I have a commercial design background. Looking back over the seventy odd food paintings that I've done so far for this artvegecookbook, it seems like a strong influence. I'm not sure why this surprises me. My natural style was always somewhat illustrative, clean and clear in a graphic design sense, and cartoon influenced. This was part of the reason I headed toward medical illustration and animation. It suited my style and it helped me help other people. That's called going with the flow.

But now that I'm painting, following my own agenda and free to work in any visual style, the bold graphic element is very clearly still there.

In pondering this, I realised that it may be a product of what I am grasping for in my work. I aim for 'essence'. For the underlying or intrinsic special something of (in this case a recipe) to be rendered in a visual form. That's what I do. It's what I've always done. In medical illustration the essence is the distilled medical/anatomical information made crystal clear for a non-medic. In graphic design it is the logo which at a glance captures just what a company or brand is about. Done well, these become icons.

Icons by necessity tend to be bold, graphic and clear. An icon has a job to do. It encapsulates a huge amount of information. It represents a much larger set of associations and ideas and sends it's bolt of understanding to anyone who dares look. It has to be clear and recognisable. I am aiming for icons. For creations that capture the essence of their recipe and send a bolt of yes, of course, that's it exactly.

Satisfying. Quick. Easy. Homely.

***

Food painting artwork

30 x 30cm oil on linen. Celebrating the distinctive white cracking pattern of the top of the winter shiitake mushroom. If you take a look at my previous post on the Edwardian photographer and professional gardener Charles Jones, you will see the inspiration for this painting. I wanted to do the painting equivalent of his gentle yet powerful moments with vegetables.

By the way, all the food painting artwork is available to own in the Official Art Store.

***

The meatless meals recipe

Chunky. Filling. Easy. Hearty.

***

Food painting artwork is 30 x 30cm oil on linen. Inspired by the colourful and happy landscapes of Ton Schulten, a Dutch artist whom I discovered by accident (always the way, really) while browsing through a gallery shop, probably the Tate Modern in London though I'm not sure. Anyway, I spied a very small diary about the size of my hand and it was filled, filled, with bright happy colourful landscapes. I bought it and now a lot of those pages are in my inspiration scrapbook. This is not a 'scrapbook' in the fancy designed memorial sense of 'scrapbooking', but a magpie collection of scraps of paper with images that grab me all glued haphazardly into one book.

The connection between Ton's landscape style and this roast vege salad is the chunks of colour he uses and of the veges in the bowl, and the bare yet not barren fields of winter that these mostly root veges have come from.

By the way, all the food painting artwork is available to own in the Official Art Store.

***

Another meatless meals recipe

1 carrot

1 parsnip

200g broccoli or cauliflower

200-250g pumpkin

3 medium potatoes

1 medium onion

90-100g haloumi cheese, cubed or sliced

4 tablespoons hommous - recipe for homemade hommous coming!

around 75g brazil nuts, roughly sliced

around 65g rocket

Preheat your oven to 200 C.

Chop all your veges (carrot, parsnip, broccoli, cauliflower, pumpkin, potato, onion) into pieces no larger than one inch cubes.

Roast on a lightly oiled tray for 45-60 minutes until the veg are nicely cooked. Go easy on any additional salt as haloumi is salty enough. In the end you probably won't need any more.

Remember to turn the veg from time to time. The roasting time will vary from oven to oven and depend on the size of the veg pieces too.

Divide the roasted veg across two bowls and top with haloumi, hommous, rocket and brazil nuts.

This makes a rather big meal for 2.

Thrifty. Creamy. Hearty. Easy.

***

Food painting artwork

30 x 30cm oil on linen. Inspired by a Twitter comment by the design minded @reese on the innocent quality of blind contour drawing. What's that? It's a drawing practice where you keep your eye on the subject and your pencil moving and you never look at what's appearing on the page. It improves hand-eye coordination and confidence.

I hooked on the idea of using that innocent quality of simple lines and shapes on the completely weird brussel sprout plant. And so we ended up with high brow oil painting meets low brow pencil cartooning. I'm liking this hybrid. For the unaware, the brussel sprout plant is the alien of the vegetable world. When harvested, they look like this (the leaves have been cut off those spikey stalks):

By the way, all the food painting artwork is available to own in the Official Art Store.

***

The meatless meals recipe

In the spirit of finding tasty, easy and hearty things to do with the blander winter veg, I challenged myself to ‘do something’ with brussels sprouts that wasn’t just a side dish. You would not believe how many different incarnations this concept went through before landing here. The original idea was to use chestnuts as they go so well with brussels. 

