has a wonderful indoor food market, we all made a Spanish feast of paella, tortilla & tapas.

For desserts, a cherry clafoutis, white peaches in Muscat, a traditional pinenut tart and on the last night, we all made chocolate soufflés at 10pm, they were supremely chocolaty, rose extravagantly and a great way to finish the week.

Here's a slideshow of the week in all its glory. Stay tuned for recipe highlights...

Vegetarian Living | June 2011 | Rachel says column

2011-05-08T15:32:00.001+01:00

My new column in Vegetarian Living magazine!

First Food and Travel, now Vegetarian Living? I promise this blog isn't going to become a list of press clippings! But I wanted to announce my new column in Vegetarian Living because I'm just so excited about it!

The column is called "Rachel Says" and it's all about my tips and recipes and for cooking scrumptious veggie-based meals. This first column features one of my favorite simple recipes: asparagus, almond and red pepper pasta. And it's vegan-friendly!

Along with the column, the magazine is currently running an interview with me on their website. So if you fancy reading a bit more about the history of Demuths, have a looksy:

Back to basics in the vegetarian kitchen

If you manage to snag a copy of Vegetarian Living, let me know what you think of the column.

Finally, I'll request the same thing of you guys that I ask of Vegetarian Living readers: Tell me about your experiences of becoming vegetarian or cooking for the family! Leave a comment here or drop me an email: rachel AT demuths dot co dot uk.

Veg Cookery School in Food & Travel Mag

2011-05-06T21:06:00.000+01:00

We're thrilled to bits to be featured in this month's Food and Travel Magazine. Writer Keya Modessa came on our one-day Thai and Vietnamese Course and - lucky for us - liked it enough to sing our praises! We're especially glad she enjoyed our vegetarian and vegan versions of dishes that normally involve fish-based ingredients. Here's a snip from the article:

Our teachers split us into groups of three or four to start preparing Thai red curry and tom yam (oyster mushroom hot-and-sour soup). Traditionally, the soup is made using a roasted shrimp paste and fish sauce, but we made a vegetarian version using a myriad of distinctively flavoured ingredients such as lime juice and oyster mushrooms.

After tasting our soup (which was splendid, even if I say so myself) we spent the rest of the afternoon honing our knife skills by slicing, dicing and mixing. We made green papaya salad, peanut sauce, Thai spring rolls and an impressive gluten free version of banh xeo, which are Vietnamese crepe pancakes created from rice flour, turmeric and coconut milk.

It's always exciting to hear what our students think of our courses in their own words, so thanks Keya. We're just so humbled that you enjoyed your visit to the Vegetarian Cookery School.

You can read the full article in Food & Travel by clicking here.

Roasted Tofu, Watercress and Carrot Salad with Sesame Orange Dressing

2011-05-05T05:54:00.000+01:00

We've been talking recipes on Twitter and the wonderful photographer Helen Jermyn asked "How about recipes that turn bland blubbery tofu into something edible?"

This sounds like just our sort of challenge.

Tofu can be very difficult to get right. Our secret: roast the stuff. The roasting firms up the tofu and makes it very moorish. And since it's starting to feel summer (except when there's still frost on the ground in the morning - what's going on there?), let's throw it in all in a refreshing salad with a punchy sesame vinaigrette.

We've converted many a skeptical tofu eater with this salad. It also looks very colourful and is nutritious too. But will in convince Helen? We await her review with bated breath!

Roasted Tofu, Watercress and Carrot Salad with Sesame Orange Dressing

This salad is one of our favourites from our Green Seasons Cookbook.

