Cocoa Gravy

This version of our classic Vegan Gravy was created after a tip-off from Pete Gardner at Cocoa Amore, Leicester's independent chocolate boutique.

You will need:

- 1 teaspoon of oil
- half a medium sized red onion, finely chopped
- 5 finely sliced medium sized mushrooms (you don't want big slices)
- a healthy pinch of freshly ground pepper
- half a pint of cold veg stock, preferably kept over from veg cooking
- one Kallo mushroom stock cube
- two heaped dessertspoons of fine cornmeal
- 2g 100% pure cocoa/cacao* (no added sugar, milk etc. - pure cocoa) - more if you want, after you've tasted

Do this:

Add the finely chopped red onion and mushrooms to the oil, and sautée gently till the onion's going clear and the mushrooms floppy and cooked through. Add the black pepper.

Crumble your Kallo mushroom stock cube to the (cold) veg stock, mix thoroughly.

Stir in the cornmeal, and pour gently into the onion and mushroom mix. Stir well.

Bring to the boil till it starts to thicken, then turn down and simmer gently.

Break the cocoa/cacao* into pieces and add to the gravy, stir till it melts, and stop cooking when it's as thick as you like it!

VEGAN TOAD IN THE HOLE. Yes.

You thought the Yorkshire Pudding mix was the Holy Grail, and it was - but this is the discovery of King Richard III under the car park...sort of. Well he had strong connections with York...

Tonight we made Toad In The Hole by pre-heating the oven to 220 degrees C (VERY HOT), adding a significant lump of vegan marge (you can use an oil if you prefer, it'll be a little greasier) to a metal pan and placing it in the oven to pre-heat.

After 5 minutes, add 4 un-meat sausages (Fry's are good, we don't recommend Linda McCartneys' for this) to the heating pan. Put it back in the oven.

Meanwhile, mix up our vegan Yorkshire Pudding Mix. For four sausages, divide the mixture's quantity in half. The quantity of batter mix in the original recipe will be good for 6+ sausages.

Once well mixed, take out your pan with sausages (don't leave more than about 10 minutes).
The fat should be smokin' hot and the sausages starting to brown.
Pour in the batter mix, distributing evenly over the sausages, quickly, and put back in the oven.

Cook for 20 minutes, and check nay poking the a sharp knife into a fat bit after 20 mins - it's OK for it to be a bit sticky inside!

Serve with Cocoa Gravy, roast spuds and plenty of green veg.

THE HOLY GRAIL - Vegan Yorkshire Puds

Many a tear has been shed over failed Yorkies, because being almost entirely egg-based they are, of course, going to need some serious alchemical synthesis to get those buggers into Vegan Mode.

Well, Graham had a crack at these some months ago, and Lord they were good, but I lost the recipe and had to do them from memory.


They worked.
Gasp.

The first thing to get comfortable with is that they're never going to rise like their ovum cousins - they'll puff out quite a bit, but don't expect towering balloons of brown crispiness. They'll crisp up, they'll puff out, but in a less jazz-hands kinda way.

So here is what you need:

- 3oz vegan marge such as Biona, Pure or Vitalite
- 2oz Organ 'Egg' Replacer (worth buying - I don't use this much, but it seems to be the magic ingredient for these, and one box = 66 'eggs')
- 60ml of soya milk (avoid using ta sweet milk if you can, it messes with the flava) or 2oz water - this is to mix with the Egg Replacer
- 4oz plain flour
- 1 teaspoon of baking powder
- Pinch of salt
- Pinch of sage, fresh or dried
- A turn of fresh black pepper (optional, but I like this addition, makes them a little meaty)
- Soya milk to mix to a batter 

And here is what you do:

1
Put a knob of the marge in each section of a cake pan / bun tray / muffin tray / whatever you have that makes little versions of things, usually 12 to a pan.

Put it in a VERY HOT oven - anywhere between 190-220 degrees C should do it, that's Gas Mark 4-5 - you know your own oven.

2
Wait for the marge to melt and get smokin' hot  - should take about 10 minutes - and while you do, mix baking powder, flour and salt well:

3
Mix the egg replacer with the milk.
Add HALF of this Egg Replacer mixture to the dry flour mix.
Whisk to a smooth paste, then add the rest of the Egg Replacer mix.

3
Combine the rest of the dry ingredients with each other, and add soya milk a bit at a time.

4
Mix the wet ingredients into the dry, carefully, then check to make sure there are no lumps, then WHISK WHISK WHISK (a fork works best, you'll get too much stuck in the whisk if you use one) to get those bubbles in.

When the batter looks bubbly, thickish and well mixed, review: it should look just like classic Yorkie batter, or like a pancake mix.

5
Check your pan. See that the marge has gone very runny and is smoking a little. If it is, take that roasting hot tin out of the oven CAREFULLY and as fast as you can without making a mess, put an even quantity of the batter into each aperture.

You should see the edges of the puds start to fizzle and rise immediately, which is a sign you've got the timing right.

6
Cook for 15-20 minutes!

Eat the whole lot in an amazed frenzy of 'checking they're OK!'