But. 

After shelling, about half of our chestnuts were rotten and they can be such a time consuming pain in the behind to prepare, that they were dumped. I know when I’m cold and hungry the last thing I want to do is sit down and peel an ingredient for half an hour before I can even get started on making the meal. I am quite sure I am not alone in this sentiment. What we have here is the exact opposite. Quick to prepare and made of humble ingredients. Filling and tasty.

Bingo. 

Oh, and it’s not actually a casserole as it never gets near the oven. Casserole just sounded tastier than stew, which rhymes with ‘ew’. Point taken?

1 tablespoon butter

1 onion, roughly diced

1 ½ green apples, chopped fine but rough

2 cups stock, possibly three

¼ cup split peas

¼ cup lentils

¼ cup rice

1 cup cooked mixed beans

125g mushrooms, chopped

350g brussel sprouts (in quarters) or cabbage (finely sliced)

½ teaspoon dried sage

300ml cream

375g potato in bite size pieces

Saute onion in butter until golden.

Add apple and a little stock, put the lid on the pot and cook the apple until it’s mashable.

Mash into a rough sauce.

Then add everything else and simmer, lid off, until all the ingredients are done. This will be around 30 minutes. Keep an eye on the amount of liquid and add extra stock to prevent sticking if necessary.

Serves 4. 

A generous amount of cracked black pepper works well on top.

Light. Unusual. Delicate. Easy.

***

Food painting artwork

30 x 30cm oil on linen. Square pastry pieces. Rectangular pieces of leek. Gentle, elegant shades of greens and creams. How could this be anything else but an understated abstract of these elements? Look for the softly glowing glazing, the ghosted background colours and the linework using sgraffito (that's the fancy term for scratching into  paint). This is a very subtle, understated painting, just like it's recipe is subtle and understated.

By the way, all the food painting artwork is available to own in the Official Art Store.

***

The meatless meals recipe

While perusing the interwebs for winter recipe inspiration I found this simple recipe posted on Taste.com.au. It looked so, well, elegant. Of course I had to try it. Originally by Gemma Purcell from Good Taste September 2007. It has been adapted, of course.

Now some notes from the kitchen. Firstly, don’t try these with mushrooms as I did. Sweet, caramelised mushroom is just disturbing. Trust me on this. I make and eat dreadful cooking mistakes so you don't have to. Well, actually my chickens & dogs do the eating of the truly dreadful ones. Secondly, leek works wonderfully well, so chic and je ne sais quoi. Onion is the acceptable cousin but not quite as, you know, vavavoom.

2 leeks or 4 small to medium onions
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/3 cup / 80ml white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons sugar
25x25cm sheet puff pastry
125g ricotta cheese

Top and tail your leeks and wash out all the grit. Cut them in half down their length and then into bite size chunks.
If your are using onions, cut them into thick rings.
Gently cook your leeks or onions in butter and oil until softened. For onions, do NOT burn. Golden is good.
Add the sugar to the pan and then the vinegar.
Simmer gently until the sauce thickens, around 5 minutes.
Cut the pastry into 4 equal squares.
Coat the pastry squares with ricotta, leaving a border around the edges.
Top with the cooked leek or onions. Reserve any leftover sauce for drizzling over the cooked tarts before serving.
Bake in the oven
EITHER
at 180 C for 40 minutes on a LIGHTLY oiled tray. Keep out of the hottest part of your oven if possible or the bottoms will go black.
OR
At 220 C on a baking paper covered tray for 15 minutes.

This makes a meal for 4 with the addition of potatoes and a side of greens.

Satisfying. Thrifty. Easy. Homely.

***

Food painting artwork

30 x 30cm oil on canvas. Imagine a typical English grey day. You've been walking outside in the mist. It's cold. Everything in sight is a shade of twilight grey. The house is in sight, with a welcoming glow. You're half frozen, all your clothes are damp and you're starving. Now imagine the cosy warm feeling of homely comfort food. Perhaps bangers and mash? A huge helping of fluffy buttery mashed potatoes, some sausages and your favourite sides, all smothered in gravy. Heavenly.

By the way, all the food painting artwork is available to own in the Official Art Store.

***

The meatless meals recipe

Tangy. Moreish. Thrifty. Easy.

