Mushroom, tofu pie with cauliflower and potato top

When I served this one up my eldest daughter asked me where I got the recipe.

“I made it up”, I said.

“Wow. Really!?? YOU made it up?”

Well, firstly, thanks for the vote of confidence and secondly, it isn’t that hard. yiu just need a little confidence and give some though to what flavours you already know go together…or might. Experiment!

To be open about this, I have made something similar tothis pie before but did it with jacket potatoes on the top and some spinach in the pie. Here I’ve used mashed potato and mashed cauliflower in the topping and removed the leeks and spinach because I wanted to keep it largely one colour, just for the aesthetic and the fun of trying to do it. That’s why I didn’t brown the tofu off nor allow the onions to take any colour on with high-heat cooking.

The cauliflower was a natural option for adding to the potato topping to keep it mainly white.

Another big change is that I made this based on a roux (flour and milk sauce base) though I used soya milk instead of dairy.

Serves: 6

Ingredients

50g non-dairy margarine
50g plain flour
1 pint soya milk
120g onion (2 medium)
1 tsp dried tarragon
1 clove of garlic
280g firm tofu cut into 2cm cubes
900g potato after peeling
360g cauliflower (1 head)
350g mushrooms, cut into quarters
0.5 tsp salt
1 tsp ground black pepper

Method

Finely cut the onions and chop then crush the garlic.
Melt the margarine in a large pan on a medium heat add the onions, garlic and tarragon then reduce the heat. Pop the lid on for 8 to 10 minutes until the onions are translucent.
Then add the flour and stir well with a wooden spoon until completely combined. Cook it for a couple of minutes, if you don’t do this the sauce will taste pasty and of raw flour. You may need to stir now and then to stop it sticking. That’s a roux!
Now add a little of the soya milk and mix vigorously with roux until the liquid is combined. Keep adding a little more soya milk and mixing until it is all well mixed and you’ll have a sauce that is roughly the consistency of double cream.
- You have to add the liquid a little at a time or you’ll end up with a lumpy sauce you can’t rescue.
Add the tofu and mushrooms to the pan, stir and then put the lid on. Cook on a very low heat for 30 minutes.
Pre-heat the oven to 200° C (180° C fan / gas mark 5).
Peel the potatoes. Roughly cut them into 4cm chunks , add to a pan and cover with water. Bring to the boil and cover the pan, leaving the lid slightly askew to let some steam out. After about 20 minutes of boiling they should be cooked, check with a fork, while they’re cooking you can get on with the rest of the recipe.
Break the cauliflower into bite size chunks and steam until soft, about 8 minutes.
Mash the cauliflower and potato together.
Put the tofu mixture in a casserole dish, top with the potato/cauliflower mash and bake until the potatoes have browned edges. About 20 mins.