Being vegetarian or vegan doesn't mean going hungry this Christmas. Here's Larissa Dubecki's guide to a delicious non-meat Christmas.
Spare a thought for a vegetarian this Christmas. The annual meat festival can be a trying time for anyone who eschews flesh for ethical or health reasons. The traditional Christmas centrepiece of a whole turkey or roast pork with its crown of crackling is an upwards-raised finger at ideals the vego holds dear. Moral high ground? Just think of those innocent cattle sweetly a-lowing at the birth of the baby that started this whole palaver. Why shouldn't the season of goodwill extend to all creatures great and small?
You don't need duck fat to cook the perfect roast potato.Photograph: Dan Matthews for the Guardian. Food styling: Jake Sargesson
Christmas isn't about point scoring. It's about survival, and not feeling like the poor relative when everyone around you is wiping gravy off their chin. Being a vegetarian at Christmas is much like being a vegetarian at any other time of the year, only with far greater reserves of forbearance required. You can rely on one or all of the following things happening: A well-meaning but definitionally challenged relative will say, "But you can eat prawns, can't you?'' A self-styled comedian - usually an older male relative - will wave a piece of crackling in your face saying, "Go on, you know you want to." A bunch of junior relatives will chime in - "But vegetables have feelings too!''
Ignore them. Revenge will come later, in the form of that soap-on-a-rope Kris Kringle gift. For the moment, the best chances of survival begin with getting in on the cooking action. Lip service to vegetarians is a very popular national sport, characterised by the liberal application of cold pasta salad. But you can save yourself from the stodge.
First, decide what sort of vegetarian (or vegan) you want to be. Special occasions put into sharp relief the vegetarian paradox bubbling away under celebratory occasions. Call it the Christmas conundrum. Is it necessary to mimic the meat hierarchy by having one star of the show and a constellation of support dishes? If you decide the table needs a centrepiece, it's easy enough to Google "tofu turkey''.
Yotam Ottolenghi's parsleyand lemon cannellini bean salad. Photograph: The Guardian
But haven't we grown out of that? Christmas is not a time for tofu. Nor is it a time for veggie burgers or pasta. There are vego riches to be found in the field of Asian cookery, but laksa hardly comes out singing Jingle Bells. For the best approximation of a classic Anglo Christmas feast:
Stuff it. Stuffing doesn't need meat. Stuffing does not need to actively stuff. Stuffing is an end to itself. Sage and onion, fried bread, a teeny bit of garlic, throw in the oven wrapped in foil. Call it confit stuffing if you want to get all poncy about it. Tastes magnificent with roasted potatoes. Who needs something's flesh?
Make the potatoes your business. Quick. Before someone else does and decides to get all Fergus Henderson by cooking them in duck fat. There's nothing wrong with a good old-fashioned olive oil potato. Impress the pants off everyone by doing double-cooked potatoes, if the mood takes you - hell, even triple cook them. But don't let yourself be denied their golden, salty crunch.
Gravy. Same principle as stuffing. Gravy does not need meat to make sense. Make yours with butter, onion, mushrooms, good-quality vegetable stock and a dash of cream.
Vegetables no longer have to sit at the back of the bus. Yottam Ottolenghi is the man of the season when it comes to vegetables justifying their existence without recourse to sad side dish status. Also see the likes of Karen Martini and Jamie Oliver, both accessible recipe writers learned in the ways of the vibrant, textural salad. Celebrate the fact any chef worth his or her sea salt is hip to toasted nuts and ancient grains. If Christmas isn't a time to crack out the ancient grains then when is?
Embrace the festive ingredients. Cherries. Hazelnuts. Red berries. Figs. Stonefruit make an excellent addition to salads when grilled, boosting the flavour profile of just about anything.
Give thanks. It's easier to be a vegetarian in an Antipodean Christmas than a northern hemisphere one. Embrace the fact that it will probably be 35 degrees followed by a thunderstorm at around 3pm. European vegetarian Christmas suggestions invariably involve a great deal of handwringing about what is missing rather than what is available. Feel smug.
If all else fails, drink.
Photo Credits: It's easy to have a delicious vegetarian Christmas. Photograph: Jill Mead/The Guardian.
This article was originally published on The Guardian