Hola! Homing in on some Spanish vegan recipes

Traditional Spanish food is heavily influenced by the flavours of the Levant that I described last week, due to the influence of the old trading routes around the Mediterranean. It’s another of our favourite world vegan cuisines, not least since Mr VV completed the Camino de Santiago a few years back and developed a taste for tapas.

Spanish food is great for veganising, especially if you can get hold of some vegan chorizo. I’ve even bought this in France recently, at one the BioCoops. It makes a great addition to a paella. In fact, paella is one of my go-to recipes for using up any odds and ends in the fridge, or at a pinch you can knock up a tasty paella from the freezer using frozen peppers and a cup of frozen peas. It’s best to track down the correct paella rice (Leclerc sells it, as does Aldi from time to time); it makes all the difference to getting that crispy, crunchy bottom. And don’t stir it. It’s a dish you can set going on the hob and then relax with a glass of red while you wait for it to cook.

Amongst the other recipes in my current Spanish culinary repertoire there’s Catalan Bean Stew (great for using up stale bread); Spanish tortilla, the potato omelette type, which you can make with chickpea flour; ratatouille (sometimes called pistou), and chickpea, potato and spinach stew. It was time to add a new recipe to the World Vegan scrapbook, but hunting through some online suggestions it looked like I’d covered most bases. And we certainly don’t like cold soup (Gazpacho). Hmmm … maybe time to start looking for a cake recipe.

Spanish almond cake is called “Tarta de Santiago”. It’s the official cake of the Camino and St James of Galicia. So, in rather a belated celebration of Mr VV’s Camino success, I decided to have a go at baking one, and see if came up to scratch. Apparently, he did get to eat quite a lot of Tarta Santiago on his route. There were a few vegan versions but they were all a bit fiddly. One used aquafaba as its main raising agent. I don’t often use aquafaba in cakes, apart from cinnamon buns, and this called for chilling, whipping up and then folding into a dry mix. A bit too complicated, and success with whipping aquafaba can, in my experience, be a bit hit-and-miss. Then, I thought, what if I just adapt the frangipane part of the Vegan Bakewell Tart recipe? Would that work? Yes, and according to my chief taste-tester it tastes just like the cakes on the Camino, though I bet if you’re walking twenty-five kilometres a day you’ll eat anything!

Spanish Almond Cake

150g vegetable oil (grams - weigh in bowl)

150g white sugar

150g ground almonds

100g T55 flour

1 sachet levure chimique

100ml soy milk

2 tsp lemon juice

Zest of one lemon

1 tbsp icing sugar

Start by making a vegan ‘buttermilk’ by adding the lemon juice to the soy milk, in a jug, and setting it aside to curdle for five minutes or so. Then, weigh oil into a large bowl. This does seem to be a bit weird, but it works. Next, add the sugar, ground almonds, flour, levure chimique and lemon zest, mixing well each time. Add the soy milk mix which should have gone lumpy, and mix well to a thick batter. Pour into a silicone 8” round cake mould or a greased/lined cake tin. Bake at 180c for about 30 to 35 minutes. Check it is cooked through with a metal skewer; if the skewer comes out clean it’s ready, if not leave for another five minutes and check again. Cool in the tin, then turn onto baking rack. When cold, sprinkle top with icing sugar. Note: you can download a Pinterest motif for the top to print and cut out, if you want a true traditional Camino look.