For The Wine Tipster’s latest guest blog, he welcomes Beth O’Brien of Beth’s Food Odyssey to share a vegetarian option for the festive season. Beth is a final year dentistry student at Sheffield University who started documenting her passion for cooking on her Instagram account over 2 years ago. From intricate bakes to colourful salad-bowls and much more, Beth’s voyage into the culinary world provides inspiration for any adventurous cook. Read on for the latest recipe she’s developed, and The Wine Tipster’s vegan wine pairings. Enjoy!

Seasonal Mushroom and Kale Quiche with Roasted Leeks and Garlicky Crushed Potatoes

Deep into Winter, months from the long, light days where fresh vegetables can be thrown together to create light summer salads, cooking vegetarian meals can be a challenge for some. Meat can be easily paired with root vegetables to make hearty winter dishes, making this an attractive option for an evening meal.

However, having not eaten meat for many years, I have found that warming, wintery, vegetarian dishes can be easily created using the produce available to you at this time. Eating seasonally has the benefits of fresher produce, greater nutritional content, a lesser environmental impact, and often a cheaper price. There is the added bonus of supporting the local economy, something that is more important than ever right now.

Taking this into consideration, this vegetarian dish uses solely seasonal produce. Mushrooms, onions, kale, leeks and potatoes are all grown locally in the month of December. Although I have suggested some accompaniments for the quiche, it would work well with many other dishes. The perfect Christmas Eve or Boxing Day centrepiece for non-meat-eating guests, perhaps…

Serves 4

Ingredients

Mushroom and kale quiche:

1 block shortcrust pastry

1 tablespoon butter

1 onion

2 large garlic cloves

1 teaspoon fresh thyme (or ½ teaspoon dried thyme)

½ teaspoon chilli flakes

1 pack (300g) mushrooms

Salt

Pepper

Zest of 1 lemon

80-100g kale

160ml double cream

80ml whole milk

4 eggs

50g gruyère

Roasted leeks:

3 leeks

1 teaspoon fresh thyme (or ½ teaspoon dried thyme)

Salt

Pepper

2 teaspoons butter

A few splashes of white wine

Garlicky crushed potatoes:

800g new/baby potatoes

Salt

Olive oil

3 cloves garlic

Method

Mushroom and kale quiche:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 190°C

2. Roll out the pastry to be just wider than the quiche tin (I used a 25cm diameter tin). Put the pastry into the quiche tin, gently moulding it to the shape of the tin and letting the edges of the pastry fall over the sides. Leave these edges on for blind baking the pastry

3. Blind bake the pastry. Cover the pastry with baking parchment and fill the parchment with ceramic baking beans or dried beans. Bake for 15 minutes, then remove the beans and cook for another 5-8 minutes until the base is golden brown. After removing from the oven, trim the overhangs of pastry

4. Meanwhile, dice the onion, finely chop the garlic and thyme, and slice the mushrooms

5. Add the butter to a frying pan and melt. Add the onion and cook until beginning to soften. Add the garlic, thyme and chilli flakes and cook for about 30 seconds before adding the mushrooms. Cook on a fairly high heat for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Once the mushrooms have cooked and most of the liquid has evaporated, remove from the heat, season with salt and pepper, and add the lemon zest

6. Heat a pan of water to boiling. Add the kale to the boiling water for 30 seconds to soften before draining

7. In a jug, combine the beaten eggs, milk and cream. Season with salt and pepper

8. Assemble the quiche. Spread the mushroom mixture over the base of the pastry. Add the kale in a layer on top. Pour the cream mixture evenly over the mushrooms and kale. Most of the kale should be covered by the mixture so that it does not burn. Grate the cheese and scatter evenly on top

9. Bake in the oven for about 40 minutes, until the top is golden brown, and a knife put into the centre comes out clean.

