This tasty red peper & tofu wellington is another great way to veganise a dish infamous for its inherent cruelty. This Wellington dish is so much more healthy and nutritious than the original it’s based on. The dish is also much more environmentally sound and less cruel than the original meat version! It’s easy and quick to make and will wow your guests at a dinner party as it is a superb “entree” dish.
The main thing is to get the right tofu, and tasty flavourful red peppers – Romano peppers are best. The standard bell pepper varieties aren’t so flavourful. The best tofu is either medium firm or firm from a local Chinese supermarket. It really could be either – but possibly firm is better – but it’s hard to say. Sliced and marinaded, tofu is full of flavor, and has a great texture.
The other unmentionable dish has several thick layers of a now banned substance. I believe that at least it’s banned from being produced in the UK due to the cruelty inherent in its production. In this recipe, it’s replaced with a much healthier and more environmentally sound and cruelty free version. Namely a nice thick tasty red pepper paste. This is smeared liberally on the layers of tofu which holds it all together while the pastry is wrapped around it. I like to put some grilled beefsteak or Turkish tomatoes on top just to compliment the peppers and tofu.
The whole thing relies in it’s appearance and appeal on some trusty puff pastry. I would prefer to use wholemeal, but sadly, Sainsbury’s who used to make and sell ready rolled wholemeal puff-pastry have unfortunately stopped stocking it. I keep hoping someone will start doing it again, but so far I haven’t been in luck.
Oven dishes like this red pepper & tofu wellington are great for dinner parties. This is because you can put them in the oven, and then concentrate on the rest of the preparations. So this is one of my favourite oven dishes partly for that reason.
Red Pepper Tofu Wellington
Equipment
- Large Baking tray
- Food processor
- Actifry or wok
Ingredients
- 600 g of tofu firm – a whole pack of Tofu King
- 4 whole red peppers 675g
- 1 whole large onion 275g
- 1 pack of puff pastry I use Sainsbury’s as it’s the largest sheet
- 2 good sized vine tomatoes or 1 beefsteak tomato optional
- 50 g red pesto
- 25 g tomato puree
- 25 g Garlic roughly half a bulb
- 1 tsp onion powder optional, helps keep it nice and thick.
- 1 tsp of vegetable stock powder
- 2 tsps of nutritional yeast flakes
- 1 tbsp Soy sauce
- 5 g chilli paste or to taste.
- 25 g cold pressed olive oil
Instructions
Marinating the tofu
- This is the best Tofu to use: from Chinese minimarkets or shops. It generally comes in a pack with 3 blocks in each pack which weighs 600g
- Drain the tofu and slice the tofu so you end up with 12 fairly thin slices – so that’s each block into 4 thinnish slices
- Add a marinade of ginger, soy sauce and balsamic vinegar. You can add paprika or smoked chilli, and oregano too. Best to do the night before or certainly a few hours in advance.
- Cover and leave to soak for a few hours or overnight.
Making the red pepper paste
- Cut the peppers, garlic and onion into medium size chunks and either cook in an Actifry for around 15-20 minutes – until nicely cooked – so that it's soft and well caramelized, or saute in a large pan - they want to be nicely caramelized, and to have lost quite a bit of their moisture content.
- Transfer to a Magimix or similar and add in the stock powder, pesto, yeast flakes and a little of the marinade. You want the paste to be nice and thick - definitely not too runny or wet.
- Then blitz until a smooth thick paste is created.
- Add a little more marinade/water if too thick but you certainly don't want it too runny it just wants to be spreadable. Transfer to a bowl.
assembling the Wellington
- I've found that Sainsbury's puff pastry is the largest and best for this dish.
- Unroll the puff-pastry shortly after removing from the fridge – don’t leave it out at room temperature too long, or it will go too floppy to work with.
- Lay it out on the greaseproof paper it comes in (well Sainsbury’s does) with the short sides to left and right of you and on a large enough baking sheet.
- Then put a layer of the red pepper paste (about as wide as the strips of tofu) on the bottom of the pastry in the middle and running from left to right. You want to use about 75g per layer.
- Then add a layer of tofu, this will probably be 3 ½ slices if laid lengthways along the paste. The other way the wellngton would just be too wide.
- Then a layer of the rep pepper paste,
- Then a 2nd layer of tofu,
- adding 3rd layer of red pepper paste
- adding the final layer of tofu & final layer of red pepper paste. You will have 4 layers of paste and 3 layers of tofu.
- Finally, make a layer of the sliced vine or beefsteak tomatoes. This is optional & make sure they are very thin or it will be difficult to close up.
- Carefully fold over one side of the pastry on top of the stack – keep it as tight to the stack as you can and use the greaseproof paper to manipulate the pastry into the right place.
- Then moisten the top of this flap with soya cream (or soya milk) and then fold the other flap over on top.
- With the mushroom wellington, you can roll/flip the whole thing over by lifting the shorter/nearest side of the greaseproof paper, so that the join is then underneath – but I don't think this method works with the more slippery red pepper paste. I reccommend using a number of cocktail sticks. Use the whole stick and push it right through to the bottom layer of pastry. This will stop the layers slidding off one another and also stops the pastry from opening during the baking.
- Bake for around 30 mins until golden brown on 200°C fan oven.
- as you serve it, you will see the layers of tofu & red pepper paste.
Notes
- If you don’t feel confident with the flipping, then several cocktail sticks or kebab skewers inserted in the top through both overlapping layers of pastry, will lessen the chances of it opening up during cooking.
- If it's starts to get too brown, protect the wellington with the greaseproof paper it is laid out on.
- The red pepper sauce makes enough for 2 complete wellingtons - you can freeze the other half for use another time.
