Aubergine and halloumi stacks

These garlic marinated and roasted aubergine stacks are a great starter. Halloumi brings the saltiness and chewiness to the dish and the roasted vegetables harmonise perfectly with it. It's also a lot of fun stacking the ingredients, almost like playing with food but in a respectful way.

Ingredients

1 Aubergine

250g Halloumi

10 Small plum tomatoes

1 Garlic clove

Olive oil

Basil

Some watercress as side

Slice the aubergine and chop the garlic. Mix the chopped garlic with a little bit of olive oil and roll the aubergine slices in that mix. Don't go too heavy on the oil as the aubergines like to suck a lot of it in if given the chance. Put the aubergines into the fridge in a closed box and let marinate for about an hour.

Slice the halloumi and cut the tomatoes in half. Place the aubergine slices on a roasting pan and roast them until soft and brownish. Fry the halloumi slices in a pan in olive oil until they are golden brown. Lightly fry the tomatoes in olive oil in a separate pan at moderate heat until soft.

When everything is done, stack the aubergines, halloumi and tomatoes on each other. Garnish with basil and serve with fresh watercress on the side.

A trio of vegetarian filo parcels

I'm using today the exciting and fragile filo (phyllo) pastry for my vegetable parcels in three variations. So first I prepared three different fillings and then baked the parcels. Obviously you don't have to use the same fillings as these are only my suggestions and ideas.

I have divided this entry to sections for each parcel type: Aubergine mash filo parcels, Mushroom and cheese filo parcels and Grilled pepper and soft cheese filo parcels.

Aubergine mash filo parcels

Ingredients:

Filo pastry

1 Aubergine

1 Pepper

Olive oil

Gloucester cheese

Salt & pepper

Cut the aubergine into slices of approximately ½ cm thickness and cut the peppers into halves (the second pepper goes into the soft cheese parcels but grill both at the same time). Brush the vegetables with olive oil, place into an oven dish and grill until they are soft and get some dark bits.

Mash the grilled aubergines with a hand mixer and add salt and pepper into the mix. Slice the pepper into small bits and add it to the aubergine mash. Add the grated cheese and mix until you have a firm paste. Set this to one side to cool down and continue making the other fillings.

Mushroom and cheese filo parcels

Ingredients:

Filo pastry

A few mushrooms

1 Red onion

1 Clove of garlic

Fresh chives

Salt & pepper

Olive oil

Red Leicester cheese

Chop the mushrooms, onion, garlic and chives into small pieces. Fry them in a pan. First fry the onions and garlic in olive oil, add then the mushrooms and fry until they are cooked. If your mixture is too moist at this point, pour everything into a colander and drain the excess fluid out. Take the pot from the heat and add the chives, salt and pepper and mix the grated cheese in. Let it cool down before filling the parcels.

Grilled pepper and soft cheese filo parcels

Ingredients:

Filo pastry

1 Pepper

Grilled peppers soft cheese

Spring onion and black pepper soft cheese

Gloucester cheese

Olive oil

Take the other grilled pepper and chop it into small pieces. Mix it with the soft cheeses (take about a third of each packet) and the grated Gloucester.

Making the parcels

You can make any kinds of shapes or forms, small or large, whatever you feel like. Filo pastry can be a bit tricky to work with as it's so fragile and delicate.

Spread the pastry on a baking surface and cut it into suitable pieces for your parcels. I think I cut mine into eight parts. Use at least double pastry because otherwise the parcel might not hold together. You can use several layers but be then careful that pastry isn't too thick at some parts. That may result into dry parcels.

Put a small amount of your filling onto the pastry and shape a closed parcel out of it. Place the parcels on a baking tray.

Bake at 220C for about 10-12 minutes until the pastry is golden brown.

This is a great fingerfood to serve at a party with vegetarian treats. These can even be eaten cold. I couldn't recognise later on which parcel had which filling and that added a great element of surprise to the eating.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Vegan Aubergine Schnitzel

[Schnitzel, das (ˈʃnɪtsəl) ~ German: cutlet, from ”schnitzen” to carve, ”schnitzeln” to whittle]

One of my passions is perfecting what I call the Veggie Schnitzel. Those are variations of different vegetarian burgers that can be eaten as veggie burgers or combined with many side dishes such as potato mash. This will be part one of many more Schnitzel entries in the future as the options are endless. The good thing with burgers is that you can make a larger batch once you get going and can then freeze some. What can be better on a lazy day than making a quick burger from the freezer.

I recently tried this new type of burger and found it to be tasty. I haven't been much of a friend of aubergine aka the eggplant but this time I decided to be brave and use it as the main veg for my burgers.

This is how I made them this time: First I started by chopping onions, garlic and slicing the aubergines. I then fried the aubergines in a pan until soft and mashed them with a hand mixer (I use a really cheap £5 hand mixer which does the work perfectly, there's no need for any fancy devices). You can also grate them even when raw but as a paste they stick better together which makes shaping and frying the Schnitzels much easier later.

Mix aubergine mash in a mixing bowl with onions, garlic and seasoning. If your dough is too fluid, add some flour until it is firm and easy to shape burgers with. Depending on your taste you can add other vegetables, cheese or potatoes to the mix.

This time I tired out a new approach to the breading, I avoided eggs which made this variation vegan. After shaping the Schnitzel into burgers I mixed potato flour with water and rolled the burgers there. This made a lovely smooth cover for the burgers and they stuck together without eggs! Then I rolled them in bread crumbs and they were ready to be fried.

Variation tip: Shape dough as balls or small nuggets.

Now, I don't own a deep frier, so I just heat oil in a pan and when hot add the burgers to it. Turn them around when they are fried brown from the one side. If you make a lot of dough, you might be frying for a while but it really is worth it.

A serving suggestion: With olive baguette, cheese and peppers.

As promised there will be more Schnitzel related content later, so this is all for this time.

Stay Schnitzel hungry!