Roasted leeks:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 190°C

2. Cut the leeks in half lengthways and lay flat in a roasting dish

3. Finely chop the thyme and scatter over the leeks along with a pinch of salt and pepper

4. Distribute the butter in small blobs over the leeks. Then, pour over a few dashes of wine

5. Roast in the oven for 30-40 minutes until tender and browning around the edges.

Garlicky crushed potatoes:

1. Put a large pan of water on the heat and add a tablespoon of salt. Put the potatoes into the pan whole. Parboil for about 20 minutes, until a knife can easily slide through them

2. Drain the potatoes and place on a chopping board. Flatten them using the palm of your hand

3. Peel the garlic cloves and crush them using the heel of a knife

4. Add multiple glugs of oil into a large frying pan on a fairly high heat. Once hot, place the flattened potatoes into the oil in a single layer. Scatter a generous pinch of salt over the potatoes and add the crushed garlic. Leave the potatoes for 5-10 minutes to brown and crisp on one side

5. Once crisped, turn the potatoes over, adding more oil and salt. Again, leave on this side until golden and crispy

Wine Pairings

Les Dauphins Côtes du Rhône-Villages 2018, Cellier des Dauphins, Rhône, France (£9.99 from Waitrose).

This vegetarian and vegan friendly wine is warm, smooth, spicy and a great medium bodied red. It is not only great for those cold wintry evenings but is also a super pairing with Beth’s fabulous dish. This is a great value red which has the structure to match the flavours and textures of the mushrooms, kale and roasted leeks, whilst the low tannins and smooth style make for a lovely pairing with Beth’s delicious garlicky crushed potatoes. Enjoy!

Morgon La Chanaise 2017, Dominique Piron, Beaujolais, France (£14.99 from Waitrose).

Another top vegetarian and vegan friendly wine for Beth’s dish. Beaujolais remains one of the most overlooked wine regions. Its reds are made from the Gamay grape variety, and Beaujolais and Beaujolais Villages make for super easy drinking. For a suitable pairing with Beth’s seasonal dish, we need to choose from one of ten Beaujolais crus where the best vineyards are. Fleurie is the most well known cru, which is lovely and perfumed, yet the intensity of this Morgon from Dominique Piron has the generous fruit character required and the supple tannins to compliment Beth’s wonderful dish.

Thanks again to Beth for sharing her wonderful seasonal quiche with us, do try out the recipe and wine pairings and share with us on Instagram here and here, and Twitter here. Cheers!

Christina McElhinney is a racing producer for Racing TV who has previously written for The Wine Tipster’s blog. Her own blog, The Food Waffle, is a place where the musings of an amateur home gardener and resourceful cook join and result in delicious recipes and accessible tips. Here, The Wine Tipster adds wine pairings to Christina’s Christmas Salad. Enjoy!

Christmas Salad: Maple Syrup & Whiskey Bacon and Warm Chestnuts with Blue Cheese Dressing

Obviously, Christmas is great. There’s food everywhere, plenty of wine around, generally speaking everyone’s in a good mood until the first row over sprouts kicks off and there are probably several million repeats of The Vicar Of Dibley that are virtually mandatory to watch whilst constantly shoving chocolate in your mouth because at Christmas, calories don’t actually exist.

Except unfortunately they do. And for all it’s great, Christmas can be a bit of an ambush on your body and while the first few days of carefree – or even deliberately headstrong – indulgence, I know I end up waving the white flag and needing something a bit lighter. Sort of like hitting the turkey wall – you suddenly realise that you’re not far off being unable to get off the sofa not because you don’t want to but because you would need at least three people and a JCB to help you actually do it.

But any day over the Christmas period that doesn’t involve the sort of ingredients and flavours you associate with the holidays feels like a criminal waste. So this year I decided I’d prep a recipe that not only uses things that are always so abundant in the days around the 25^th but also embraces that they are flavours that are so often associated with the time of year, whilst also shoehorning in something green, light and actually presenting some degree nutritional benefit.

Salad at Christmas…it sounds almost wrong. Almost as if you’d have to psych yourself up for it. But for me, I always find that once you muster the willpower to pick up the fruit rather than the chocolate bar, you’re instantly rewarded by realising how truly delicious the healthy option usually is, and I’m hoping this Christmas this recipe will offer that same benefit whilst also embracing the flavours of the festive season.

