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So I started off with a humble Swiss Chard strudel, made with the classic Italian combination of olives and capers with flaked almonds from here (Vegan Swiss Chard Strudel with Caper, Olive & Almond -). But I was looking at it thinking that really other than that measly 1tbsp of flakes almonds, they're is no protein in the dish at all.
So I started "playing" and the result combined capers and caperberries, locally grown olives and home grown Swiss chard (I didn't have an rainbow Chard sadly) and whilst I was searching for the flaked almonds I came across the dried apricots. So, had a thought and added barberries instead. Out of this came a lovely protein rich strudel packed with sweet/sour and salty flavours and lacking almonds I moved to macadamia nuts and added a little roasted crunch to the mix. Sprinkled with Urfa Biber and a simple tomato and basil sauce (homemade) it made for an excellent evening meal. If you don't have barberries, substitute any other sweet sour dried fruit such as cranberries or even sour cherries or just leave them out, (though they add a nice zing to the flavours). And if you don't have caperberries, don't worry just substitute with more capers.
Serves 6-8 making 2 logs
Ingredients
500g Swiss or Rainbow Chard
400g extra firm tofu, (frozen, defrosted & well drained/pressed)
375g Fillo pastry sheets (defrosted if frozen)
100g pitted Kalamata Olives
50g flaked almonds or macadamia nuts
50g capers, drained
50g caperberries, drained and chopped
8-10 cloves garlic, minced
½-1 tbsp Alleppo pepper flakes
½-1 tsp Urfa Biber (flakes)
50-75g barberries (or similar sour sweet fruit)
1 tsp ground black pepper
Extra virgin Olive Oil
Method
So I started "playing" and the result combined capers and caperberries, locally grown olives and home grown Swiss chard (I didn't have an rainbow Chard sadly) and whilst I was searching for the flaked almonds I came across the dried apricots. So, had a thought and added barberries instead. Out of this came a lovely protein rich strudel packed with sweet/sour and salty flavours and lacking almonds I moved to macadamia nuts and added a little roasted crunch to the mix. Sprinkled with Urfa Biber and a simple tomato and basil sauce (homemade) it made for an excellent evening meal. If you don't have barberries, substitute any other sweet sour dried fruit such as cranberries or even sour cherries or just leave them out, (though they add a nice zing to the flavours). And if you don't have caperberries, don't worry just substitute with more capers.
Serves 6-8 making 2 logs
Ingredients
500g Swiss or Rainbow Chard
400g extra firm tofu, (frozen, defrosted & well drained/pressed)
375g Fillo pastry sheets (defrosted if frozen)
100g pitted Kalamata Olives
50g flaked almonds or macadamia nuts
50g capers, drained
50g caperberries, drained and chopped
8-10 cloves garlic, minced
½-1 tbsp Alleppo pepper flakes
½-1 tsp Urfa Biber (flakes)
50-75g barberries (or similar sour sweet fruit)
1 tsp ground black pepper
Extra virgin Olive Oil
Method
- Wash the Chard, remove the leaves from the stems and separate keeping both. Finely slice the stems, coarsely chop the leaves (don't worry about how wet the leaves are, you'll need that later for cooking). Keep the two separate.
- Ensure your tofu is well drained and dried, then pulse into crumbles in the food processor. Move to a spare bowl.
- Briefly pulse the macadamia nuts in the food processor until mostly smaller pieces remain. You'll need to hand chop and large lumps. Now roast them in a hot dry frying pan for a minute or two, agitating all of the time. Set aside and stir occasionally, they'll still be roasting in the hot pan, so you may need to move them into a cooler bowl.
- In a large pan/skillet, heat 2 tbsp of olive oil and add the garlic and alleppo pepper flakes and cook for a couple of minutes, add the Swiss chard stalks and the (dry) crumbled tofu, mix well and cook on a medium-low heat for 5 minutes. Do not cover.
- Add the ground black pepper, the Swiss chard leaves plus any water they hold, and the barberries and cook without a lid with another 10-15 minutes until the chard is well wilted. Add the capers, the caperberries and the roasted, chopped macadamia nuts and mix well. It is essential that this mix remains as dry as possible, so once cooked leave on the warm ring without a lid to cool.
- Preheat your oven to 200°C/400F/180°C fan assist. If you have the ability to cook from a bottom heating element initially, go with this option.
- Prepare a baking tray a minimum of 30cm wide. Line it with greaseproof paper.
- Now, unroll the Fillo pastry, and work quickly. You need to oil between each sheet of pastry. I used 8 sheets per roll making 2 rolls. So put your first sheet down on some parchment paper, pour a little oil around the edges and the middle of the sheet, spread with a brush and repeat. Don't worry about the entire sheet getting covered, just ask for a different location to the previous sheet as a minimum. Make 8 layers and repeat. (if you've got 20 sheets in your packet, go with 10 sheets per roll. It won't affect it having too many sheets, but too few will affect it.)
- Now divide the chard & tofu mixture evenly between the two fillo sheet layers and press down. Keep about 3cm all around the edges free of filling. Fold the sides inwards first and then roll from the top, towards you using the parchment paper for support and roll the strudel onto the bottom 3cm of fillo without the filling. That's the base. Move the log in the parchment paper onto the baking tray parchment paper and repeat for the second log. Place that one to the side of the first. Keep one piece of parchment paper handy to cover the logs later on in cooking if needed. Oil the top of the logs if you want that really flaky crunchy strudel pastry.
- Place into the oven with the bottom heating element on for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, turn the oven over to "normal" mode which for me is fan assist and cook for another 20 minutes. I needed to cover the pastry for the last 10 minutes to prevent it getting too dark.
- When cooked, remove from the oven and stand for 5 minutes before cutting and serving.
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