***

Food painting artwork

30 x 30cm oil on linen. Hot and sour soup is all about achieving a balance of these two flavours. This piece is also all about the concept of balance, of getting multiple variables just right for your individual taste. A hair or balance spring represents this idea and I'm sure that you can figure out what the lemon and fire denote.

By the way, all the food painting artwork is available to own in the Official Art Store.

***

The meatless meals recipe

Hot and sour soup is a staple on Chinese restaurant menus around here and I love it. However, it is not very filling, being little more than a tasty broth. For a hungry person this is bad. Apparently it is often flavoured with blood. For a vegetarian or anyone squeamish this is super bad. Due to both of these issues I devised, long ago in my student days, this cheap, quick, filling and animal friendly version that I could make at home in a gigantic pot and live on for days. I hope you like it as much as I do.

6 cups water

a coriander plant (at least 15g including leaves, stalks and clean roots)

3cm / 10g fresh ginger, sliced

2 teaspoons salt

1 carrot, chopped or sliced

8 closed cup button mushrooms, halved or quartered
about 180g tofu, cubed
2 teaspoons fresh grated ginger
1 tablespoon cornflour
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons sesame oil
about 230g bamboo shoots
approx 125g dry asian noodles
3 spring onions, chopped
3 tablespoons white wine vinegar, to taste
1 1/2 teaspoons white pepper powder, to taste

Put the water, coriander, salt, carrot and ginger slices in a large pot and simmer, lid on, for 20 minutes.
Remove ginger and coriander roots.
Add mushroom, tofu, bamboo shoots, grated ginger and simmer until mushrooms are cooked.
Add your choice of noodles and keep simmering until these are cooked.
In a mug or similar, mix cornflour, soy sauce and sesame oil until all the lumps are gone.
Add this to the soup. Stir until it thickens.
Add spring onions.
Add the pepper and vinegar a little at a time, until the dish suits your taste. I recommend adding the vinegar first until it is pleasantly sour, and then adding the pepper until the heat is right for you.


This feeds 3.

Tangy. Unusual. Hearty. Easy.

***

Food painting artwork

30 x 30cm oil on linen. Persian fairy tales are wonderful. Actually, that's probably true of most fairy tales. I digress. How captivating is a giant benevolent peacock so old that it knows the knowledge of all the Ages, which purifies the land and waters and acts as mediator and messenger between the earth and sky? It gets better. This Simurgh roosts in Saena, "the Tree of Life, which stands in the middle of the world sea Vourukhasa. The plant is potent medicine, is called all-healing, and the seeds of all plants are deposited on it. When the Simurgh takes flight, the leaves of the Tree of Life shake making all the seeds of every plant fall out. These seeds floated around the world on the winds of Vayu-Vata and the rains of Tishtrya, in cosmology taking root to become every type of plant that ever lived, and curing all the illnesses of mankind." (From Wikipedia) Just wow.

So this painting is inspired by this magical Persian take on cosmology. In this version, all the greenery of this recipe is visible on the Tree of Life and the overall style is strongly influenced by the Persian folk art of this creation myth.

By the way, all the food painting artwork is available to own in the Official Art Store.

***

The meatless meals recipe

OMG a winter stew that I actually like! In creating and testing recipes for winter I discovered that I'm really really truly not a fan of stew. I think I find an entire bowl of sloppy winter vegetables just a bit boring. Which come to think of it is rather odd as I LOVE thick chunky soups. Go figure. Anyway, where I was heading is that I tried stews from cultures all over the world. From the many that were translated into vege versions, this is the only one which made me sit up and go 'wow, that worked'. With all the flavour from the truckload of herbs in this dish, it is anything but dull.

3 tablespoons oil

1 large onion, diced

1 teaspoon turmeric

750g potatoes, in bite size cubes

Greens:

2 cups finely chopped fresh spinach or similar

1 cup finely chopped spring onion, all parts

1/2 cup finely chopped fresh parsley - leaves and small stalks (did you know that the stalks hold the flavour in parsley?)

1/4 cup finely chopped coriander

1 tablespoon dried fenugreek leaves

1/4 cup finely chopped fresh chives

juice of 3 limes

1 teaspoon cinnamon powder

2 cups stock

240g cooked kidney beans

Saute the onion in the oil in a very big pot until a deep golden colour.

Add turmeric and fry for a minute or two.

Add potato and mix well. 

Fry until potatoes are browned.

Add greens and fry, stirring, until greens deepen in colour and darken.

Add stock, kidney beans, lime juice and cinnamon. 

Simmer, covered, for 30 mins or until potatoes are well cooked.
Do. Not. Boil.

