Recipe: Leek and ‘Bacon’ Quiche

Something new we’re trying in the Hungry Vegan kitchen is picking a recipe at random each week from one of the many vegan cookbooks we’ve got, trying it out and sharing the results (well, sharing a report of the results; the results themselves will be well and truly eaten by the time you read anything here).

To start with we picked an ackee quiche from Tony Weston and Yvonne Bishop’s The Vegan Diet Recipe Book. The name is a bit deceptive as it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with dieting, which is all good with us. It has quite a few delicious-looking recipes, a few with cheese-style sauces that we’re looking forward to, and some cakes and deserts.

J’s not exactly a fan of mixing sweet and savoury in dishes so we decided to alter the recipe a little and go for a traditional leek and bacon quiche instead of the ackee one, but used the same recipe, simply replacing the ackee with leek and bacon-style tofu pieces.

For the pastry you’ll need:
250g self-raising wholemeal flower
60ml rapeseed oil (we used standard sunflower oil)
60ml soya milk (make sure to use unsweetened)
A pinch of salt

For the filling:
3 tablespoons olive oil
100g mushrooms, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 medium-sized leek, halved lengthways and then sliced
125ml plain soya yoghurt (avoid the Alpro plain yoghurt if you can as they started adding a sweet flavour a few years ago for some reason)
2 teaspoons vegan bouillon (we used one stock cube crumbled)
1 teaspoon tomato purée
½ tablespoon Dijon mustard (the recipe in the book says 1 tablespoon but we thought this was a bit much)
1 large tomato, sliced

For the ‘bacon’:
About 100g of tofu
1 tablespoon syrup (we used golden syrup but maple syrup would work well)
1 tablespoon soy sauce
¼ teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon marmite (or yeast flakes)
A pinch of smoked paprika
½ tablespoon vegan smoky barbeque/grill sauce (a lot of recipes ask for liquid smoke which we couldn’t find in any of the shops we tried; if you can find this, add a couple of dashes instead of this sauce)

To garnish:
Sprigs of parsley
Pinch of smoked paprika

1. Mix the ‘bacon’ ingredients, apart from the tofu, in a dish. Slice the tofu in ½ cm slices and marinade in the mix for as long as you’ve got. If short on time like we were, fry them gently in the marinade with a little oil for twenty minutes or so. Just make sure the marinade doesn’t burn in the frying pan.
2. Oil a 20cm/8in pie dish. Preheat oven to gas mark 6/200 centigrade/400 Fahrenheit.

3. Mix the pastry ingredients in a bowl. Make sure it’s a nice, firm dough. If it’s too dry add equal measures of the oil and soya milk in small amounts until you’re happy with it.

4. After briefly kneading the dough, roll it out and line the oiled pie dish with it. Bake it in the oven like this for 5 minutes. This will help avoid a soggy bottom to the quiche.

5. For the filling, fry the onion, mushrooms and leek in 2 tablespoons of olive oil until everything’s soft.

6. Mix the yoghurt, mustard, tomato purée, bouillon powder and remaining olive oil together in a bowl.

7. Cut the tofu ‘bacon’ into small pieces (like bacon in a traditional quiche) and mix in with the onion, mushroom and leek mix. Put this inside the pie shell and spoon the yoghurt mixture over the top of it. Lay the sliced tomatoes over the top and bake in the oven for 20 minutes or until golden brown.

8. Garnish with the parsley and smoked paprika and serve with your favourite style of potatoes and veg (we went for boiled new potatoes and peas, the book recommends roasted sweet potatoes and salad).

The results
We were very satisfied with this recipe. The quiche was delicious: very creamy and rich in flavour, and a tasty wholemeal pie crust. All in all a success and something we'll definitely be having again.