Matt Preston’s guide to making veggies the star of the feast this Christmas
Christmas for many means ham, maybe some turkey, and more ham, but Matt Preston says it’s time to give vegetables a starring role with these tips and recipes for a flavour-packed family lunch.
Eating Out
Don't miss out on the headlines from Eating Out. Followed categories will be added to My News.
It used to be just angry cousin Eileen who’d turn up for lunch with her piercings, dyed hair,
PETA T-shirt and permanent scowl refusing to eat while screaming meat is murder at the table.
But this Christmas it’s probably not just a teen going through a phase that cooks will have to consider when planning the family feast.
While veganism is one of the biggest dietary trends of the past 18 months, its less prescriptive cousin vegetarian and its new best friend flexitarian are coming to Christmas lunch around the country this year.
“Look, it’s a pretty radical time to do a full vegetarian meal,” says Matt Preston. “But it can be done.”
The best-selling cookbook author has spent the past couple of years thinking about how to do more with vegetables — how to get more plant-based or plant-centric cooking into his repertoire without sacrificing flavour or pleasure.
In his new cookbook, More, Matt has written vegetarian and vegan recipes that “are so much more than three veg without a side of protein” but that can also be teamed with dairy, fish, or even a cheeky bit of bacon should the urge arise.
“They’ve been developed as an antidote to the dreaded, damp-cardboard meals of yesteryear,” Matt says.
It’s with this in mind — that vegetarian meals can be packed full of flavour and texture, can be decadent and naughty and fun and fabulously tasty — that this year’s Christmas feast can be approached.
“The idea behind the book is that meat is one of five things on the table.
“The great thing about so many vegetable dishes is they are incredibly suitable for a hot climate. For those of us north of the Great Dividing Range in Victoria, or up in Queensland or country NSW, something like a filo pie is probably more welcome than a hot turkey and a load of hot sides,” Matt says.
CENTRE OF ATTENTION
It’s the hottest vegetable seen on every trendy restaurant menu and Christmas is the perfect time to make cauliflower the guiding star of your feast.
“If you’re going to do vegetables as the centrepiece, a whole roast cauliflower would give you that Christmas ‘moment’,” he says.
Matt suggests teaming the whole roasted cauliflower with a vibrant red Turkish dip called muhammara, pomegranate arils and young green pistachios for a full “Christmas wreath effect”.
For the muhammara, blitz chickpeas, walnuts and roasted red capsicum together, then dot around the platter. Place the golden-roasted cauliflower on top with pomegranate arils, pomegranate molasses, currants and pistachios.
“Dress it with pomegranate molasses and olive oil and you have a centrepiece,” Matt says.
To cook the perfect roasted cauliflower, Matt has one foolproof way.
“People try to roast it in the oven, and the florets get burnt and the middle doesn’t cook, or they boil it first and the cauliflower gets soggy and has to sit for a really long time,” he says.
“The only way to cook it is to put it in the microwave for 10-14 mins, depending on size. Cook until the florets feel soft. Very carefully take it out, drizzle with olive oil, put it in a hot oven and singe the outside.”
SNACK ATTACK
Matt says a veg-first philosophy to this year’s feast can start the moment guests arrive.
“Crispy pumpkin cakes make great canapes, as do leeky potato tots with grated smoked cheddar and crispy jalapeños served with a smoked almond dip,” he says.
For the pumpkin cakes, simply mix roasted pumpkin mashed together with some glutinous rice flour. Roll into logs, slice and fry until crisp. Serve with crème fraiche and a chutney of blitzed rinsed and deseeded tinned chipotle, tamarind and brown sugar.
“It’s such a simple recipe but it gives you this bright, sweet, sour, hot ketchup that goes so well with the chewiness of the pumpkin. Top with crème fraiche and coriander.”
SUPER SALADS
Give the humble potato salad a twist for Christmas by enlisting the help of the barbecue.
Grill parboiled potatoes on the barbecue “so you get the lovely char markings on them” and dress with natural yoghurt and tamarind caramel (¼ cup tamarind paste, 70g brown sugar, ¼ cup water, slowly simmered until thick). Finish with torn mint.
“Or you could make a devilled egg salad — they are so fashionable at the moment,” Matt says.
Make a salad of asparagus, watercress, thinly sliced celery and cucumber, dress with a dill mustard vinaigrette and scatter on a serving platter. Dot devilled eggs around the salad.
SAY CHEESE
Cheese is an easy go-to for adding rich decadence to any vegetable dish — whether the bechamel in a vegetarian moussaka, the blue cheese atop a roasted cauliflower, or the frozen cream cheese snow atop poached leeks — but it can also play a starring role in a Christmas spread.
“Haloumi is fantastic. Grilled haloumi on skewers with stone fruit — which is so brilliant at this time of year — that’s a good way to go,” Matt says.
Thread peach wedges and haloumi cubes on skewers and grill on barbecue until the haloumi is golden and the peach is charred and tender. Serve on couscous tossed with rocket, pistachio and mint and finish with pomegranate arils.
“It gives you the festive, Christmassy colours and is perfect for summer,” Matt says.
HOORAY FOR HUMMUS
You can use hummus as a foil for falafel — whether a traditional chickpea hummus or something more adventurous such as a roast onion or smoky sweet potato — or as a side to a hero roasted veg, such as cauliflower or pumpkin.
CARRIAGE AWAY
The humble pumpkin can be a fairytale feast centrepiece with hardly any effort.
“I like the idea of thin wedges tossed with olive oil and baked until they get a bit chewy, a bit coarse at the skinny edge. But also, it’s equally delicious to cook half a butternut cut thick,” Matt says.
Chop a butternut in half, scoop out the seeds, brush it with oil, and cook in the oven.
