Food Friday – Nut Roast & Mushroom & Shallot Gravy

Nut Roast & Mushroom & Shallot Gravy

Nut Roast
Ingredients:

1 free-range, preferably organic egg, beaten
110 g Gruyère cheese, finely rated, due to its nuttiness
1/2 tsp. dried sage
1/2 tsp. finely chopped fresh mint
1 1/2 tbsp. curly parsley
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 tsp. vegetable stock concentrate, I use reduced salt Bouillon
sea salt
black pepper
knob of butter or oil for greasing tin
190 g fresh spinach leaves
250 g unsalted mixed nuts, I use hazelnuts, brazil and almond nuts 30 g of unsalted cashew nuts
1/2 green onion, finely chopped
1 carrot, grated
200 g good quality tinned tomatoes, drained and chopped
50 g sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil, roughly chopped

Method conventional oven
Preheat the oven 180°C

Put spinach in boiling water, drain well and squeeze out all the water. Chop the spinach finely and set aside for later.
Put the mixed nuts and cashews in a food processor.
Pulse until chopped, Don’t over reduce them or they will turn to powder.
Put the nuts into a bowl and add the onion, carrot, tinned and sun-dried tomatoes, cheese, garlic, sage, mint, parsley, spinach, egg, stock & seasoning, then mix everything together really well.
Grease a loaf tin with butter or oil and pour in the mixture.
Put a a piece of greaseproof paper over loaf tin, grease it to stop it burning. Bake for about an hour or so until the nut roast is cooked through. Tip out carefully and serve hot.

Method Aga oven
Follow the same directions as above but put in middle shelf or top roasting oven for 50 minutes and then check if cooked. You can then transfer it down to the floor of the low bottom oven to keep warm before you are ready to serve.

Mushroom & Shallot Gravy
Ingredients:

Knob of butter or spread
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 shallot, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, crushed and chopped
200g mushrooms, preferably wild ones
250 ml vegetable stock
2 tbsp. soy sauce, I use Tamari gluten free option
1 tbsp. plain flour, I use gluten free, white, all purpose flour mix 1 tbsp. butter
sea salt
Black pepper

Method
Heat the oil and knob of butter in a medium sized pan, then add the chopped shallot. cook until transparent. About 4-5 minutes.
Add the garlic and sweat for 8 minutes.
Add mushrooms and cook and stir for a further 3-5 minutes.
Add the stock and soy sauce, then season to taste and simmer with the lid on for 8-10 minutes.
Mix the tablespoon of flour into the tablespoon of butter and stir into the gravy to thicken it.
Serve piping hot with the nut roast.

About Sal Hanvey

Sal Hanvey is an award winning Nutrition Consultant. She has a real passion for finding ingredient substitutes and alternatives for those people with food intolerances, or allergies, without compromising on nutritional value or taste.

Sal writes for various publications around the subjects of nutrition and well-being. Sal offers ‘Stir Crazy’ cook-a-long classes online to help people to connect, or re-connect to the universal language that we all know and love- to enjoy good food. The classes are interactive, live and very much nutrition led.

This series of #FoodFriday is kindly supported by Inspire Wellbeing and the Change Your Mind programme. Change Your Mind It is a joint programme run by Inspire and the Public Health Agency. It is Northern Ireland’s regional campaign to tackle stigma and discrimination around mental health. They are funded by Comic Relief and work in partnership with a range of organisations and community networks across Northern Ireland.

They are a grassroots campaign shaped by the collaboration of communities, organisations and individuals who are championing the message against mental health stigma across society – a campaign for people, driven by people. Read more here.