This recipe is a gift to you from my book ‘Mouthwatering Vegan’ (published by Random House 2013), available from Amazon US or Amazon UK along with most other major online & retail booksellers.
My yearning for Greek food comes to me from time to time – maybe it’s my genes reminding me that embedded in the Med somewhere, I sprouted into life, and it’s thanks to my parental lineage (my father a Greek Cypriot, and a very good cook indeed) that I am here at all. So, filled with benevolence for Greek food, I present to you my version of Tava (which is a traditional Greek Cypriot lamb dish, named after the dish it is cooked in). It’s vegan and it’s most delightful, succulent, and bursting with Greek flavours. Please do NOT be put off the amount of ingredients – it’s very easy to prepare, and not at all time consuming, as it all kind of happens in the oven. A very rewarding dish indeed. Yasou & Bon Appétit !
INGREDIENTS
8 small vegan burgers of your choice (or other similar faux meat)
around 4 lb (2 kg) potatoes, peeled and chopped into approx 2 inch pieces
2 large red onions, roughly chopped
6 large cloves garlic, each cut into 4 pieces
6 tomatoes, cut into medium thick slices
1½ Tbsp vegan butter
2/3 cup (150 mL) olive oil
juice of 1 lemon, squeezed
1½ tsp Dijon mustard
1 cinnamon stick, cut in pieces
1 Tbsp (15 mL) agave syrup
1½ tsp vegetable granules, mixed with 1 cup (250 mL) hot water
crushed black peppercorns
2½ tsp cumin seeds
4-5 Tbsp flat leaf parsley, well chopped
2 tsp dried rosemary
salt to taste
METHOD
- First preheat your oven to 350ºF (180ºC), and prepare a suitable ovenproof dish (I used a dish about 12 by 8 inches and 2.5 inches deep).
- Place your vegan burgers (or other faux meat) in the base of the dish. Then place a layer of your chopped onions, spread a few tomatoes on top, and distribute half of your potatoes randomly on top of the tomatoes.
- Next, add in the rest of the vegetables, including the garlic. Now spoon into a bowl the mustard, the agave, and the rest of the ingredients, except for the herbs, salt and pepper. Mix all the liquid, lemon juice, stock, agave, and mustard together, and stir well. Then pour over the vegetables in the dish.
- Finally, add your herbs, salt and pepper, placing them like a garnish on the top, and spread your cinnamon pieces over the herbs.
- Now cover with foil, and allow to cook for an hour and a half or so in the oven.
- After about an hour, check if the potatoes are soft, by sticking a sharp knife in them. If they are, then you can remove the foil. At this point, take the opportunity to spoon the juices from the bottom of the dish over the top of the veggies. Feel free to add a little more water if it’s looking too dry.
- When the potatoes are a nice golden colour and crispy, your dish is ready – this may take another hour.
- Serve immediately with a crunchy green salad, and fresh Mediterranean bread – the bread is wonderful dipped into the juices.
All recipes and content © Miriam Sorrell www.mouthwateringvegan.com 2010
This is my absolute favourite vegan dish EVER!
Hi there Marie, so glad you like this dish. I also created another type of tava in my new ebook The Spice Maniac ! Check out our new site http://www.thespicemaniac.com for other recipes there too ! 🙂
New to vegan recipes. What are “vegetable granules?”
Hi Samantha – any type of vegetable stock – you may even wish to use miso paste (buy from Asian food stores or health food stores) – if so, use 1 heaped tablespoon of miso mixed in the hot liquid so that it would melt. Hope you make and enjoy this !
OMG this is so delicious. Very easy to make. I used veggie mince as the base instead of burgers and my partner who was very skeptical of the smells coming from the oven absolutely loved it.
I will try some more of your recipes, well done Miriam!
Hi Steven, so glad you made and enjoyed this and hope you enjoy many more from my blog (and/or books) ! Glad your partner enjoyed it too ! 🙂
Absolutely yum yum yum. Thank you SO much for this fantastic recipe. The flavours in this dish are so lovely (used Eatwell Kale Vege Burgers here in Aus) – beyond tasty and amazingly quick and easy to prepare. One of best vegan recipes I’ve ever tasted.
What I love about your recipes is the simplicity of ingredients so I don’t have a long shopping list and have most ingredients in the pantry.
Going online to buy your recipe book now. ??Have tried heaps of different vegan recipes and many are very passé – feel like I’ve struck gold finding you Miriam. THANK YOU ????
Hi there Deb and thanks for dropping by here with your comment/s and your kind words, and for supporting my work. – The burgers you mentioned that you used sound delicious. I’m sure you will enjoy my book and it is full of pictures too ! Let me know when it reaches you and in the meantime, remember to subscribe to my channel to keep in touch with my weekly new recipes ! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsZDePKRz3k 🙂
Hi Miriam,
Your recipes are incredible, and this is the best of what I’ve made so far! Thank you so much for your beautiful cruelty free recipes! We’re a vegan family, and I’m going to make many more from your books.
Is it possible to make this in advance, and if so, how?
Also, I’ve only made it with sausages (I’m looking forward to trying yours when they arrive!).
In what way is it different with burgers? Do they disintegrate?
Thank you for your amazing creativity and for your generosity?
Hi Ilana – thanks for your kind words. To answer the questions. It is not possible to prepare this dish in advance, BUT you can prepare the ingredients in readiness to go into your oven in advance, so chop up your onions and cover and place in the fridge, same with your potatoes but they would need to be immersed in water in advance, covered and refrigerated in advance. Also your garlic covered. You would then need to assemble the dish the next day.
Now comes the vegan sausage or vegan burger. With my mix, you follow the easy instructions and then gently fry or saute until properly cooked first – once that is done, you can add it to your TAVA dish the last few minutes before you serve it so that the flavours from the sausage do not yield themselves to the juices from the Tava, but that’s easy enough – just lift the potatoes and onions once ready, pop them in there and cook for a further 10 minutes and then serve. I’m sure you get the gist. My sausages can be shaped into burgers or steaklets, the choice is yours. I would also advise you to add some finely chopped onion to my sausage mix and swap one of the tablespoons of water with one of olive oil – you’ll see what I mean once you have the recipe from the instructions in hand (very easy to make). Another incredible dish is my no Beef & Guinness Pie or my Roulade/Wellington. Hope you enjoy all these recipes at some point, and I look forward to your future comments on my blog ! Cheers !
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