Please don’t judge this recipe by the awful quality of the photo. I couldn’t get a good photo of this dish for some reason. The image above makes the dish look burnt, which it wasn’t.
Photo quality aside… this dish was delicious! Oh my this hit the spot for a cold, grey winter day. I decided this dish should be on every pub menu in Britain. Vegans across the land would rejoice! It’s a wonderfully hearty, yet still healthy dish. It is a little time consuming to make but it’s worth it. I recommend making more than you need so that you can freeze it (I didn’t test this) or have it for leftover lunches/easy mid-week dinners.
If you’re not vegan, feel free to substitute regular milk for the soy and sprinkle the top with regular cheese, but I recommend making the ‘cheese’ sauce according to the recipe, as it’s delicious.
- 2 Tbsp (30 ML) olive oil
- 3 spring onions, chopped
- 3 cloves garlic, chopped
- 1 tin chopped tomatoes
- 2½ cups vegan mince meat (vegan ground crumble) (if not vegan, use Quorn or similar)
- 6 to 8 sundried tomato halves, chopped
- 1 roasted red pepper from a jar, chopped
- 2 Tbsp tomato paste
- ½ tsp smoked paprika
- 1 Tbsp coconut oil (if possible unflavoured)
- 1 tsp cumin powder
- ¼ cup water
- salt to taste
- a drizzle of olive oil
- 2 cups (500 mL) soy milk, or other non-sweetened milk
- 1 Tbsp all-purpose plain flour
- 3 Tbsp nutritional yeast
- 2 Tbsp olive oil
- ½ tsp fine garlic granules
- salt (don’t omit)
- a knob of vegan butter or margarine
- ¼ tsp turmeric powder
- 1 tsp vegetable stock powder or granules
- a little water if needed
- 2 large eggplant/aubergine, cut lengthways fried in a griddle pan and set aside
- 1 small sweet potato, peeled and sliced thin
- olive oil for greasing
- 2 cups vegan grated cheese of your choice
- ground paprika (for dusting the top)
- Heat up the oil in your frying pan (I used a cast iron skillet), and fry the spring onions until slightly golden.
- Next, stir in the garlic, and mix until it is slightly golden.
- Then add the red pepper, tomato paste, vegan mince, and the remaining ingredients, and simmer gently for 20 minutes until the sauce thickens.
- Taste for salt, and set aside.
- Place all the ingredients in a ‘milk’ pan and whisk.
- Heat the mixture up, mixing virtually non-stop, until you have a thickish consistency. Lower the heat, and continue cooking for a further minute or so.
- Pre-heat your oven to 375ºF (190ºC)
- Grease a suitable Pyrex (or similar) oven dish (mine was around 8” square) then place the eggplant slices across the base and sides of the dish, so that they overlap one another. Then add half your ‘meat sauce’ to the base, followed by the sweet potato slices, and half of the cheese sauce (try to even the ingredients out with the back of a large spoon).
- Next, add the rest of the meat sauce, then cover with the remaining eggplant slices – don’t worry if there's not enough to seal it.
- Then add the remaining cheese sauce, any grated or cut up vegan cheese, and finally sprinkle on some paprika.
- Bake in the oven for 30 to 40 minutes, and remove when it’s really golden. Allow to cool down for 20 minutes before serving, as it will be piping hot. This can also be made a day ahead.
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