Vegan scalloped potatoes
Vegan scalloped potatoes
Happy Friday, guys! Hope you’ve had a peachy week and are ready to put your feet up? We certainly are! We’ve had a busy week but a good one…Well…Apart from an infuriating visit to an Apple store where we’ve been told that there is nothing wrong with a £400 device dying on us 2.5 years in. Oh well, this was the final purchase from Apple that I will ever make, I tell ya!
On a more positive note, we found a house for our Princess Tina (currently curled up in a pretzel on a chair next to me) and us. Yes, we come second! The house was chosen with Tina in mind. It has a decent size garden backing onto a small wood, where Tina is likely to roam at night and a sunny conservatory where she is likely to sleep during the day and where, I may be able to take some food photos if Her Majesty allows it 😉 .
We need to wait two more weeks before we are able to move in, but it is a huge load off our minds. Other than that we’ve been enjoying Bristol immensely and we haven’t even started exploring in earnest. The weather has been fairly good too with the exception of one or two days so we are not hankering for the Greek weather that much yet.
Duncan has started interviewing for jobs and he is very excited about it (he is one of these rare people who has always loved his original career choice) and I cannot wait to start cooking for the blog again as I have bucket loads of ideas simmering in my head already. Meanwhile, we continue to cook dinners for Duncan’s family who are so kindly putting up with our vegan ways and they are also very willing taste testers. They made our transition so painless we cannot thank them enough!
Today’s recipe is my vegan take on a classic – potato dauphinoise / scalloped potatoes (for those that can’t spell “dolphinoise”). My plant-based version isn’t bound to give you a heart attack 😛 , which is always a bonus, isn’t it? And you know those people who think that being vegan is a bit sad…? Well, there is nothing sad about this dish, let me tell you. It’s pure comfort and indulgence – very appropriate for the cold winter months ahead. If you are frantically preparing for Thanksgiving, this dish would love a spot on your table, otherwise bookmark it for Xmas or any other family celebration where eating oneself into a food coma is the order of the day 😉 .
- 300 g / 2 cups raw cashews (soaked overnight OR in boiling water for 1 hr)
- 3 tbsp lemon juice, adjust to taste
- 2 large garlic cloves
- 1 heaped tbsp white miso paste
- 4 tbsp nutritional yeast
- grated nutmeg, to taste
- ½ tsp salt, adjust to taste
- 1 tbsp tapioca starch*
REMAINING INGREDIENTS
- 500 g / 1 lb sweet potato
- 750 g / 1½ lb regular (starchy) potatoes
- 30-45 ml / 2-3 tbsp olive oil
- 1 large onion, finely diced
- 2 fat garlic cloves, finely diced
- 2 sprigs of fresh rosemary
- generous amount of black pepper, adjust to taste
- salt
- sweet paprika or chilli powder, optional
- Place rinsed cashews in an upright blender with approximately 300 ml / 1¼ cup water. Blend until smooth and creamy.
- Season with garlic, lemon juice, miso paste, nutritional yeast, nutmeg, salt and pepper and process until super smooth and creamy.
- Transfer 2 cups of this sauce to another bowl. Add a level tablespoon of tapioca starch to the remaining sauce left in the blender, process until smooth.
POTATOES
- Cut peeled (or unpeeled if their skins are in good condition) potatoes into 3 mm / 0.1″ thin slices. You can use a mandoline slicer, a food processor with a relevant attachment or a very sharp knife.
- Heat up 2-3 tbsp of olive oil in a very large frying pan. Add diced onion and fry until softened (about 5 minutes).
- Follow up with chopped garlic and chopped rosemary (you could also layer small rosemary sprigs in between potato layers during assembly) and cook for another 2-3 minutes.
- Add 2 cups of cashew cream to the pan and regular potatoes. Toss them together and simmer for about 7 minutes. If the mixture happens to feel dry, add a good splash or two of water.
- Add sweet potatoes and toss them in the cream mixture gently.
- Pre-heat the oven to 150° C / 300° F fan forced (or 170° C / 340° F regular setting).
- Brush a baking dish** with a little bit of olive oil and set aside.