Serves: 2
Dietary: VG WF

Ingredients:

227g tofu,cubed
3cm piece of ginger, peeled and finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
1 tbsp tamari
1 tbsp sunflower oil
1 medium carrot, peeled and ribboned
1 bunch of watercress, washed

Dressing:

5 tbsps orange juice
1 tbsp toasted sesame oil
1 tbsp sesame seeds
1/4 tsp maple syrup

Method:

Pre-heat oven to 200°C/Gas 6.
Combine the tofu, ginger, garlic, tamari and sunflower oil in an oven proof dish and roast until golden, approximately 25 minutes.
Put the carrot ribbons into a pan of boiling water and blanch until they are just starting to soften, approximately 30 seconds, then rinse in cold water and set aside.
Mix together the ingredients for the dressing.
Combine the cooled carrots with the watercress and divide between 2 plates.
Share out the tofu between the plates and then drizzle over the dressing. Eat at once.

Tips: Tamari is a naturally fermented dark, strong flavoured soya sauce, which is wheat free.

Nettle Soup

2011-04-26T11:22:00.001+01:00

Nettle soup is a lovely emerald green colour with a unique flavour, we always like to keep the nettle soup a surprise and ask people to guess what it is made from, everyone always loves it, but can’t pin down its humble origins.

Nettles are best when very tender, so pick in the spring when the nettles are just coming up or later in the season, pick the young leaves from the tips. Use rubber gloves or pinch the leaves hard, so you don’t get stung.

Nettle Soup

Serves: 4

Dietary: Vegan

Ingredients:

1 onion chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 medium potato, peeled and cubed
1 tsp vegetable bouillon
1 litre boiling water
250g nettle leaves, washed
1 tsp lemon juice
salt and freshly ground black pepper
crème fraîche or soya crème.
1 tsp pink peppercorns, crushed

Method:

In a large saucepan, sauté the onion in the olive oil until soft, add the garlic and the cubed potato and quickly stir-fry. Mix the bouillon powder with the boiling water and add to the onion and potato. Simmer until the potato is just cooked, about 10 minutes.
Add the nettles, cover and simmer for 5 minutes until the nettles are cooked, but are still a vibrant green colour. Leave to cool a little and then liquidise to a smooth consistency.
Check for seasoning and the lemon juice, salt and lots of freshly ground black pepper.
Serve hot with a garnish of crushed pink peppercorns and a swirl of crème fraîche or soya crème.

Tips:

Nettles are mildly laxative, an excellent blood purifier and one of the best anti-scorbutics. (anti scurvy) Traditionally eaten in early spring as it is one of the first edible green shoots to appear.
Pink peppercorns are not actually peppercorns but are the aromatic dried red berries of a tree Schinus Molle. They have a brittle outer shell enclosing a small pepper like seed.

We're in The Foodie Bugle!

2011-04-26T10:25:00.001+01:00

The Foodie Bugle is currently running two articles about the Vegetarian Cookery School. Please visit their wonderful online magazine to read them:

Congratulations, Hayley!

2011-04-17T20:46:00.000+01:00

The random number generator has spoken! Huge congratulations to Hayley Kinnaird who was the lucky winner of the Green Seasons Cookbook giveaway. Hayley inspired us with her comment about her favourite, impressively easy veg meal:

My favourite vegetable meal is cutting up onions, aubergine, courguettes, carrots, potatos, garlic, grean beans, mushrooms and cherry tomatoes, put some olive oil on them and put them into the oven for about 30-45 minutes, then serve it up with a sprinkle of cheese on it, mmmmm I am hungrys now haha.

We're a sucker for a good veggie casserole. Congrats again to Hayley!

It was a joy reading ALL of your comments of veg-inspiration. It's great to be amongst so many fellow lovers of fresh, seasonal produce. And three cheers to those of you growing your own veg in gardens and allotments. It's shaping up to be a great summer, isn't it?

Wishing you all a very green season, and happy cooking!

Green Seasons Cookbook Giveaway

2011-04-04T20:26:00.005+01:00

It’s been a few months since we opened the Vegetarian Cookery School in its new location next to Bath Abbey, and we’re thrilled to bits with how well the new space is working out.

To celebrate, we’re giving away a copy of our latest cookbook to spread the joy of seasonal, veg-inspired cookery in your own homes. Green Seasons contains 120 delicious and inspired recipes that change with the seasons from Demuths Restaurant. For example:

Asparagus and artichoke stew
Greek aubergine pies
Rainbow chard timbales
Broad bean bruschetta

We know not everyone can make it to Bath to come on one of our courses, so this is our little way of bringing a bit of the Vegetarian Cookery School to you.

