This recipe is taken from Dave Wardell's Notes from a Veggie Kitchen. Serves 4.

Ingredients

For the en-croûte:

I used the plain Quorn fillets, these usually come deep frozen in bags of six. You can get pre-prepared ones with lemon and pepper coating, etc. but that rather defeats the object of making one’s own sauce. You could of course use chicken breasts or any type of escallop for a non-vegetarian version, or make pasties either with Quorn pieces or large cubes of turnip.

4 Quorn fillets
2 blocks of THAWED puff pastry
2 large onions
4 cloves garlic
2 small red bell peppers
8 small mushrooms sliced
Black pepper to taste
Ground cumin to taste
Oil to fry
1 egg and tablespoon milk to glaze

For the Vegetables:

As many small potatoes as you need – new if in season
½ a large Savoy cabbage
500ml Fromage Frais
Caraway seeds if liked
Oil
Plain flour
Black pepper
Dried herbs (Italian ones, marjoram, basil, etc.)
Salt
Mustard powder

Method

Chop the onions finely, seed and finely dice the peppers, thinly slice the garlic (do NOT crush – you want the flavour of the garlic as a vegetable, not the strength as a seasoning) It is the crushing of the garlic raw that forms the strong smelling oils).

On a high heat, shallow-fry the fillets to brown them and remove. Add more oil and turn the heat down to very low.

Put in the vegetables add black pepper, cover and leave to sweat for 15-20 minutes until the onions are soft and translucent and just going golden.

Remove from the heat and stir in 2 tablespoons of the fromage frais.

Set the oven to 200°C.

Meanwhile peel or scrub some small potatoes (as many or as few as you are likely to eat) and slice the cabbage into 2cm slices, cutting out the thick stem, then just loosen the slices into shreds.

Roll out one block of the pastry into a square about 40 to 45cm and cut along the diagonal into two triangles.

Beat the egg and milk together.

In each triangle place one fillet, two of the sliced mushrooms and a ¼ of the vegetable mixture. Paint the edges with the egg and milk mix and fold and seal into a parcel.

Repeat until you have made four parcels, place on a baking tray and glaze with the egg and milk mixture. Place in oven. It will take about ½ an hour for them to be ready.

Get everything together to make the sauce and then start the accompanying vegetables.

Boil the potatoes and steam the cabbage.

Sprinkle a large pinch of caraway seeds over the cabbage as it steams.

Meanwhile, prepare the sauce. Using the pan you had the vegetables in, add 2 tablespoons of oil and heat. Add 1-2 tablespoons of plain flour, a tablespoon of mustard powder and mix to form a roux.

If you have any left, stir in the remains of the egg and milk mixture.

Add 150ml water a little at a time (making a sauce is easy as long as you add the liquid at a rate of about a tablespoon at a time and completely blend it in. If you add it faster than that you will end up with indestructible lumps that nothing will remove – believe me I’ve tried) stirring it in over a medium heat (hot not boiling).

You should now have a thick liquid; if it’s still a paste, continue adding water. Bring almost to boiling point, remove from the heat and stir in all the remaining fromage frais.

By now the pastry should be risen and golden and the vegetables ready to eat. If it hasn’t come together, then this is the time to turn some things off to let others catch up.

Once everything is almost ready, add ½ a tablespoon of the dried herbs and re-heat the sauce almost to boiling whilst stirring (i.e., it just starts to bubble) and add black pepper and salt to taste (yes taste it until you’re happy – don’t ever guess or measure).

Ready to serve – as these are individual parcels, I like to put on the plates in the kitchen, people just serving themselves with the vegetables and sauce at the table. The en croûte turned out to be huge and only I managed a whole one. Next time, I’ll use half the pastry and half the vegetable filling. Oh, and not everyone will like caraway – but who cares about them.

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