So which flavours? For me, chestnuts are the taste of Christmas. I love them for their earthy sweetness, and there are almost always some of the pre-cooked ones in a packet hidden away in the pantry. Something that I always have in the house in abundance in December – to cover and protect that crucial turkey and wrap those pigs in their required blankets – is top-quality, free range smoked streaky bacon. Stilton is always a staple of the cheese board, there’s always a bottle of whiskey (or two) around and Christmas spices are never complete without cinnamon.

This may be a salad…but it IS still Christmas, so you still have to make it special. Which is where soaking that beautiful free range bacon in a mix of maple syrup and whiskey comes in. Trust me, it’s delicious. When cooked, it will look very dark, but that’s the natural sugars intensifying the flavour of the one of the key stars of this salad – the others being the lightly spiced, warmed chestnuts and a blue cheese dressing.

You can do a fast(er) version of this – marinating the bacon for just a few hours will still impart some flavour of the blend – but if you feel like being organised enough, letting the bacon take on that flavour overnight is even better.

INGREDIENTS

• 5/6 rashers of top-quality, free range smoked streaky bacon
• Salad leaves – I like a mix of baby spinach, rocket and chicory but any would work
• 100g chestnuts, very lightly chopped and drizzled with a little olive oil and a dusting of ground nutmeg and cinnamon, a grating of black pepper and a pinch of brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons of maple syrup and 1 tablespoon of whiskey or bourbon, mixed together

Dressing:

• 100g Stilton or preferred blue cheese
• 150ml buttermilk
• Salt and pepper to taste

METHOD

• Lay the bacon out on baking parchment on a tray and brush over the maple syrup and whiskey mix – pour any left over on to the tray (use the parchment to stop it running off at the edges) and leave for a few hours at least.

• When ready to cook, put another layer of parchment on the bacon, put another baking tray on top and weigh down lightly. Cook slowly on low temperature like 180 degrees (fan oven) until the bacon is dark and bordering on crispy.

• Wash and mix the salad leaves and arrange on plates or a platter for sharing.

• Crumble the Stilton into a bowl, add the buttermilk and whisk gently – you want to keep a little texture so that now and then you get a bite of salad with a real punch of blue cheese flavour. Season to taste with salt and black pepper.

• When the bacon is cooked, set aside and add the lightly chopped chestnuts and a small wedge of butter to a frying pan and warm through.

• Once cooled slightly, slice the bacon diagonally and scatter the shards, along with the warm chestnuts, across the salad leaves. Drizzle the salad with a little high-quality olive oil. Pour the dressing into a serving bowl and serve alongside.

As well as being smug that you’re having a salad at Christmas, with this recipe you get to enjoy so many festive flavours and despite their contrasting qualities they work together so well. Smokiness with sweetness and that earthy hint of whiskey with the almost caramelised bacon, fresh, crunchy cool salad leaves against sweet and almost melting chestnuts with a hint of festive spice, and then the sharp zing of blue cheese and buttermilk in the dressing… combined they tick off so many flavour profiles and yet despite being a lighter meal, there are many elements here which bring the richness you need at Christmas so you don’t feel that you’re missing out on an opportunity to embrace all the indulgence.

Wine Pairing

To go with this fabulous Christmassy salad, The Wine Tipster is pairing a Pinot Gris Grand Cru Spiegel 2018 Domaine Schlumberger, Alsace, France £17.99 save £2 in mixed case Majestic or Yealands Reserve Grüner Veltliner 2019, Awatere Valley, Marlborough, New Zealand £12.99 down to £9.99 in Waitrose both of which have the palate weight, vibrant flavours and punch to marry up to its fabulous array of tantalising flavours and textures. Both of these wines have their own delicate spiciness, clean acidity, palate weight and a touch of just-right ripeness to complement this magnificent dish, bringing out the smoky, sweet and salty highlights which make this dish such a winning combination.

Thank you again to Christina McElhinney of The Food Waffle for sharing such a great recipe for the festive season, share pictures of your attempts with her on Twitter and Instagram, and don’t forget to tag The Wine Tipster on Twitter and Instagram too. Cheers!

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