The Giveaway:

The Green Seasons cookbook will go to one lucky reader who will be chosen at random.

How to enter

Leave a comment and tell us something about seasonal cooking, be it a recipe, a question, a favourite veg, or favourite season!

Get extra votes by spreading the love in one of the following ways:

Follow the @vegcs on Twitter.
Post a Tweet mentioning the @vegcs with a link to the giveaway, for example: "Hungry - I hope I win the Green Seasons Cookbook from the @vegcs!! Click here to enter the giveaway: http://bit.ly/hfBwsG"
"Like" the Vegetarian Cookery School on Facebook.
"Like" our post about the giveaway on Facebook.

Please let me know in the comments if you've earned some extra votes.

We’ll accept entries until the end of Wednesday, 13th April and announce the winner on Thursday, 14th April.

Good luck!

Irish Soda Bread

2011-04-02T13:52:00.000+01:00

One of our mainstays at the Vegetarian Cookery School is Irish Soda Bread. We love this bread because it’s so easy to make and easily adaptable. We’ve had great success making this with gluten free flour, rye flour, spelt flour, whole meal flour, and good old-fashioned white flour. And the add-ons are virtually endless: seeds, nuts, cheese, fruit, sundried tomato, herbs, whatever you fancy.

Irish Soda Bread is traditionally made with buttermilk, but we use milk and yogurt instead (or soya milk and soya yoghurt for our vegan friends).

Soda bread dries out quickly so it’s best eaten warm straight from the oven, topped with delicious spreads like hummus, jam, cheese, or simply butter. We’ve recently served ours with:

Irish Soda Bread

Makes 2 small loaves or 8 rolls.

Ingredients:

500g flour
6 tsp baking powder
½ tsp sea salt
350ml milk or soya milk
75ml plain yoghurt or soya yoghurt
1 Tbsp soft brown sugar

Method:

In a saucepan, heat the milk, yoghurt and sugar; stir until the sugar has dissolved.
Mix the flour, baking powder & salt together in a large bowl.
Pour the milk mixture into the flour mixture and mix into a sticky dough.
Tip onto a floured surface and portion into whatever size you want.
Shape each portion into a ball and cut a deep cross in the top of each ball and dust with flour.
Bake at 210C for 15-30 minutes (depending on size).

Wine Tasting with Vintage Roots!

2011-02-03T09:41:00.000Z

As part of Vegetarian Week, wine suppliers Vintage Roots will be offering a wine tasting evening at the Vegetarian Cookery School on Tuesday 24th May. Tickets will be £10 from the Vegetarian Cookery School and this includes canapés! More details will be posted on the website shortly.

Sushi & Japanese New Years Feast

2011-01-23T19:55:00.001Z

We had a wonderful day on Friday learning how exquisite and at the same time, when shown by an expert Sachiko Saeki how simple Japanese food can be. Here is the menu we made and check out more photos on flicker

Sushi & Japanese New Years Feast
Menu
ZOUNI
New Year’s special dish withMochi dumplings ( glutinous rice cake ) in miso soup
OSECHI Food we share with the gods
SUSHI
Roll sushi filling with dried tofu, shitake mushroom,cucumber, egg
NAMASU
Celebration daikon salad
GOMAE
Seasonal greens in a sesame dressing
DASHIMAKI
Japanese style egg roll
OSUMASHI
Fried tofu ball in clear soup
DESSERT
KINTOKI
Golden sweet potato and chestnuts,with maple syrup and serve with green tea

what's exciting for January? Seville Oranges for home made marmalade

2011-01-06T21:27:00.001Z

I'm down to my last jar of marmalade, thick cut with added lemon zest, should last until we make the 2011 vintage. Making marmalade has become the January ritual, looking out for the first Seville oranges to come in, then checking that they are up to scratch, they must be firm, even colour and by no means puffy!

