(A):Alright welcome to Make It Dairy Free. I am Andrew. (L) and I am Larisha (A): and today we are making a super
festive awesome centerpiece for your holidays (L):so we want to start this video off by thanking
American Express Essentials for sponsoring this video as part of their Tastemakers series
we will link more about that in the description box below so make sure you check that out and
thank you to them for that (A): we normally have never tried to recreate a centerpiece for the holidays
in terms of being vegan um so i think we're more of like side people right (L): yeah and i mean i think
for us that's because like typically we're going somewhere (A): yeah (L): and so like making everything and then
figuring out how to transport it there it's just such a hassle plus sides are life anyway
(A): and dessert (L): and dessert but i guess this year we're feeling a little bit adventurous and
that's probably because we are staying home this year for the holidays and we know many of you are
also so what we wanted to do was create an easy yet flavor-packed Wellington idea and um it's
really good whether you're vegan or vegetarian or plant-based or you're cooking for someone
who is if you're in like a little pod or something like it's it's great for a lot of people (A): yeah
Wellingtons are usually this crazy expensive cut of meat um basically wrapped in a puff pastry um
i've never tasted one myself but uh ultimately we kind of used our minds to envision what this would
taste like so we came up with something that would be pretty much just a ton of plant-based items
stuffed to make a loaf and then we wrap that in pastry as well (L): yeah and it's pretty simple to do
we don't want people to get discouraged thinking it's like some hard process or anything like that
it's it's really simple and we think that you'll enjoy it (A): yeah so it does look pretty uh impressive
we're going to show you the steps right here and uh what do you think just hop into it (L): yeah
let's get to it (A): cool
(L): all right so the first thing that we are going to do here is cook our lentils
we are doing that by bringing lentils to a boil with mushroom broth and we're using mushroom broth
to give some of that flavor that a traditional wellington would have without without adding like
the texture of actually adding mushrooms which a lot of vegan wellingtons add into their recipes
(A): yeah (L): um but if you don't like mushroom broth then you can still just use a very high quality
vegetable stock (A): yeah so mushrooms didn't land in ours honestly that could be my fault um well
our kids also aren't very big fans of mushrooms (L): blame it on the kids (A): yeah whatever but personally i was just gonna say like
i didn't mind the mushroom broth in there (L): right (A): honestly i can't i think it actually probably added just
a little bit more to it than our normally just veggie stock would (L): right (A): um but uh the other thing
is the lentils right it really doesn't matter what lentil you use um either one of them we
found works out best (L): uh yeah like typically you can find like brown or red lentils and
it doesn't we're using brown ones in this recipe but it doesn't really matter which ones you use
red ones do break down a little bit more but when we're talking about a wellington like it really
doesn't matter that they're breaking down you're not looking for it to have like its whole shape
inside of this dish so it's okay whatever you can find you can use either one the next thing that we
are going to do is we are going to combine some ground flax seed with some water and you're just
going to mix that together and set it aside until it's time to use it that is essentially making a
flax egg (A): flax egg (L): which is going to be our binder for this whole recipe to make it all just stick and
stay together (A): make it homogenous (L): right and so um after that after you have your flax egg together
you are going to chop up your vegetables so in this recipe we are going to be using some onions
we use sweet onions for our recipe and then we're going to do some celery some carrots and
some garlic and the point here is that you just really just want to make it as small as possible
(A): so there's there's really like three big reasons you want to chop everything small right so first
of all you want to make sure when you're biting into this thing um just imagine just a large piece
of something um that is really unidentifiable in your mouth that's probably just real weird
um so don't do that so chop it up um make sure it's nice and fine in there but don't overthink
it the other reasons are you want this thing to cook fully cook evenly so that's another reason
you want to chop everything roughly the same size and the last reason is when you're molding it
you want to make sure things aren't like poking out again you have celery you have some different
textures in there celery in comparison to like garlic um so you want to make sure everything
is just binded well small enough that the crevices don't just you know shoot out anywhere (L): right (A): what?