ASSEMBLY
- Transfer pre-cooked potatos into the prepared baking tray. Arrange them in layers, sprinkle with a little bit of chopped rosemary (or place small rosemary sprigs – that will need to be removed before eating – in between potato layers), salt and pepper between layers.
- Cover the top with the sauce thickened with tapioca starch. Sprinkle with paprika or chilli powder.
- Bake for 50 minutes, then switch the oven fan on (or increase the temperature by 20° C / 70° F) and bake for another 5-10 minutes until the top is nicely browned. If the top is browning too rapidly, cover it with a piece of kitchen foil to stop it from browning any further.
You could make this dish with 100% regular or 100% sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes do not need pre-boiling in the cream, they are quite sweet though (doh! 😉 ) so make sure you balance the dish by adding a bit more acidity.
*If you don’t have tapicoa starch, use regular wheat flour or corn starch.
**The dish I used had the following dimensions: 26 cm x 19 cm x 5 cm (10″ x 7.5″ x 2″)
totally adore this recipe and the photos! I'd love to make it at my mother in law's on Christmas but she only has a very small blender - I could use store-bought cashew butter instead of the cashews to make this happen but what amount would I need to replace 300 g of cashews? About 150 g maybe?
Thanks so much! Your blog is one of my all-time favorites :)
Warmly,
Alena
This recipe looks so good. Between the Vegan potato gratin and scalloped potatoes is the choice to make for Christmas.
What will be a good choice to make to serve with these dishes. I have only been a vegetarian/vegan for nearly a year and
still have to learn how to combine the dishes to plate up as a meal as i have been overdoing it with the carbs.
Thanks for an amazing blog
Greetings G
Glad to hear that you are considering this dish. For the centrepiece I would go for something like this (there is a video in the page which shows you how to make it) and please look this page up - it lists a lot of xmas worthy dishes that may sound good to you. Hope that helps and congratulations on making the switch to veganism (personally best decision I have even made!) Ania
1) make the entire receipt on Xmas eve and reheat in oven on Xmas day OR
2) made the sauce element including the onion/garlic stove step, then on Xmas day I can just cut the sweet potatoes and assemble to bake?
Many thanks, T
I think your opinion 2 sounds best, but you could also do option 1 if pressed for time. I haven't tried doing that, but I don't see why it would not taste well. Ania
Could I use regular brown miso instead of the white one? Thanks
Yes, you could, sure. It will taste a bit differently so adjust to taste. Ania
Was hoping to make them tomorrow (very late to rewrite I know) and was hoping he could have some too.
Love your page and regulatory make loads from there.
Of course, miso is only used for seasoning here and you can compensate by adjusting other seasonings accordingly (to your taste). BTW, in case you would like to use miso in the future (I may be biased but its' my kitchen staple) you can find lots of soy-free miso these days (based on brown rice, chickpeas, barley and others) Hope that helps and Merry Xmas (if you celebrate it, of course!) X Ania
No, pre-cooking isn't essential for any other reason than the fact that regular potatoes take longer to cook than sweet potatoes. If you are only just using regular potatoes, I don't think it is necessary - just make sure you cover the cream with something if it's browning too much. Hope that helps! Ania
Thanks, Brenda
This looks delicious I can't wait to try it!
Miso paste has a very strong salty taste plus lots of umami so it acts as a seasoning in this recipe. Tahini won't be a good replacement, but perhaps a few drops of mushroom soy sauce would do the job. Other than that I cannot find of anything else similar. You could always skip and make up for it with dialling up other seasonings to your taste. Hope that helps! Ania
Thank you for your kind words - I'm really pleased to hear that you enjoy following my blog :) . Seitan is a vegan meat substitute made from wheat, I have not prepared it before myself so I am not the best person to ask but there is plenty of articles about it online. For Xmas, you could try my Beet Wellington (recipe here) if you are feeling fancy :) and the usual vegetable sides (oven roasted brussel sprouts, potato mash or baked potatoes, slaw, salads etc.) As for harrisa paste, you could always make your own, use another spicy red pepper based paste (if available) or skip and compensate by increasing the amount of other spices and maybe adding some blended fire roasted red peppers, which you might be able to find in jars (they were widely available in Greece, for example). Hope that helps! Ania
Oh, and I'll try those potatoes, just as soon as I get a better blender.