One of my favourite things about visiting my parents is the Saturday morning ritual of reading through the Guardian newspaper. The first thing I reach for is the Feast. In recent years it has contained some vegan recipe gems.
One such recipe was an oven-baked chilli tofu by Meera Sodha. It produced such a lovely rich chilli with a satisfying chew and texture. But as with many of Meera Sodha’s recipes, I found it way too oily. And much unlike her other recipes, overseasoned. It had so much salt that I felt I needed a beer chaser (who knows, maybe the Guardian is sponsored by Heineken).
The recipe concept was perfect for tweaking. So, I put my spin on it to create this simplified, protein-packed oven-baked vegan chilli made with my favourite ingredient, tempeh. Worthy of a place in your healthy weeknight dinner rotation.
Equipment:
- Large oven tray
Ingredients:
Stock
- 10 g dried shiitake mushroom
- 2 tbsp marmite
Blitzing ingredients
- 400 g tempeh
- 2 red onions skin removed
- 6 cloves garlic skin removed
- 2 red peppers stems removed and deseeded
- 5 sundried tomatoes
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp dried chipotle flakes
- 1 tsp cumin seeds
- 1 tsp ground coriander
- 1 tsp dried oregano
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
Other ingredients
- 2 tbsp rapeseed oil
- 2 tins black beans 400g each
- 880 g tinned chopped tomatoes
- 1 tbsp cacao powder
Serving suggestions
- Guacamole
- Cooked white rice
- Pickled red onion
- Chopped coriander
Instructions:
- Put the dried shiitake into a jug and fill with 500ml of just boiled water, cover the jug with a lid and set it aside for 20 minutes (until the mushrooms have fully rehydrated)
- Preheat oven to
180 °C - Meanwhile, roughly chop your tempeh, red onion and red peppers into large chunks
- Place the chopped tempeh into your food processor and blitz until it forms a chunky mince, decant it into a large oven tray
- Continue this process with the onion and garlic, and then with the chopped red pepper and sundried tomato
- Drain the shiitake water into a jug that contains the marmite and mix until it forms a stock. Blitz (or roughly chop) the drained shiitake mushrooms and mix them into the tray with the other ingredients
- Stir the salt, oregano and spices, and the rapeseed oil into the tray and mix thoroughly
- Place the tray into the preheated oven and cook for 30 minutes
- Take the tray out of the oven and stir in the chopped tomatoes, the drained beans and the marmite stock
- Place the tray back in the oven and cook for another 40 minutes, until it has a rich dark red colour to it, with a thick consistency
- Stir in the cacao powder and serve!
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