- 2 cups wholemeal spelt flour
- 1/4 cup (4 tabs) olive oil
- 1/2 tspn salt
- 1/2 cup (8 tabs) iced water. Use an ice cube to cool if needed.
- Mix all ingredients together and knead lightly.
- Depending on the temperature and humidity, you may have to add a smidgen more water or flour to get the desired consistency, which should be not sticky but also not too firm. NB: ensure you add a Metric smidgen
- Wrap in greaseproof paper and chill for 30 minutes or more.
- In the summer time the pastry can lose it’s chill very quickly so if making small pastries, take small amounts out of the fridge at a time to stop it from getting too sticky.
Spicy chickpea sausage rolls
These sausage rolls can easily be made gluten free by using appropriate pastry. The mix itself is gluten free without alteration.
For the putting in
- 600g cooked chickpeas
- ½ cup finely chopped (bamixed) mixed, roasted nuts
- 2 thumb of fresh ginger, peeled and grated
- 4 garlic cloves, crushed
- 1 red onion, finely chopped
- 3 tsp cumin seeds
- 3 tsp coriander seeds
- 2 tsp fenugreek seeds
- 2 tsp garam masala
- ½ tsp chilli powder – to taste
- Salt and Pepper
- 2 tbsp tomata paste
- Generous splash of tamari
- pre-rolled puff pastry (use gluten free pastry if needed)
- ½ cup soy yoghurt, diluted (to brush pastry)
- 1 tsp fennel seeds, to decorate
For the putting together
In a small pan, saute the onion in some olive oil until soft. Add the garlic, ginger and saute for four to five minutes more to soften the garlic and ginger.
Meanwhile, gently toast the cumin, coriander and fenugreek seeds in the oven until they smell fragrant, then add in with the nuts and bamix (using the dry foods thingy).
Using a slicing blade in a food processor roughly cut the chickpeas.
Into the onions stir in the tomato puree, tamari, salt, papper, and chopped chickpeas. Continue to cook on a low heat to reduce liquid, stirring occasionally.
If you are going to cook the sausage rolls right away, heat the oven to 180C.
Once the chickpea mix is fairly dry remove from heat and thoroughly mix with the chopped nuts. Allow to cool until it can be handled.
Remove the pastry from the fridge, put on a floured surface and cut in half lengthways. Divide the mix in half and roll into two long sausages. Put a sausage along the length of each pastry and brush the long edges with the yoghurt wash. Roll the pastries around the mix and press the pastry together where it meets, using a fork to crimp the edges. Brush all over with yoghurt wash, sprinkle with fennel seeds and cut into mini rolls about an inch thick – any thinner and they will fall over in the oven. At this stage, you can freeze them, separating the layers with parchment paper.
Bake for 20-25 minutes, until puffed and golden, and serve with a spicy tomato marmalade, Indian chutney.
If the mix is to be used later, refridgerate in a lidded container.
Serve with a jolly nice chutney.
An even better quiche recipe
Real men don’t eat quiche. Real men eat vegan quiche, then do the washing up followed by giving their partners a back massage.
This is a superior quiche to this one.
A lot of the heavy lifting steps in this recipe can be done ahead of time, indeed the pastry needs to be made ahead of time and refrigerated for while. The cauliflower can also be roasted a day or two ahead if you happen to using the oven already.
In:
- 1 batch Shortcrust pastry
- 1 batch Scrambled breakfast tofu
- 300 g cauliflower, chopped into small florets
- Handful of green beans, finely diced
- 1 medium onion, finely sliced
- 1 tomato, sliced fairly thinly
- 1 cup chickpea flour
- 1.5 cups water
- 2 tabs of light miso
- handful of your favourite olives (de-stoned if necessary) and sliced
- 2 or 3 (semi) sundried tomatoes, chopped
- Olive oil
Do:
Dissolve the miso into the water. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, miso water, 2 tbsp of the oil. Cover and let it sit for a few hours or overnight. There’s no need to refrigerate it – in fact…just don’t. The keen eyed will note that this step is based on a Soccatta mix.
Once the Soccatta mix is ready…Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius.
Roast the cauliflower. Place in a bowl with a splash of olive oil and coat well. Place on a baking tray and bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes until softened and slightly charred. Put to one side.
Whilst roasting, add a teaspoon of oil to a pan and fry the onions for about 3 minutes until they start to caramelise. Meanwhile, put a small saucepan of water on to boil.
Once the water is at a rolling boil add the chopped beans and blanche quickly. Drain and cool them with cold, running water. We want them still slightly crunchy.
Line an oiled quiche dish with pastry, prick the bottom and bake blind for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and prepare the filling.
In a large bowl (or use one of the saucepans if big enough) combine the cauliflower, beans, olives, sundried tomatoes, onions, and scrambled tofu. Toss until fairly evenly mixed.
Add everything from that bowl into the pastry shell and gently smooth down until fairly even. Pour the the flour mix over as evenly as possible. Top with the sliced tomatoes.
Bake for 20 minutes. Remove from oven, brush with a little olive oil, place in the oven for a further 5 minutes.
Allow to cool before serving.
Kitchen Note: If you don’t have one of those quiche dishes where the sides can be removed separately from the bottom despair not. The shortcrust pastry has a tendency to shrink slightly so will almost always smoothly pull back from the edges during cooking. Lightly oil the quiche dish if in doubt.