(L): crevices (laughing) (A): well, I couldn't find a good word there. (L): it's fine
so once you have everything chopped what we are going to start doing you're going to get
a skillet a large one (A): yeah (L): and we're going to add some vegan butter and melt it down and then we're
going to saute all of these vegetables we start with the carrots and celery since they take a
little bit longer to get softened again like we want these to be pretty soft here um and
then after a few minutes you're going to add your onions and all together this takes roughly like
8 to 10 minutes like you'll know like it you know it goes from soft to or it goes from hard to soft (A): yeah
(L): and what that looks like as it breaks down (A): for all of my oil-free people gluten-free people we are
always thinking about you so if you want to head on down to the description box head over to the
site we make sure we cover how you can get that done in this recipe as well (L): yeah we always just
want to be like really inclusive for everybody's needs as much as we possibly can so once you have
all of your vegetables sauteed what you're going to do next is we're going to add in that garlic
and we're also going to add in our seasonings and so we know it may look like a lot of seasonings
but it really just helps the dish come together and be as flavorful as possible and give you
something that you're really proud to showcase whether it's for your immediate family or you you
know you're cooking for a few friends or something like that (A): yeah (L): and so once you have all of that in
there and stir it around you are going to add in some spinach and you are just going to let that
cook for a minute or two until it starts to wilt down (A): another item we like to add in here if we
don't have spinach we go with kale personally kale packs a good punch in there so definitely think
about that whenever you're making this one (L): once we have all of that together then we are going
to add in some sauces that are really just going to bring this whole thing to the next level so
that's going to be some soy sauce tomato paste vegan worcestershire sauce maple syrup and some
liquid smoke and you're just going to give that all a stir together also if you are soy free then
you can sub the soy sauce with coconut aminos or tamari or a no soy soy sauce like whatever works
for your family you can use it (A): yeah ooh and um in terms of worcestershire sauce um we know that's a
bit hard to find sometimes you got to order it but we usually sub that with some steak sauce
so for the majority i think we found most of steak sauce are vegan um even a1 so you know if you want
some steak sauce in there or you want to pump up that flavor can't get worcestershire go with that
(L): yeah and so the reason why you know what we're looking at worcestershire is because usually it's
made with anchovies and so obviously we don't want to use that since we are vegan the annie's
brand is the one that is traditionally (A): yup (L): easier to find but some store brands i know we don't have
one here but i know a lot of people have talked about like kroger brand is um naturally vegan um
so just always check out your store brands and and see if you can't find the annie ones or
use the steak sauce substitution once you have all that combined you are just going to remove
it from the heat and set it aside and then into a large bowl you are going to add some rinsed
and drained cannellini beans and these are just a white bean so you can sub it out with any other
white beans that you may have whether it's great northern beans or butter beans we use that in a
lot of recipes so (A): all day (L): we have it a lot you can just sub that out and so you want to mash them down
um but you don't you still want to leave some texture there so you know don't puree it in any
type of way leave a little bit of texture but mash them down a good good bit and then once
you have that done you are going to add in your mixture that you had set aside your cooked lentils
your sunflower seeds your bread crumbs and then your flax egg and you're just gonna mix all of
that together (A): um i'm surprised you remembered all that to be honest with you we should have
something to read (L): a teleprompter (A): um yeah no so ultimately um you know we with the sunflower seeds we actually
you know grind some down um we put some in there in their hole but it was kind of crunchy
um i think for me that might have been a little odd for you i don't know if you liked that about
it but either way um you know it's your preference we'd like to give that right some texture into
the dish but what you can basically do is if you don't like it you can pretty much just grind them
all down completely which is probably something i would do in the future if this was just for me
but because we're sharing it with the family and we all have a different dynamic you know we kept
it kind of split (L): you can also use walnuts instead of the sunflower seeds we're just using sunflower
seeds to keep it nut free but if you don't have to worry about a nut allergy then you could
sub walnuts if that's what you have on hand from here you're really just shaping this into a log
if it is too wet then you can add a little bit more breadcrumbs or if it's too dry you can add
another splash of that mushroom broth or vegetable broth if that's what you're using but it should be
really easy just to mold it into a shape of a log (A): this wellington idea was something that was
100% just magic on her part um i had nothing really to do with this but somehow i got involved
or should i say dragged into this because someone doesn't like to shape bread (L): whatever
(A): I mean it's true yes (L): No it's not (A): it is um but um in in defense of her i should say typically we like to make
everything from scratch and when it comes to bread that's usually i guess you could say my department
um but we make everything from scratch because we honestly just like to know what's going into
our body right (L): yeah i think that since becoming vegan we've kind of just been more aware of like
the laundry list of ingredients that are in some products and we try to you know if if it's
something we think is easy we try to you know make it ourselves (A): yeah um so you know the other thing
i think about is that around the holidays it was probably just best to kind of go with something
easy um which was pretty much getting something that was pre-made just because you know why you
like to make it from scratch you just have so many things on your plate that you're making all
at the same time just having little outs little things that are easy here and there kind of
just you know makes it more simple to get through everything so i say all that to basically say the
puff pastry here we bought is store-bought right (L): yeah um we're using the pepperidge farm one um
which can be pretty much found in any store i mean it's target walmart grocery stores like
it's pretty much the standard one that you can find and it's accidentally vegan
(A): yeah yeah gotta love those accidentally vegan items all (L): right (A): um but so for the
wellington we wanted it to be eye-catching um you know something that when you put it in the