My parents were great marmalade makers, my father sliced the peel, always chunky and my mother perfected the set. Their favourite was a dark marmalade made with muscovado sugar. I loved to eat their marmalade, but cringed at their yearly routine, far prefering to be on a far away beach, than at home making marmalade.

Now a generation on i'm making marmalade with my partner Christopher and he's the expert! I chop chunkily and he gets the set just right. Our favourite is with chunks of ginger in syrup or crystalised ginger. For a pure Seville flavour, best to make it with 100% granulated sugar.

Dark Thick Cut Seville Marmalade

Ingredients:
1 kilo Seville oranges
2 lemons, wax free
500g granulated sugar
500g muscovado sugar
500mls water

Method:
Wash the oranges and take out the stalks and cut them in halves.
Juice the oranges and lemons and keep all the juice and pips together in a jug.
To slice the orange peel, place two halves of orange on top of each other and with a sharp knife slice them about 1/2cm thick. Also slice the lemons a little thinner.
Put the sliced oranges and lemons into a large saucepan with 400mls of the water, cover and simmer gently for 30minutes to soften the peel. After 30 minutes the pith will have turned semi translucent.
Turn off the heat and add the sugars and stir until dissolved.
Put back on the heat and slowly bring to the boil, stir often to stop the marmalade sticking and keep on a slow boil.
Strain the juice, keeping the pips, add the juice to the marmalade and stir in.
Put the pips in a small saucepan with 100mls of water and simmer for 5 minutes.
Strain the pectin rich liquid into the marmalade and now discard the pips.
Stir and keep on a rolling boil for 30-40minutes in total.
Meanwhile place a saucer in the fridge, when the marmalade looks ready, dark, thick and volcanic put ½ teaspoon on the cold saucer and put back in the fridge for 30seconds to cool, then take out, hold up to the light and push your finger through to see if it wrinkles, if it does its ready if not try again.
When ready take off the heat and leave for 10mins to cool a little.
To prepare the jars, wash and dry and warm them in a very low oven, the idea is to have the jar the same temperature as the marmalade so the hot marmalade doesn’t shatter the glass, the heat will also sterilise the jars.
Holding the hot jar with an oven glove with a heat proof jug or ladle pour the marmalade into the jars and immediately put on the lids, wipe off any drips when still warm and label before you forget.
For added flavour add a jar of ginger in syrup, chop the ginger and add when you take the marmalade off the heat along with the syrup.
For a sourer more bitter marmalade reduce the amount of sugar by a third or as much as a halve, but you will get not such a good set.
Recipe from Christopher Robbins.

Bath Businesswoman of the Year

2011-01-06T20:33:00.000Z

Rachel Demuth won Bath Businesswoman of the year 2010 awarded by the Bath Chronicle for the people who made an impact in 2010.
"Twenty-one years after opening Demuths Restaurant in the city, 2010 was the year when Rachel Demuth got the industry recognition she so richly deserves. The restaurant was named Best Vegetarian Restaurant in Britain in the Gourmet Britain Awards and given the title of Best Vegan Restaurant by the Vegan Society. She also launched her Vegetarian Cookery School in Terrace Walk."

Bhutan Photos

2010-12-28T15:07:00.008Z

Bhutan, even though it's predominantly bhudist is not a vegetarian eaters paradise, unless you like chillies! chillies are served with every meal, cooked in a white cheese sauce, sounds strange!, but when you get accustomed to their heat the chillies make the dull boiled vegetables and rice sing.

Birds Beaks, similar to a cross between a courgette & a cucumber

Dried firey Bhutanese Chillies

Lunch of boiled veg & rice with chillies in cheese sauce

See more Bhutan pics here

Noma V Plenty

2010-12-27T20:15:00.000Z

The Food Programme - Lapland & The World's greatest Chef

Sitting down to write about my two Christmas Cookbooks of 2010, NOMA & Plenty and I turned the radio on and its the food programme on Danish chef Rene Redzepi of Noma, the 'world's best restaurant', forages for food in Lapland.

