Thinking of having some vegetarian friends over for dinner, I had a nose through Simon Rimmer's The Accidental Vegetarian last week (there's an updated one just out, but I have the 2004 edition). Rimmer was one of the founders of Greens in Manchester, the city's longstanding (20 years) and arguably best vegetarian restaurant.
I've never been, for no particular reason. It's very popular so you have to book, but I do know how to make restaurant reservations so that's no excuse. I mention it because once you're an emigre from your own home turf, you feel the need to champion it at any opportunity. Meanwhile, everyone you left behind treats you like a dirty traitor who's upped sticks and come over all snooty.
Even a mention of how shit the weather is in Manchester has people accusing me of knocking the North. People: the weather is shit in Manchester. On a normal year it rains every day. This year it rained and it snowed every day. I fucking love the place. Mad fer it.
So when I make some mild criticisms of Simon Rimmer in this post, I am questioning his recipes, not betraying my roots.
As a collection of recipes The Accidental Vegetarian is great for home cooking. As a restaurant showcase it's really odd, because it includes such a broad jumble of cuisines and styles of cooking - comforting potato bakes, sushi, coconut-spiced dishes, risottos, pasta and huevos rancheros. But it did start off as an unlicensed cafe.
I guess back in 1990 the fact Greens was a veggie place was enough of a lure in itself and the inconsistency welcomed. You still get places which only offer soup of the day and tomato sauced pasta for veggies.
Anyway this book is for home cooking, so we're good.
As I was having this nose through I realised I had all the ingredients for the delicious-looking Caramelised Onion and Mustard Tart, which as it is pictured at the front of the book must be one of the book's flagship recipes. It's certainly very "look at me" with its goldeny brown ribbons of sticky onions, creamy sauce and elegant spots of wholegrain mustard.
I also had all the ingredients in my cupboard, including a posh pot of Dijon mustard my mum had just brought me back from Beaune. She drove through champagne country on this trip so no a pot of mustard was not exactly the gift I had been hoping for.
But to be fair - and I find this more than hilarious - all the champagne chateaux were closed on their visit, and they could only get their hands on a measly case.
I did have to buy in the cream.
I set to making the pastry. It's not hard, and I had picked up a tart case at mum's yesterday.
Blend 225g plain flour with 75g chilled cubed butter and a pinch of salt.
Add in 50ml milk and a whisked egg yolk and blend a bit more until it comes together.
Knead for a few minutes on a lightly floured surface and chill in the fridge covered with a tea towel for at least an hour.
Then roll it out and press into a 20cm tart case and bake at 200C for 25-30 minutes.
Which I did, but Rimmer never said to weigh down the pastry. I'm not a complete pastry numpty. I just followed instructions and my tart bubbled up and burnt a bit, which was a shame.
See:
The filling rescued it. I melted 50g butter with 1tbsp oil (it said vegetable but I only had finest Greek olive). Into that I tipped four sliced onions and a crushed garlic clove and cooked over a very low heat for half an hour until soft and lovely.
In a bowl I mixed two whole eggs, two eggs yolks, 150ml double cream, 2tbsps mustard and seasoning.
This is where I realised that my posh new mustard was not wholegrain but smooth and pale Dijon. Looking at it reminds me of peanut butter. Sigh. (I fell off the peanut butter wagon last week but it was worth it).
I mixed in the onions, poured it all into the tart case and baked for 15 minutes at 180C (it said 20 mins). Yum.
The result was indeed yum. The kitchen was filled with a wholesome mustardy oniony baked goods smell. It looked nice (see pic) and sliced well. But the pastry was a bit dry and crap. Edible, definitely edible (I sneaked an extra mouthful every time I wandered past it this afternoon; one of the perils of working from home) but the sides were too dry and crumbly. I reckon a bit more butter, maybe even an extra splash of milk, and definitely some baking bead thingies next time.
I still ate a good quarter, with some lovely rocket, for my lunch.
The Accidental Vegetarian provides some good ideas to work from. Rimmer admits he was (I'm guessing still is) a carnivore when he started Greens, so perhaps that why a little zeal is lacking.
And some flavours are just wrong. Delicious beetroot and goat's cheese tart, spiced up with some broccoli. Like I said: that's just wrong.
I've picked up on Rimmer's mistakes before, eagle-eyed recipe porn devourer that I am. Like in the February issue of Olive, where he suggested fennel was in season. I decided to write a piece about the crunchy aniseedy bulb but every other source said that it wasn't in season. I wrote the piece anyway because fennel still rocks.
My mum gave me this book a few years ago when I was a vegetarian myself. I still am one at heart, but was persuaded to start chomping flesh again by my mad trainer/friend Mike. I'll explain why another time, possibly when I've finished reading Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals, which I am too scared to even start as I know I'll agree with everything he says and be left with two choices:
1) Becoming a veggie again.
2) Accepting that my imagined morals are not remotely in line with my craven and selfish animal-eating behaviour.
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