Check seasoning for salt, pepper and lime juice.

Serves 3. Yes that's an odd quantity.

Fresh. Easy. Chunky. Filling.

***

Food painting artwork

30 x 30cm oil on linen. Inspired by that feeling of thinking everything is grey and barren and the same and then suddenly realising there's a super tasty option that you've been overlooking. That's how I feel about salads in winter. All this focus on creamy starchyness, which is great, but gets a bit monotonous after a while, and then the realisation that a fireworks of freshness would be perfect.

By the way, all the food painting artwork is available to own in the Official Art Store. A very limited edition reproduction print is available right now. If you want to get your hands on the original, then either keep a close eye on the store yourself, or sign up to my newsletter for collectors to conveniently have a note drop into your inbox when it's available to own. It's the yellow box, top left.

***

The meatless meals recipe

We all crave a break from the starch routine in the depths of winter. Well most people do anyhow. Actually if I’m honest even I do, noodle queen that I am. It’s not easy to make a filling warm salad from winter ingredients, which is why  a recipe like this one is so welcome. Eat some fresh stuff, get a load of vitamins, warm up on a roast, feel satisfied. All rolled into one.

500g pumpkin

50g snowpeas, sliced

½ cup roughly chopped nuts (walnut and almond work well)

1 avocado, sliced

1 cup cooked chickpeas

2 spring onions, sliced finely

50g rocket

½ apple, diced finely

parmesan cheese (optional)

Dressing:

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

juice of half a lemon

3 tablespoons olive oil

Chop pumpkin into roughly one inch cubes, season with salt and pepper and roast for 45 minutes at 180 C.

Prepare the remaining ingredients and the dressing. Remember that apple and avocado will go brown if left to sit for too long so leave these until the last minute.

When the pumpkin is nicely roasted, divide it into two serving bowls.

Mix the rest of the salad ingredients and top onto the pumpkin.

Finish with the dressing and a sprinkling of parmesan if you want.

A meal for 2.

Unusual. Delicate. Versatile. Thrifty.

***

Food painting artwork

30 x 30cm oil and graphite on linen. A modern botannical style representation of the rosehips essential to this recipe. Part oil painting and part drawing. Full of life. A mixed media experiment that worked rather well, don't you think?

By the way, all the food painting artwork is available to own in the Official Art Store. A very limited edition reproduction print is available right now. If you want to get your hands on the original, then either keep a close eye on the store yourself, or sign up to my newsletter for collectors to conveniently have a note drop into your inbox when it's available to own. It's the yellow box, top left.

***

The meatless meals recipe

Quick. Easy. Satisfying. Fresh.

***

Food painting artwork

30 x 30cm acrylic on paper. The paper is no ordinary paper, it is textured Hahnemuhle 300 gsm 100% alpha cellulose which is acid-free fibre of vegetable origin.

This is a super slick stencil style painting of charmingly cartoonish burger-mushrooms in a 1950's colour palette. Thanks to the Japanese anime style painter Madoka Kinoshita for inspiring the clean crisp lines and patience required for this piece. She recently did a three part video series of her painting methods which I found fascinating. It left me itching to try this style again. Now after completing this piece, I really know that while I enjoy the results, I really don't enjoy the process. Next time I try a stencil style piece, there will be changes to the method! I found that I am actually quicker and at least as accurate painting freehand rather than using a cut out mask. Who would've thunk?

By the way, all the food painting artwork is available to own in the Official Art Store.

***

The meatless meals recipe

Don't be fooled by the simplicity of this 'recipe'. It's bloody delicious. And in the middle of winter when you're craving something fresh, yet warming and filling, this really hits the spot. I'm still searching for vege burgers of the pattie variety that can match these ideas.

So it's really easy and involves only 4 ingredients for the entire burger, with two variations.

bread for your burger, whatever style you like

avocado, be generous

rocket

then either topped with

haloumi cheese cut into 1/2 - 1 cm thick strips and gently pan fried until golden on both sides

or

a giant flat mushroom of any variety with the stalk cut off so they lie flat, then slowly pan fried until soft and cooked through

Yes that is it and they are divine. As I said, don't underestimate how delicious these are just because they are so simple.

Fresh. Versatile. Filling. Zesty.

***

Food painting artwork

30 x 30cm acrylic on paper. The paper is no ordinary paper, it is textured Hahnemuhle 300 gsm 100% alpha cellulose which is acid-free fibre of vegetable origin.