center of the table you know everybody's like whoa you know that kind of thing (L): whoa (mocking)
(A): but uh ultimately for us although it's only gonna be us for the holidays um you know the
why make it eye-catching i think honestly we just like to make each other happy (L): yeah (A): first things
first what i did is i floured the work surface with i even did the motion there you see that
so i floured my work surface just to make sure i can you know put the pastry down and when i roll
it out it doesn't stick to it i also put some flour on top of the pastry and then i wanted
to roll it thin so this way it wasn't too bulky on the loaf but also wanted to roll it thin because i
wanted it to wrap completely around the loaf all together after that we pretty much walked right
into moving the pastry onto a piece of parchment paper and then putting the loaf dead center of the
puff pastry (L)I I just remember there was a lot of moving on and off a baking sheet and stuff what
was that about (A): um so i don't i don't know i was really just trying to find a spot that i was like
comfortable just trying to like make my like cuts on it but you know once i was like once i was able
to find a spot that i was comfortable you know i basically just used a ruler and measured and cut
like one inch slits on the uh pastry (L): yeah i would definitely like recommend making sure you measure
it like that tip that you just gave because it was nice and uniform the strips when we were trying to
do it later (A): all right so i mean pretty much from there you know all you're doing at this point is
you're now brushing the loaf with some dijon mustard and then you're brushing also the
pastry the inside of it with some milk because you want it to adhere to each other you know
once you start putting it together (L): like a glue basically (A): yeah like 100% like a glue so at that
point you're pretty much just taking like each one of the slits you're folding them over top of each
other um so it actually came out really cool um you know doing that and then you're cutting
off like any excess pieces because you will have pieces sometimes that were just like overly long
because it's actually pretty stretchy but once you pull it over sometimes it'll be a little too long
and you want to cut those off so it still looks pretty decent (L): yeah and just a tip like you could
totally just like you know mold those together and then roll it back out and like make a shape just
like you would do with like a excess pie crust and some people make like little designs on the
top you can totally do the same type of concept like that (A): yup for sure and then lastly what you want
to do is once you kind of get everything together you have it shaped the way you like it um you're
just going to brush the top with a little bit of butter that's going to really help it crisp up
(L): yeah and the the cool thing about this is that it really like it it seems like a long process
with all of the ingredients and stuff but it doesn't really take that long to come together
and then it only really needs 30 minutes to bake and so it's you know you're not trying to thaw out
a vegan roast or anything like that like (A): true (L): it compared to some of those things like it came
together pretty quickly (A): yeah (L): um and then again we just we brushed a little bit more butter
on vegan butter on top once it came out um just to give like the nice golden sheen (A): yeah
(L): um and it was it was perfect like it was crispy but the the inside was still soft and you know it
sliced nice and it was just it was really good (A): no 100% i um you know one thing i really liked about
the the whole dish in general is that as you said it was pretty easy to do and then i also
think about when we were doing the roast some of them there was a lot of like taking out and
basting and things like that and this is pretty much just a one-stop shop (L): yeah it was really
nice all right so we would recommend serving this with things like mashed potatoes and gravy
um maybe some like you know glazed carrots on the side or some type of like asparagus or broccoli
or something just like some more vegetables (A): for sure (L): um but you could always you know get crazy
and make like macaroni and cheese or whatever you want on the side of it um we do want to point out
that while traditional beef wellington is very meaty obviously this was definitely more along
the lines of like an actual plant-based dish where you know the vegetables and the herbs and stuff
are really coming out and then and the texture is also softer (A): yeah (L): um and it doesn't have like that
chewy meaty texture that say like a seitan would and maybe we'll make one of those in the future
but that just isn't what we were going for in this particular one when we're doing like our
first like centerpiece type of thing that we've showed you guys (A): I think what's really cool though
is that you know you did have some balance with the crust being pretty crispy um again although
the seeds weren't like the sunflower seeds weren't my favorite in it um i think that also
added another texture layer to it um so i think it was just a really fun dish honestly to enjoy
(L): yeah and and i think like the flavor combinations like you know there was there's a lot of parts but
each part had a specific purpose in making sure that like it was as flavorful as possible and that
you know if you were trying to impress somebody with like a plant-based dish that you could do
that and it's still like look like a centerpiece type of thing (A): yeah um something that comes
to mind for me is that you know most of the wellingtons when we were doing some research
i noticed that was really weird (L): sorry it was like a little fuzzy thing from my sweater
(A): um most of the wellingtons that we um you know researched it looks like they
were served with some type of sauce um i believe we did ours with gravy (L): yeah (A): um
when we were going through like the testing and all and um our kids had ketchup just like
most kids like catch up on everything um but other things that i thought was really good on it
um was barbecue sauce and always um some some a1 steak sauce um it's one of my go-to's (L): yeah
and i think if you're trying to get really fancy i think like when we were just like researching like
how a traditional beef wellington was made like gordon ramsay does like a red wine reduction sauce
so if you want to get fancy you could do something like that too so either way like we thought like
it was a really good like first take on us trying to do like a holiday centerpiece type of dish
(A): for sure (L): yeah (A): really hope you guys get to you know try it out and if you do don't forget to tag us um
on instagram this way we can kind of show off your wellington as well all right so we hope you guys
will give this video a thumbs up comment down below with what you think of our first dinner
piece type of dish and um you know what what type of centerpiece you would like to see us make next
and uh we just hope you guys like this video and have a happy holiday season no matter
what holiday you celebrate (A): absolutely (L): all right guys we'll see you in the next one bye