Rene is 32 and started NOMA 7 years ago, his skill is to put nature on the plate, all his ingredients are from The Nordic countries, foraged in the short summer season, herbs, lichens, mosses, berries, mushrooms, spruce shoots, sea buckthorn, woodruff, forgotten foods, survival foods, my interest is in the non meat and fish ingredients.

Rene then cooks using the essence of these ingredients, adopting molecular gastronomy of Heston Blumenthal to transform these simple foods into something else, raw & beautiful.

The NOMA cookbook was my most looked forward to Christmas present. It's a work of art, the photographs by Ditte Isager are sublime, then turn to the recipes, they are simply and clearly presented, but here is the but, to make them you will need the foraged Nordic larder, all the molecular kitchen gadgets and the skill of a chef trained in this rarefied gastronomy. Looking through for a recipe I thought I could achieve in my kitchen, I chose Potato Crisps and Yoghurt, sounded easy as I had the ingredients, but when it came to equipment, I needed a Japanese turning vegetable slicer, liguid Nitrogen and a spray gun! none of which I had!

This is a definitely a cookbook of beauty for us and inspiration for up and coming Chefs.

The Plenty cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi is less grand, but it does have a smart white padded cover and is filled with recipes from his 'vegetarian' column in the Saturday Guardian. Lovely to have a book majoring on vegetables, photos that make you hungry, and recipes that are easily achievable at home.

I know which book at home is going to be bent at the corners and splattered with oil, it will be Plenty, Noma will find its place beside my art books, but at demuths restaurant, it's the NOMA cookbook which is being assiduously thumbed by the chefs.

Merry Christmas & a joyous New Year

2010-12-24T15:14:00.000Z

One day to go, just time to make a vegetable packed Christmas dinner.....

Festive Filo Rotolo

“Rotolo” is an Italian dish, (traditionally made with sheets of pasta Rotolo means “Roll”). Our festive version give you a delicious centrepiece for Christmas dinner, but also left overs or elements of the dish which can become another meal or part of a feast. The Rotolo can be frozen and cooked from frozen or defrosted a little before cooking, brushed with melted butter or olive oil, and cooked until golden.
Serves 4 to 6 as a main course, 8 to 10 as a starter
Ingredients
1 pack of filo pastry
Melted butter or olive oil to brush the pastry
You will also need cling film and a pastry brush.
Roasted Squash filling
1 medium squash (approx 700g weight when prepped)
1 tsp pink peppercorns
1 tbsp olive oil
1 bulb garlic
Approx 6 stems of thyme
Salt
Pre-heat the oven to 190ºC/375ºF/gas 5
Chop the squash into cubes of approximately 1 cm, dress with the olive oil and the thyme. Halve the garlic through the middle and place, cut side down, on the baking tray with the squash. Grind the pink peppercorns in a pestle and mortar and stir into the squash. Roast for 30-40 minutes until the squash is starting to brown at the edges, stir it a few times during cooking. Taste and season with salt, remove any thyme stalks and squeeze the roasted garlic out of its skin-if you like you can make this into a paste with any oil left in the pan and stir it back into the squash.
Roasted walnuts with artichokes
50g walnut halves
1 tbsp olive oil
½ tsp smoked paprika
½ tsp Maldon salt
100g Grilled artichokes
A small handful of flat leaf parsley
Juice of half a lemon
In a baking tray toss the walnut halves in the olive oil and add the smoked paprika and salt. Roast for approx 10 minutes until the walnuts are browning but not burnt. Allow to cool and then break up the walnuts in a pestle and mortar.
Chop the artichokes and the flat leaf parsley finely and then stir them into the walnuts. Squeeze on the lemon and stir well. Taste and adjust the seasoning if needed-it is probably salty enough with the artichokes and walnuts but may need some pepper or more lemon juice.
Spinach with mustard seeds and feta
250g bag of spinach
1 tsp brown mustard seeds
Grated nutmeg (to taste)
Salt and black pepper
1 tbsp sunflower oil
100g feta
Wash the spinach in a colander and put, still wet; in a large pan (one that has a lid is best). Heat gently, stirring often until the spinach starts to wilt, then put on the lid for a couple of minutes so the spinach is all wilted. Transfer the spinach to a sieve and squeeze out as much liquid as you can with the back of a spoon. Meanwhile heat the oil in the pan which you melted the spinach in and add the mustard seeds and nutmeg. When the seeds begin to pop add the squeezed spinach and stir well. Taste and season with salt and pepper.