Inspired by bowls of swirling tangled noodles, Chinese 'auspicious clouds' and the jaw dropping mirror mosaic 'Under the Sea'' 2007 by Iranian artist Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, seen here in b&w.

By the way, all the food painting artwork is available to own in the Official Art Store.

***

The meatless meals recipe

A warming and filling meal of fresh, uncooked ingredients in the middle of winter can be somewhat of a challenge. Sesame noodles to the rescue! As long as you julienne all your veg, this is the dish for getting a dose of raw vege vitamin power to pep you up and smash the winter carb fest routine. All the chopping does take a bit of time, but hey, that's why you gather everyone around to help out.

400g dry noodles such as soba, somen, ramen or similar
400g julienned veges such as cabbage, beetroot, snowpeas, broccoli, carrot, parsnip, leafy greens - these can either be raw or blanched

3 tablespoons sesame oil
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 cup soy sauce
splash of water - just enough to make the sauce mixable
3 tablespoons tahini
1 tablespoon peanut butter
1 pinch chilli powder
1/2 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
1/8 cup lime or lemon juice
zest of 1/2 an orange
2 spring onions, finely chopped
4 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds
30g fresh coriander, roughly chopped


Cook the noodles. Drain and rinse under cold water to cool them down a little.
Toast (dry roast) the sesame seeds if they are untoasted.
Put sesame oil, garlic, soy sauce, sugar, water, tahini, peanut butter, chilli powder and ginger in a small pot or frypan and heat gently to dissolve the sugar and take the edge off the garlic. Leave this sauce to cool.
Chop all the veges and blanch them if you don't want to eat them raw.
When all the above parts of the dish are ready, add the lime/lemon juice, orange zest and spring onion to the sauce and mix well.
Mix the noodles and sauce thoroughly.
Serve into bowls and top with the veges.  Sprinkle with sesame seeds and coriander.

Makes a lot of food for 4.

***

Food painting artwork

30 x 30cm oil on canvas. This is one of those artworks where straightaway I had a really strong idea of what I wanted to do. Trying to get that idea to actually freaking work was really, really hard. I now know all sorts of ways not to try and take a print from a halved cabbage. Sometimes it's best to keep pushing at an idea until it resolves. Sometimes it's best to let it go and simmer in the unconscious for a while. After spending an entire day trying to take a print from a cabbage and sketching out variation upon variation on my idea, I decided to let it sit. In the meantime, it dawned on me where the idea was stemming from, and knowing this, the image resolved itself.  So a shoutout to cartoonist Hugh MacLeod of Gaping Void for the inspiration for this rather abstract line based piece and no cabbage print in sight after all.

By the way, all the food painting artwork is available to own in the Official Art Store.

***

The meatless meals recipe

Cabbage rolls are a common and very popular dish throughout eastern europe. This recipe is  adapted from a cabbage rolls recipe I used to make quite often, until I became fed up with the finicky rolling process. So now I make unrolls. Basically the same ingredients. Very similar method. No effort required. And way more flavour than you would expect from cabbage.

After a bit of sleuthing I believe this recipe to be of Turkish origin. I'm pretty sure I copied the ingredients list on the grounds the recipe 'looked interesting' from a library book I borrowed at least 10 years ago. I didn't note the details of this book at the time. The recipe has gone through quite a few changes to end up in this form - it's now vegetarian, the rice flavourings have been added and it's been adjusted to work as 'unrolls'. However the spice combinations which work so well are exactly as I found them, and I would like to be able to give credit to the author of that book I borrowed all that time ago. Consider it done if I do manage to track that book down.

2 teaspoons butter

1/2 onion, diced

1 clove garlic, minced

1 1/4 cups frozen vege mince OR 3/4 cup dried TVP plus 3/4 cup water OR 1 1/2 cups cooked lentils

1 1/2 cups stock

1/2 teaspoon oregano

1/4 teaspoon thyme

3 pinches clove powder

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon powder

2 big pinches ground black pepper

1 bay leaf

2 tablespoons raisens or sultanas or currants

2 tablespoons / 45g slivered almonds

225g cabbage, finely sliced

440g tomato, chopped or pureed (perfect for excess tomatoes bottled in Autumn)

2 cups rice

4 tablespoons chopped fresh coriander - about 24g

zest and juice of 1/2 a lemon

Fry the onion and garlic in butter until golden.

Add mince/tvp/lentils, any extra water as directed and the stock. Then add the oregano, thyme, cloves, cinnamon, black pepper, bay leaf, raisens/sultanas/currants and almonds.

