Proper Banging Vegan Food by Matt Prichard

While I regularly rip recipes out of magazines and am a frequent visitor to the BBC Good Food website, I still can’t resist a good, old-fashioned, physical cookbook. From ‘Deliciously Ella’ to ‘River Cottage Veg’, and Anna Jones’s ‘Modern Way to Eat’ to Yotam Ottolenghi’s ‘Plenty’, our kitchen shelves are packed full of vegetarian and vegan cookbooks, which we regularly plunder to compile our weekly menu. With the growth of veganism in recent years, and with an ever increasing array of vegan-friendly products on the market, it seems that the range of things you can do with a medjool date and a block of tofu is rapidly expanding. As such, I’m not averse to splashing out on a new vegan cookbook to help grow my recipe repertoire and allow me to explore new flavours and tasty food combinations.

In contrast to Ella and Anna (in personal style at least), Matt is a tattooed, skateboarding, Ironman, who switched to veganism three years ago having been inspired by other meat-free athletes. The book, which is published to accompany a new TV series airing on BBC Wales and BBC iPlayer this month, contains 80 recipes, from simple breakfasts to hearty soups and stews, colourful salads and indulgent puddings.

While the usual suspects feature – scrambled tofu, overnight oats, energy balls, bean chilli, chickpea curry etc. – a few new recipes and intriguing ingredient combinations caught my eye. The marmalade toast and tea porridge, for example, certainly left me curious. This involves brewing a teabag in almond milk, which you then use to make the porridge, and making sough dough croutons that are added as a topping. I was slightly put off by the inclusion of a substantial amount of sugar to this recipe, but I’m sure this can be left out as the marmalade adds plenty of sweetness.

There are also some great looking canapé-style dishes, such as the chickpea kickshaws (little pastry pockets) with coconut sambal and the squash and shroom momos with yuzu dip: perfect for appetisers or impress-your-guests party food.

I was keen to try the jackfruit and red pepper goulash (which I made with much success last week) as I’ve had a tin of jackfruit in the cupboard for a while now and I’ve been unsure what to do with it! The goulash was really hearty and delicious, perfect January fayre, and it was great to use herbs such as caraway, which I don’t often use, to add new flavour dimensions. The portions were also a good, generous size, an important factor for any hungry vegan!

I am also excited to try the recipe for the pea and potato dosa, as I love dosa but have never made them myself before, (although I haven’t braved this recipe as yet) and for the malt loaf, made with fig, prunes, tea and chia seeds, which will be perfect snacking after my Sunday long runs!

Like most cookbooks, there is a combination of recipes containing easy to buy, typical, store-cupboard ingredients – chickpeas, tinned tomatoes, coconut milk, tomato puree, garlic, flour, soy sauce etc. – alongside fresh vegetables and herbs (in fact, for the goulash the only thing I needed to buy in was some fresh dill), and others, which require going a little further afield to source slightly more exotic or specifically vegan items, such as panko breadcrumbs and seaweed flakes for the ‘fish’ fingers, or the vegan gelatine and vegan cream cheese for the cheesecake. I’m always put off by extensive ingredient lists, and I’m pleased to say that this book doesn’t fall foul of this. The cooking instructions were also really easy to follow, an important factor for me as I’m often juggling cooking with looking after a five-month-old so my focus is never one hundred per cent on the food!

With the book, Pritchard says that he hopes to target those new to vegan cookery, as well as people who want recipes that are easy to follow, and those looking for tasty, healthy food, and I think this book certainly fulfils that remit. I’d also say, from a personal perspective, that it’s appealing to extant vegans too, as there are lots of delicious new flavour combinations, stews, cakes and canape dishes that I’ve not encountered elsewhere and am keen to try out.

Red pepper goulash recipe

Serves 3-4; Prep: 10 minutes; Cook: 45–50 minutes

Ingredients

1 onion, sliced; 2 red peppers, deseeded and sliced; 4 tablespoons sunflower or vegetable oil; 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped; 2 tablespoons tomato purée; 1 teaspoon caraway seeds 1 teaspoon dried oregano; 400g can chopped; tomatoes; 400g can chickpeas; 400ml vegetable stock; small pinch of cayenne pepper, plus extra to taste; 400g can young jackfruit, cut into chunks; 1 tablespoon plain flour; 2 tablespoons sweet paprika (don’t use smoked – it will dominate the flavour of the dish); lemon juice, to taste; salt and pepper

To serve

small bunch of dill, chopped, to garnish; the carb of your choice (I went for crusty bread!)

Gently cook the onion and peppers in half the oil, over medium-low heat, for 15 minutes, until softened. Add the garlic, tomato purée, caraway and oregano to the pan and cook for 2 minutes, then tip in in the tomato, drained chickpeas and stock. Season with salt and pepper and a small pinch of cayenne for warmth. Bring to a simmer and cook for 30 minutes. Add a dash more water if the mixture looks as though it is drying out or thickening too much.

Meanwhile, season the jackfruit chunks with salt and pepper. Mix the flour and paprika in a shallow bowl, coat the jackfruit chunks and shake away excess flour.

Heat the remaining oil in a frying pan. Add the coated jackfruit and fry over medium–high heat until nicely browned on all sides. Add to the goulash with any of the remaining flour and paprika mix. The goulash should still have 15–20 minutes left to cook, so let it simmer away while you relax for a while.

When the goulash is done, taste and add salt, pepper or cayenne, and add a squeeze or 2 of lemon to your taste. Garnish with the dill and serve with your carb of choice.

‘Dirty Vegan: Proper Banging Vegan Food’ by Matt Prichard is published by Mitchell Beazley and is available to buy now at £20. You can find out more about Matt at www.dirtysanchez.co.uk or follow him on Instagram at @pritchardswyd.

DISCLOSURE: I was given this book to review on behalf of Mitchell Beazley, part of the Octopus Publishing Group. All opinions are my own.