Place a large piece of Clingfilm on a work surface or chopping board.

On top of the Clingfilm layer two whole sheets of filo pastry, brushing between the sheets and on top of the sheets with melted butter or olive oil.

Spread the roasted squash cubes evenly over the surface of the filo. Gently press the squash with a fork so that it flattens all over the filo, evenly covering the sheet but leaving a 1 cm margin all around which is clear of filling.

Place another sheet of filo on top of the squash layer and brush with butter.

Spread the spinach evenly over the surface, again leaving a margin of 1cm around the edges. On top of the layer of spinach crumble the feta cheese evenly.

Place another sheet of filo on top of the spinach layer and brush with butter.

Spread the artichoke and walnuts on top of the filo, this time only covering the lower half of the filo (the bottom half nearest to you).

Working carefully, and using the cling film to help you roll the filo, start to roll up the Rotolo. You will need to roll evenly so that the filo rolls into a long sausage shape. Keep gently squeezing along the length of the filo to tighten the roll and get rid of any bubbles.

When you come to the end of the filo you should have a tidy round sausage shape. Gently tuck in both ends to seal in the fillings. Carefully lift the Rotolo and place on a clean board or tray. Place another sheet of filo on the Clingfilm and brush with butter. Place the Rotolo on the filo so that the seam is face down and roll it up again.

Discard the Clingfilm, brush the whole Rotolo with butter and wrap in Foil. The Rotolo can be cooked straight away, or kept in the fridge for up to three days, or frozen and cooked from frozen or defrosted (cook for an extra 15 minutes if cooking from frozen).

To Cook at 190ºC/375ºF/gas 5
Rotolo in its foil: 40 minutes, remove the foil and cook for another 10 minutes until golden
Or slice the Rotolo into 2 cm slices, spread out on a baking tray and bake for 30 minutes
Tip and ideas:
You can use all of the different layers of the Rotolo to make different dishes-either make a smaller Rotolo and use the leftovers or double up the fillings.
Squash Bissara: Roast the squash as in the Rotolo and mash the cooked squash with a little ground cumin, lemon juice and olive oil. Delicious with breadsticks or as a dip.
Combine the roasted walnut and Artichoke mixture with the Spinach and feta mix to make a delicious salad or side dish. This also works well stirred through pasta.
You can make a gluten free version of the dish by filling a squash. Choose a small “munchkin” or onion squash. Slice off the top so that you have a lid and the carefully scoop out the seeds. Brush the inside of the squash with a little olive oil and roast the squash for approximately 30 minutes. Allow to cool and the layer up the fillings for the Rotolo, finishing with a topping of the walnuts. Wrap in foil and roast for approximately 30 minutes, removing the foil for the final 10 minutes.
For a vegan version omit the feta and use olive oil to brush the filo pastry. You could replace the feta with a vegan soft cheese or make your own “Labna” (see the recipe included)
Filo: If you can try and find a filo pastry from the chilled area of a supermarket rather than frozen. Makes such as Just-roll, which are just frozen, are hard to work with and usually split. Just Roll in the purple packet works better. Waitrose sells an excellent French make.

Click here for a round of up of more of our favourite Christmas Recipes, all vegetables, not a bronzed turkey in sight!

Rachel Demuth in the Metro's 'What The Top Chefs Will Be Cooking on Christmas Day'

2010-12-24T13:36:00.001Z

What the top chefs will be cooking on Christmas Day

Chefs might work hard in the kitchen all year but you can guarantee they won’t want to leave the cooking to someone else this Christmas. Metro discovers what they’ll be serving up at the weekend.

