No Half Measures

24 Mar 2024

I was on the hunt for an alternative filling for a Wellington. They look so interesting, all wrapped up in flaky pastry, but I generally don’t want to eat a slice of meat (schweinebraten was an exception) so I went seeking. After I made it, I was so proud of how few alterations I had made to the original recipe: I was following this terrific vegetarian alternative to beef wellington, which seemed to have a good veggie filling that wasn’t just Impossible meat. I started explaining that I used sweet potatoes instead of butternut squash, I used pie crust instead of puff pastry, oh and I omitted the brussels sprouts…only to slowly trail off and realize that I had changed the recipe quite a bit. And I also made my own mushroom gravy, the only alteration there being chicken stock instead of beef becasue that’s what I had.

So here’s my updated vegeterian wellington ingredients:

• 4 small sweet pototoes, cubed (about 5 cups)
• 2 shallots finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 pinch salt
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 1/2 cup lentils
• 1 1/2 cups vegetable broth
• 1/2 teaspoon soy sauce
• 1 pinch paprika
• 1/2 cup raw walnuts, pulsed in a food processor
• 1 very generous teaspoon fresh thyme
• 1 generous tablespoon fresh rosemary finely chopped
• 1 1/2 tablespoons flour
• 1 premade pie crust or puff pastry

It’s quite a lot to make: roasting the sweet potatoes and shallots, simmering the lentils, attempting to finely chop the walnuts and then realizing it’d be much easier just to food process them, turning a round pie crust into my best approximation of the fancy pastry work that the made from a rectangle.

The flavor was quite good, and the texture too. Between the sweet potatoes and lentils there was enough creaminess that the filling stayed together, and the fresh thyme and rosemary were worth it. Since the filling turned out ot be vegan, I realized that the whole thing could be vegan and it could be brought for Easter, so I saved half the filling! I just have to remake the mushroom gravy to be vegan, which is probably as simple as using margerine/plant butter and vegetable broth.