Vegan leek and celeriac bake from the inclusive world of Dame Fandango

vegetables | beautiful leek and celeriac bake

Serves 2

Dame Fan and I both get superb seasonal veg boxes delivered. And sometimes I look in the box and think, "What the heck am I going to do with that?!" At the moment, they include celeriac - which is often combined with cream or cheese in recipes. So, faced with a lovely freshly-picked knobbly looking celeriac staring at me from the box, and determined to make good use of it without these, I started experimenting! And I am really pleased with the result. The recipe is vaguely based on one found on the Riverford organic farm site (which unfortunately also had dairy in it) and it is absolutely delicious. In fact, this is one of my current favourite dishes.

Wheat free, dairy free, nut free, meat free version...

Ingredients...

1 small celeriac, peeled and cubed
1 leek, sliced
1 onion, chopped quite finely
3 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into reasonably big chunks (you're going to slice these later)
Handful of cherry tomatoes
2 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced finely
1 bay leaf
1 tsp cinnamon
4 heaped tsp sun dried tomato paste
¼ pint water
2 tbsp red wine
Pinch sugar
Salt and pepper
1 dessert spoon oil

Method...

Heat the oven to 170 degrees. In a pan, boil the celeriac, potatoes and leeks with a little salt for about 10 minutes. In another pan, heat the oil and fry the onion until starting to soften. Add the garlic and cook for a minute or two Then add the tomatoes and cook for a few more minutes. Add the wine, water, cinnamon, tomato paste and bay. Bring to the boil and simmer for 10-15 minutes. Then add the sugar and seasoning and stir well. When the potatoes, celeriac and leeks are done, drain them and put the leek and celeriac into an oven proof dish - you can split them between individual dishes if you prefer. Take the bay out of the tomato sauce and pour over the leeks and celeriac. Slice the potatoes and arrange on top. Brush the potatoes with a little oil and season with pepper. Bake for 30-40 minutes and serve.

Maybe serve with...

I serve this with various things, but tend to keep it quite simple, mostly for reasons of speed! The bake works well with lovely dark green leafy vegetables, such as wilted spinach, and also with the crunch of something like julienne carrot. Kale works well, as does stir fried dark cabbage - and also courgettes. If you didn't want to use potatoes, you could stir cooked pasta through the mixture and bake that instead, for 10-15 minutes.

For those able to eat wheat...

You could add a sprinkling of breadcrumbs mixed with a finely chopped or dried herb over the potatoes if you wished - to give it a bit of crunch. Add the breadcrumbs 10-15 minutes before the bake is ready.

If you have celeriac and potatoes leftover, see the quick cream of celeriac soup. If you have leeks and potatoes leftover, see the leek and potato soup. If you have leeks leftover, see the minestrobe soup. If you just have bits of vegetables leftover, see the basic vegetable stock. And you could also just make the sauce and pour over other vegetables if you wanted to.