Winter Tofu Bake (vg, gf optional)

If you didn’t know yet, I was born in Portugal where all my family still lives. Last Christmas, my mum and her partner came over to the UK to spend the festive season with James and I. In Portugal, we celebrate Christmas Eve, so 24th December, with a smaller celebration on Christmas Day. On Christmas Eve, almost at every table you’ll find salt-dried codfish, potatoes and cabbage - all boiled, no frills - and then drizzled with copious amounts of (good!) olive oil. In recent years, my mum, being the catering goddess she is, started making a codfish bake for our family, same ingredients but a more elevated version of the same meal. She layers the boiled potatoes at the bottom of a tray, sautées the codfish in plenty of fried onions and pepper and then layers this over the potatoes, topped with boiled cabbage, finishing with a thin layer of cornbread crumbs. It’s heaven!

As someone who follows a plant-based diet, this is of course, off the cards for us. So, last Christmas we re-invented this Portuguese cuisine staple and gave it a vegan twist by replacing the codfish with tofu and amping up the greens by mixing in leek and other seasonal varieties.

The result is a comforting yet healthy dish, keeping it nutritionally balanced by bringing in plant-based protein (tofu) and keeping in the fibre and antioxidants from the cabbage. I love that this recipe uses so few ingredients, most of which are seasonal to Winter showing that you don’t need complex techniques or exotic ingredients to make plant-based food inviting and utterly delicious.

• Ingredients (for 4 people)

  • good quality extra virgin olive oil

  • 2 onions

  • 3 garlic cloves

  • 1 bay leaf

  • 300g super firm tofu

  • 150ml plant-based cream such as soya or oat

  • 1tsp garlic powder

  • 200g leek

  • 200g sweetheart cabbage

  • 750g Maris Piper potatoes

  • 150g cornbread breadcrumbs

  • salt and freshly ground black pepper

• Method

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C (fan).

  2. Bring a kettle to boil. Peel and slice the potatoes into 1cm rounds. Boil in a big pan of salted water until soft but not falling apart. Drain and set aside.

  3. Boil your kettle again. Trim and slice the leek into 2cm pieces. Trim and roughly chop the cabbage leaves. Boil in a large pan of salted water until cooked. Drain and set aside.

  4. Heat a generous amount of olive oil in a large frying pan (around 5tbsp). Trim, peel and thinly slice the onion. Add the onion to the pan and sautée for 5 minutes on low heat until it’s translucent but not brown.

  5. Peel the garlic cloves and finely dice. Add to the onion together with the bay leaves and cook for a minute.

  6. Pat dry the tofu using kitchen paper or a clean tea towel. Crumble into the onion pan and season with the garlic powder and generously with salt and pepper. Tofu doesn’t have a lot of taste so keep adjusting until you’re happy with the seasoning. Cook for 5 minutes.

  7. Add the cream to the tofu and mix well together. check the seasoning and adjust to taste. Remove the bay leaf.

  8. In a large oven dish, layer the potatoes followed by the creamy tofu and greens. Top with the breadcrumbs and a drizzle of olive oil.

  9. Bake in the oven for 25min or until you can see it bubbling. If the breadcrumbs are getting too dark, cover with parchment paper.

  10. Serve straight out of the oven with a drizzle of olive oil.

Hope you enjoy it and don’t forget to tag me on Instagram or Facebook so I can see your recreations.