Stir well and simmer with the lid off until the liquid is gone, around 20 minutes.

Add tomato and cabbage and simmer for another 30 minutes (or more) until cabbage is nicely soft.

Meanwhile, cook the rice as you usually do. Drain and rinse if necessary.

Mix the coriander and lemon zest only (not juice) through the rice just before serving.

Serve the sauce on the rice and drizzle everything with the lemon juice.

Heartily feeds 4.

***

Food painting artwork

30 x 30cm oil on linen. It should be fairly obvious that this painting is strongly influenced by Japanese printmaking. In case you're wondering, the greenery is mizuna and the water pattern is common to Japanese art.

By the way, all the food painting artwork is available to own in the Official Art Store.

***

The meatless meals recipe

There are four styles of ramen and all of them rely heavily on the quality of the stock to taste great. When you look into recipes for ramen stock it becomes pretty clear pretty quickly the extraordinary lengths many chefs go to for flavouring their stocks. Think multiple animal carcasses simmered for days! I'm yet to come across another vegetarian stock that looks worth trying or one that is so quick to make from scratch. I assure you, this tastes great, and I am pleased to prove (at least in my mind!) that it is not necessary to cook with fish/chicken/pork to make a succulent ramen stock. The key is to use TWO stocks. Go veges!

Vege stock:

85g (2 handfuls) of finely shredded chinese cabbage

1/2 onion, finely sliced

4 sticks celery, chopped

Put all these in a pot with 3 1/2 cups water and boil for 20 minutes with the lid on. Discard the veg at the end. This will make 3 cups of vege stock.

Shoyu ramen:

2 cups seaweed stock

3 cups vege stock

ramen noodles for two (140-160g dry)

1 teaspoon sherry

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon sugar

1 tablespoon soy sauce

Suggested toppings: 

1 spring onion, chopped

2 handfuls spinach

cracked black pepper to taste

bamboo shoots

2 hard boiled eggs in slices

tempeh slices

So begin by preparing the stocks and cooking the noodles so they are ready to eat.

Hard boil the eggs if you are having these as toppings and get all your toppings ready.

When the stocks are done, saute the ginger and garlic in a big pot in the sesame oil to take the edge off them.

Add both stocks and the sherry, salt, sugar and soy sauce to the big pot, mix and bring back to the boil.

Put the cooked noodles in the serving bowls.

Add the stock mix.

Add toppings and serve.

This recipe feeds 2.

Easy. Satisfying. Creamy. Delicate.

***

Food painting artwork

30 x 30cm acrylic on canvas. Inspiration? Stroganoff is meant to originally hail from Russia. While perusing all things Russian for clues to drop into the idea pot, I predictably came across pictures of the very photogenic Saint Basil's Cathedral (1555-61). Apparently it is a showcase of medieval Russian architecture. So they say, but try and tell me that this famous building does not resemble a clump of brightly coloured fairytale mushrooms? Go on. Is it just me?

By the way, all the food painting artwork is available to own in the Official Art Store.

***

The meatless meals recipe

My Russian friend is adamant that her country's cuisine is meat only. That does seem to be true for genuine and authentic Russian recipes. For dishes like this one and the Borscht of a few weeks months ago, that are in the spirit of Russian cuisine but with not a scrap of meat in sight, I say stand back and let the Russian flavours into the land of the vegetarians.


1 1/2 tablespoons butter
1/2 onion, diced
375g assorted mushrooms, in slices or chunks. Go wild & have fun with your mushroom varieties, or not, as you prefer
1 teaspoon flour
30ml red wine
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/3 cup sour cream
1/4 cup thick cream
1/4 cup strong stock
3/4 tablespoon fresh chopped parsley
2 tablespoons fresh chopped coriander - optional
In autumn while there is still fresh dill around, skip the coriander and use 3/4 tablespoon fresh chopped dill. It's quite special if you like the flavour of dill.

Melt the butter and saute the onion until soft.
Add the mushrooms and cook gently for 20 minutes to caramelise, stirring often.
Sprinkle flour on and keep stirring and cooking for a minute or three.
Add stock, red wine, cream, sour cream and mustard.
Simmer on low to meld the flavours and thicken for 5 minutes.
Stir in the herbs and adjust salt and pepper to taste.
Serve over pasta, rice, mashed potatoes or frites, depending on your preferred regional variation!

Makes a tasty meal for 2.