“Cook it until it’s gnarly and soft and just serve like that. Score the flesh, drizzle some maple syrup over it, bit of butter, bit of salt. Delicious.”
COMMITTED CARNIVORES
Matt says there are a couple of ways to trick the committed carnivore into getting stuck into a veg dish without complaint.
“There are certain flavour clues that make carnivores feel at home. Smoky flavours are absolutely key. You’ll find things like chipotle chilli, smoked paprika, the smokiness of cumin — it seems to click into something primordial in our brain,” he says. “The other thing is adding savouriness. Miso and tahini and nut butters are amazing in adding depth and texture and flavour.”
Such twists on classic meat dishes — an eggplant schnitzel; Kentucky fried tofu fingers; popcorn cauliflower — can be ways to incorporate vegetables so that people don’t even notice they’re missing meat.
READ MORE:
VICTORIA’S MOST DELICIOUS VEGETARIAN DISHES
WHY THIS MEAT-FREE BURGER IS WORTH A TRY
HOW TO BUY AND COOK BEST SEAFOOD FOR XMAS
WHERE TO FIND AUSTRALIA’S BEST BONELESS HAM
GLOBAL CELEBRATION
“The default position for many people when thinking of Christmas is an Anglo Celtic, or northern European flavour combinations,” Matt says. “But there’s nothing to stop you going down a route of South East Asian flavours.”
But, he advises to keep everything on the table to the one part of the world. “You don’t want it to be a cacophony.”
A NEW LEAF
Just like a puppy, more mindful consumption of meat shouldn’t be just for Christmas and Matt says incorporating a veg-first focus into our kitchens and weekly dinner schedule is surprisingly easy — once you start exploring the possibilities.
“Once you’ve pureed a veg — roast pumpkin, beetroot, raw spinach, for example — then mix it with flour you can turn it into pasta, mix it with ricotta you can turn it into gnocchi, turn it into hummus, turn it into falafel, turn it into soup. There’s a dizzying potential with every vegetable.”
A NEW TRADITION
But no matter who’s eating what and not and why the best thing about a Christmas meal is bringing friends and family — yes, even angry Eileen — together.
“Sharing a meal is one of the key things that makes us human,” Matt says. “We should revel in that.”
PEA RICOTTA FETA FILO PIE
SERVES: 10–12 (or 8 hungry people)
PREP: 30 mins (plus 10 mins standing)
COOKING: 1 hour 5 mins
RECIPE Matt Preston
INGREDIENTS
1 tablespoon olive oil
150g green beans, trimmed and cut into 1 cm coins
3 celery stalks, chopped into
1 cm pieces
150g frozen peas, thawed
45g pumpkin seeds
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
600g fresh ricotta
400g feta, crumbled
2 eggs, lightly beaten
¹⁄³ cup coarsely chopped mint
2 tablespoons finely chopped dill fronds
finely grated zest of 1 lemon
100 g butter, melted
12 sheets filo pastry
8 hard-boiled eggs, peeled
METHOD
Preheat the oven to 200C/180C fan-forced.
Heat the olive oil in a frying pan over medium–high heat. Add the beans and celery and cook for 5 minutes or until the beans are bright green. Add the peas and pumpkin seeds and cook, stirring, for 3–5 minutes or until the pumpkin seeds are lightly toasted. Transfer the mixture to a large bowl and season well with salt and pepper.
Add the ricotta, feta, beaten egg, mint, dill and lemon zest to the veg and stir until really well combined.
Grease a 24cm springform cake tin with a little of the butter. Place the filo on a clean work surface and cover with a dry tea towel, then a damp tea towel to stop it drying out. Brush one sheet of filo with the melted butter and fold it in half crossways. Place in the prepared tin, allowing the excess to hang over the side. Brush the filo with more butter. Repeat with the remaining filo sheets and melted butter, turning and overlapping each sheet slightly so the tin is fully lined.
Spoon half the ricotta mixture into the tin. Top with the boiled eggs, spacing them evenly apart to make a ring around the edge, then gently press them into the ricotta mixture. T op with the remaining ricotta mixture and smooth the surface.
Fold the overhanging filo back up and over the filling so it is scrunchy on top. It won’t fully cover the filling so there will be a hole in the middle. Brush with the remaining butter, then bake for 45–55 minutes or until golden. Cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then release the side and cut into wedges to serve.
LEEKS WITH CHEESE SNOW
SERVES: 4 as a side
PREP: 5 mins
COOKING: 10 mins
RECIPE: Matt Preston
INGREDIENTS
4 thin leeks
1 × 250g block cream cheese, frozen hard (remove the foil but freeze in the cardboard packet)
BLACK PEPPER VINAIGRETTE
60 ml olive oil
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
1 teaspoon honey
large pinch of sea salt
Remove the dark green leaves from the leeks and wash the leeks well. Give them a trim, leaving the white end of the leek totally sealed. Get rid of any straggly roots.
To make the vinaigrette, whisk together all the ingredients in a bowl.
Place two leeks in a at-bottomed microwave-safe dish a pie plate works well or just put them directly on the turntable. Microwave on high for 4–6 minutes or until tender, a little squidgy and a bit bendy. Repeat with the remaining leeks.
When the leeks are cooked, cut off the sealed ends and cut them in half lengthways. (Be careful as the leeks will be hot.)
Place the leeks on a serving platter and drizzle with the dressing. Coarsely grate a generous amount of cream cheese over the top to look like snow and serve.
TIP: If you like finer, light snow, grate as soon as the cream cheese comes out of the freezer. For longer, creamier strands, leave the frozen block at room temperature for 2 minutes, then coarsely grate. You won’t use the whole block, but keep it in the freezer for next time (and there will be a next time!).