The Vegetarian Turkey

For Christmas this year I finally tried and tested what has, up until now, been only a daydream for me, I have been talking about doing it for ages and I though fuck it, I'm all talk, I just need to do it so here we go!

The vegetarian turkey.

A truly visually similar Xmas dinner or sunday roast alternative to our friend the sexy Mr Turkey!

I thought it would be nice to share on here in case there is any other vegetarians who also like inventing weird food.

The Theory:
I got really bored of meat-eaters laughing at me because of my supposedly subordinate meat-free Christmas Dinner so thought I would invent an alternative that had all the wonders of turkey, minus actual turkey.

Disclaimer: I have never actually seen a cooked turkey so I had to make mine based on a mix of what chicken looks like, and cartoons. This is why it doesn't look EXACTLY like a turkey.

Step 1

Boil up a bunch of Potatoes, and in another pan, Sweet potatoes. You could do one after the other and use the same pan, they don't need to stay warm as this is all going in the oven at the end anyway.

You could substitute the Potatoes and sweet potatoes for Carrots, Swede, Butternut squash, or any other sort of mashable vegetable. I used Potatoes because I think the softer and fluffier the mash, the easier it is to sculpt (and tastier it is, mmm)

Sweet Potato



Potato

(Yours doesn't need to be covered in weird foam. Not sure why this happened)


Step 2

Okay so now you SHOULD have some boiled mashable Veg.

Next step is to mash them up. You could use only 1 type, I used 2 because I think I'm an arty t**t.




Tadaa!

If you have got to this stage, WELL DONE. You have already demonstrated the only skills required to complete this turkey. Give yourself a pat on the back.

I mashed my sweet potato with chives and butter. (The one above contains invisible chives. They become visible during the next stage)

I also mashed my regular potato with garlic and butter. I think you could easily be a lot more inventive with the contents of the mash. Maybe throw in some mushrooms, or onions (white or red) softened in oil for a few minutes. Go mental!

Step 3

To create the centre of the turkey was a bit of a challenge. I in fact managed to drop it twice (at least) while attempting to make it. DO NOT DRINK TOO MUCH WINE BEFORE THIS STAGE, this is intrinsic to the success of your dish.

First you will require one of these. Yours does not have to be dirty like mine; you are hopefully much better at washing up.




So, the centre of the turkey.

First lay out on the surface, a layer of cling film or any flat, strong, flexible reasonably non-stick substance. I don't think I put any sort of cooking lube on mine (ie butter, oil, wine) but due to the obtuse blood alcohol levels I couldn't say for sure. I'm going to go with no.

Now take one of your mashes, and spread it out over the cling film. When you are doing this, be aware of the size of your roasting dish!

Remember there is a whole other layer of turkey yet to go on! As you will see later, I may have done well to remember this myself, so I'm giving you the heads up now before everyone laughs at you for having almost no perception of size or volume.

Now repeat the above step with the second mash. Most utensils work to spread the mash out - though I wouldn't advise using anything like a whisk or a potato masher.



Now comes the tricky part, and the reason for the cling film. Yes, that's right - there was a reason! I wasn't just being lazy about washing the chopping board.

You have to take one end of it and carefully roll the mash into the shape of a spiral. This creates a really cool swirl in the middle. This is why your turkey is better than a meat turkey. People with meat turkeys can NOT make their turkey do this. You can! Perhaps you might wish to take a moment to bask in this momentary triumph.

Here is where you should be now. BE CAREFUL. Do not drop it on the floor at this stage!




Now you must place your mash spiral in the centre of your roasting dish.

Part of me thinks that when I make it again, I might hold up putting it on the roasting dish and see if I can complete the next step first, therefore creating a truly enveloped mash-spiral-centre, like an apricot around a stone, rather than a partially-covered mash-spiral roast hill, like a woodlouse.

If the above does not make sense to you, please dismiss it. I'm not quite sure.

Step 4

Now I was lazy for this part, but if you buy some texturised soya protein, some nuts and look in some recipe books, you could probably make your own version that tastes a lot nicer than mine. I mixed all three of these together and then used "Drunk Maths" to work out how much water was needed to mix them up.




Now do not look away in fear and disgust! This is not my sick! This is what they look like all mixed up. I'm pretty sure I chopped some rosemary and sage and bunged that in as well. And maybe some spring onions. And red pepper. I can't completely remember but I bet if you did, that it would taste great. Don't put anything too bulky in though, it needs to be a relatively fine consistency in order to spread over the mash.



If you have got this far, well done! It takes about 10 minutes for the mix to soak the water up.

I think you deserve a well earned break.

We decided to play with the cat, but you could theoretically do anything in this ten minutes you have available.


Step 5

Despite appearances, this is NOT the cat covered in the sick of a drunk food-maniac!

This is what your turkey should look like now the mash is covered in the nut roast/meat free bake/meat free sausage concoction.




As you can see, I decided to carve 2 pretend bones out of carrot and poke them into its theoretical breasts. It is the small touches like this that really make someone question how a real dead turkey could possibly be better than your substitute. Don't be tempted to skip them!

I know the breasts look small now, but trust me, they look bigger later. Stay with me here! Or is it the leg fat?

You might want to make your leg fat look more fat, or even make your turkey look more like a turkey. This is encouraged! The more realistic the turkey, the more smug you might potentially feel.

Step 6

This is technically not a real step. I forgot that I left this in the oven.



Its a roasting butternut squash!

I was going to use it in the mash, but unfortunately decided to go for a wee instead, or something.

Since I hate waste I decided to mash it up with butter and spread it all over the turkey as a sort of "skin". I then covered it in rosemary, just like a real turkey.




Et Voila!

Step 7

COOKING.

Now this stage will require your constant attendence. The cooking time will be reflected by the temperature of your oven. I recorded neither, but I assume that from the fact the nut roast concoction usually takes about 20 minutes at 200C, that anything over this is good.

You definately want to keep an eye on it if you go for anything over 30 minutes, unless your oven is really low or off, in which case I think its okay to relax for a while. The carrotbones obviously take a little while to roast.

Here we are, nice and smooth and ready to party.



In progress:




DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN TO TAKE PHOTORAPHS.

Bad for your camera, bad for your face.

Take them through the window on your oven. They didn't put a window on it for nothing!


OKAY SO.

You now have a bit more time to chill out. Don't stray too far from the oven though! You might forget and burn it. We made some mulled cider



and played with this box, which was accidently shaped like a swearing robot. Now I don't know about you, but thats a positive food omen if ever I saw one.



Step 8

So your turkey should now be cooked!

If it isn't, you may want to turn your oven up, or on.




You will now need someone to carve the turkey. The more melodramatic the carving, the more satisfaction you feel, so choose your knife carefully!

I trusted the carving to laura, and let her choose her weapon.



She did a bloody good job.




Yum Yum Yum!

Here is a selection of quotes from bystanders.

"Mmm, that smells great!"

"Wow, delicious!"

"What the fuck is that?"

"Mate, have you ever seen a real turkey?"

"Gosh, what a nice smell."

You can't really argue with that, can you?



* * * * * * *



Okay so, I hope you have enjoyed this recipe to make your own VEGETARIAN TURKEY, best of luck with your own attempts and I hope you had a lovely Christmas and have a great 2010!

And check out the empty plates - Veggie Turkey a 100% success!



Big love from Cari! x x x x