Vegetable crumble

A couple of years ago, Mrs_PeverilBlog and I were in Nice in the south of France. Beautiful city, lots of good food.

We were in a small, busy restaurant called Paper Plane (see its reviews on HappyCow) and I had an amazing vegetable crumble for lunch.

Ever since then, I’ve been looking for a great savoury crumble recipe, to try and reproduce the meal I had.

Many attempts later, this recipe below is the closest I can get to the ultimate savoury crumble. It’s a three-part recipe but still quite simple: the veg in the crumble, the sauce that surrounds the veg to give it extra flavour, and the crumble topping itself.

These quantities easily feed four as a main course with some left over.

Ingredients:

For the crumble topping

• 1.5 cups of plain flour
• 1 cup of rolled oats
• Half-cup of walnuts, broken into pieces
• 2 Tablespoons of vegan parmesan or nutritional yeast
• 1 Tablespoon of mixed herbs
• Salt & pepper
• 125g of vegan butter or margarine

For the sauce

• 2 Tablespoons of plain flour
• 1 cup of white wine
• 1 Tablespoon of mustard (Dijon, grain, any is fine)
• 3-4 Tablespoons of soy cream or soy milk

Vegetables

• 1 onion, roughly chopped
• Half a courgette, cut into chunks
• Half an aubergine, cut into chunks
• Large handful of green beans, cut into 2”/5cm pieces
• Half-cup of frozen peas or edamame/soy beans
• Four or five roughly chopped mushrooms
• Half-a-dozen broccoli florets, cut into small pieces. Include the stalk too for extra veg content if you cut it into small dice.
• 1 vegetable stock cube
• Other veg that would work well in here: sliced leeks, spinach (fresh or frozen), cauliflower.
• You could easily add cubed potato or chopped-up carrots too. Just cook them first for 4-5 minutes in the microwave so they soften before adding to the veg mix, as they take much longer to cook than the other veg ingredients.

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F, chop all your veg and get all ingredients ready.
2. Throw all the veg into large frying pan or saute pan with a tablespoon of oil and cook them gently for 5-10 minutes on a medium heat. You’re not trying to stir-fry them, just remove the rawness and let them get some colour. Season the veg with a little salt and pepper while they are cooking. Crumble in the stock cube too.
3. While the veg are cooking, make the crumble topping. Put all the ingredients into a food processor and pulse until it looks like breadcrumbs. Put to one side.
4. Now back to the veg which should have softened nicely. Tip in two tablespoons of plain flour and mix well, making sure all the veg are coated. Cook out the flour for a couple of minutes then add in all the other sauce ingredients. Stir everything together and let it cook for a couple minutes more. It should smell amazing. If the sauce is very thick ie not liquid in any way, add a little bit of water to the pan. The sauce should be the consistency of tomato ketchup or the barbecue sauce you’d get in a squeezy bottle. Check the flavour too – does it need more herbs? More mustard?
5. Time to assemble and cook. Spoon the veg mixture into a casserole dish  (or several small casserole dishes if you want to make this as individual portions) and cover the top with the crumble mixture. Cook in the centre of the oven for 30-40 minutes until the top is golden and the you can see the veg mixture starting to bubble up.
6. Serve with sides like garlic bread, a tomato salad or chunky chips (french fries) with lots of ketchup.

 

 

 

Like this? Try these too:

• A pair of summer salads
• Roast vegetable tart
• Blueberry, banana & walnut bread (Vegan malt loaf!)
• Bakewell Tart (vegan, dairy-free and damn delicious)

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