Vegan Braised Turnip Galette

If you loved our “Destination Veg” piece in the September+October issue, but won’t quite be fitting a trip to Ireland in this month, take heart. From Cork’s Café Paradiso, these galettes are a savory, delicious way to bid summer a fond adieu and bring the first hint of fall into your kitchen—no airfare required.

Serves 4

What You Need:

• 2 large turnips, peeled, trimmed, and slice into 1/4-inch rounds
• 4 tablespoons non-hydrogenated margarine
• 3-1/2 ounces white wine
• 3-1/2 ounces vegetable stock or water
• Salt and pepper
• 4 large Portobello mushrooms
• Olive oil
• 3-1/2 ounces pecans
• 3-1/2 ounces vegan cream cheese
• For the Red Wine Sauce:
• 14 ounces red wine
• 7 ounces tomato purée
• 1 small red onion, finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1/2 stick celery, chopped
• 1 sprig fresh thyme
• 2 whole cloves
• 4 tablespoons cold non-hydrogenated margarine, diced

What You Do:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Bring a large saucepan of water to boil over high heat, add turnips, return to a boil, and cook for 7 minutes. Drain turnips, then transfer them to one or two oven dishes.  
2. In a saucepan, heat margarine, white wine, and stock together until margarine melts, then pour mixture over turnips. Season with a little salt, cover loosely with foil, and place in the oven. Bake about 30 minutes until liquid is almost gone.
3. Turn oven up to 375 degrees. Place mushrooms on an oven tray, brush with olive oil, season with salt, and roast for about 10 to 12 minutes, until tender. Chop mushrooms coarsely and place in a food processor with pecans. Pulse carefully to get a coarse purée, then fold in vegan cream cheese by hand.
4. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees. In a saucepan over high heat, place wine, tomato purée, onion, garlic, celery, thyme, and cloves and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Transfer to a blender and purée, then pass purée through a sieve. Return sauce to the pan, bring  back to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer again until reduced by half. Season lightly with salt and pepper.
5. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, and place four slices of turnip on prepared sheet. Cover turnips with some of the mushroom-pecan mixture. Place another turnip slice on top and repeat until each galette has four turnip latyers and three mushroom layers. Press gently on each galette, brush the tops with a little melted margarine, and place in the oven to heat through for 7 to 10 minutes.  
6. Just before serving the galettes, over high heat, heat reduced red wine sauce and whisk in margarine. The sauce will thicken and become a little glossy. Place a galette on each plate, pour the sauce around them, and garnish with thyme.

Recipe excerpted from Wild Garlic, Gooseberries and Me by Denis Cotter (Harper Collins, 2007)