Rachel Demuth, owner of Demuths vegetarian restaurant and cookery school in Bath
I’m cooking a festive filo rotolo, a pastry round filled with layers of squash, spinach, artichokes, walnuts and feta. I’m going to serve roast potatoes with a semolina, rosemary and thyme crust, cavolo nero, sprouts, leeks, chestnuts and gravy. I make cranberry relish with star anise, cinnamon, cloves, orange and lemon peel and a little bit of sugar. There’ll be sticky toffee and ginger pudding and ginger wine-poached pears to finish.

To drink: Organic wine from www.vintageroots.co.uk www.demuths.co.uk

Licence to grill: Sanjay Dwivedi in the kitchen

Glynn Purnell, chef/proprietor, Purnells and The Asquith restaurants, Birmingham
I’m cooking a bronze turkey and a shoulder of pork. For the turkey, I’ll take the legs off, bone them out, remove all the sinew, roll them and roast them as separate joints. I’ll roast the crown with loads of butter and a bit of stock, half steam it, then open up the foil and roast it off. First thing in the morning, I pre-blanch all the vegetables and refresh them in cold water, then you can just sprinkle them with honey and roast them about an hour before the meal. To drink: A bottle of Billecarte-Salmon champagne and a red such as a Hermitage or Côte-Rôtie.
Visit www.purnellsrestaurant.com.
Stuart Gillies, chef director of The Savoy Grill, London

His goose will be well and truly cooked: chef Stuart Gillies

I’ll be in the kitchen at The Savoy on Christmas Day but because my wife’s from France we have a French Christmas on December 24. She always wants foie gras, crab and then beef fillet Rossini. On top of that I cook a chocolate fondant or bake a vacherin. It’s very indulgent. Usually on Christmas Day I’d cook a Norfolk bronze turkey or a goose with red cabbage, prunes, roast potatoes, parsnips and creamed brussels sprouts with bacon.
To drink: A sweet Hungarian Tokaji with the foie gras and a Gigondas with the beef. Visit www.gordonramsay.com.
Sanjay Dwivedi, chef/patron of Zaika, London
I’ll be with my in-laws in France, in St Etienne, near Lyon. There’ll be about 30 of us and the meal lasts six or seven hours. We always start with loads of champagne, foie gras and smoked salmon. My job is to open about 150 oysters. We’re doing two big geese and I’m going to confit the legs. This year they’ve also asked me to make some samosas so I’m going to do chicken with cinnamon, confit of duck with star anise and black and green cardamom, and some with the wild mushrooms my father-in-law has foraged.
To drink: Australian shiraz. Visit www.zaika-restaurant.co.uk.
Shaun Hill, chef/proprietor of The Walnut Tree Inn, Abergavenny
To start, there’ll be fish soup with coconut milk, spices and tamarind. I’ll cook two geese from Goodman’s Geese and serve them with sauerkraut and roast potatoes. I can’t stand cranberry sauce; the idea of putting jam on poultry is very bizarre indeed. I’ll serve my favourite cheese, Nun Of Caen, and some stilton and we’ll have trifle.
To drink: A magnum of Qupé Marsanne from California, a bucket of champagne, a large Poire William (pear liqueur) and then I’ll fall over. Visit www.the walnut treeinn.com.
Bruce Poole, chef/proprietor of Chez Bruce, London
I’ll be serving a Copas turkey. You can’t roast the whole bird and cook the legs adequately without overcooking the rest of it, so I take the legs off and confit them in goose fat for about three hours. I roast celeriac, Jerusalem artichokes, parsnips and button onions in the morning and warm them through with cooked sprouts, bacon and chestnuts. I make giblet gravy with the juices from the bird; I don’t thicken it with anything, I like it quite thin.
To drink: Domaine Dujac Charmes-Chambertin 1999. Visit www.chez bruce.co.uk.