Vegan recipes from Smith & Deli-cious: From carbonara to chilli

From the Australian cult deli is their second book, Vegan Eat, which epitomises their ethos: it's just good food, that happens to be vegan

Although recipes use words like butter, milk and parmesan, don't let it fool you, these refer to their vegan substitutes (Photography by Benn Wood, Bonnie Savage and Nicole Goodwin )

Chilli

Good lord, do we love chilli. It’s the borderline meal-soup-stew dish with all the necessary elements: heat, beans and Mexican flavours. And it’s bloody filling. This version is our favourite. Could it be the chocolate? Could it be the coffee? Who knows.

This chilli is also a great pie filling (just add the cheese before topping with pastry). Use it as a topping for nachos, as a filling for burritos or quesadillas, over rice, over quinoa, or with corn chips and queso. Or just straight up with ALL THE TOPPINGS.

Serves 4-6

80 ml (2½ fl oz/¹/³ cup) extra-virgin olive oil
1 large brown onion, diced
1 red capsicum (bell pepper), diced
1 celery stalk, diced
½ jalapeño chilli, diced (seeds removed for a milder chilli)
1 poblano pepper, diced (optional)
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 teaspoons ground coriander
1½ teaspoons cumin seeds
2 teaspoons smoked paprika
pinch of ground cloves (optional)
2 chipotles in adobo sauce
200 g (7 oz/2 cups) soaked TVP (Textured Vegetable Protein) or veggie mince
400 g (14 oz) fresh or tinned diced tomatoes
500 ml (17 fl oz/2 cups) vegetable or beef stock
1 cinnamon stick
1 tablespoon soy sauce
80 ml (2½ fl oz/¹/³ cup) freshly brewed black coffee (hot or cold will do; even cold-brew or instant coffee will work)
240 g (8½ oz/2 cups) tinned or cooked dried kidney or black beans
2 tablespoons dark chocolate chips
200 g (7 oz/1 cup) fresh or frozen corn kernels
handful of coriander (cilantro), stalks and leaves separated, chopped
salt and pepper
hot sauce, to serve (optional)
1 teaspoon chilli powder (optional)

Our favourite toppings for chilli

Use all, use a few, use none; this chilli is your chilli to do what you want with!

diced red onion
cheese
sour cream
diced avo, or guac​
chives
coriander (cilantro)

Heat the oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat and fry the onion, capsicum, celery, jalapeño, poblano and garlic until soft, then add the spices and chipotle.

Add the TVP and stir to coat, then stir in the tomatoes, stock, cinnamon stick, soy sauce and coffee. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally so it doesn’t stick. If it begins to dry out, add a splash more stock. If you prefer a thicker chilli, don’t add extra stock.

The texture will also depend on how much liquid the TVP absorbs, so keep an eye on it. After 20 minutes, add your beans, choc chips, corn and chopped coriander stalks, and continue cooking for the remaining 10 minutes. Check the seasoning and finish with chopped coriander leaves and, if using, hot sauce and chilli powder.

Note: This recipe already packs a bit of heat, but if you want it super spicy, add the hot sauce, chilli powder and more chipotles. If you prefer it milder, halve the spicy ingredients.

(Benn Wood, Bonnie Savage, Nicole Goodwin)

Carbonara

This is the definition of giving people what they want: a heavy, rich cream sauce with bacon. People asked, here it is and oh is it ever delicious. The best way to serve this is to cook the pasta first, then add it to the sauce. To clarify, you’re making just enough sauce to coat the pasta you’re cooking. Store the rest in the fridge or freezer for a lazy night in front of the TV that calls for a big bowl of creamy pasta. Think ahead, people.

Serves 4-6

olive oil, for frying
75 g (2¾ oz/½ cup) bacon, diced cooked spaghetti, to serve
handful of flat-leaf (Italian) parsley, chopped, to garnish
25 g (1 oz/¼ cup) parmesan, to garnish (optional)

Carbonara sauce

450 g (1 lb/2 cups) red-skinned potato, diced
½ brown onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, peeled
500 ml (17 fl oz/2 cups) water
125 g (4½ oz/½ cup) butter
70 g (2½ oz/½ cup) cashews, washed and soaked overnight (see Note)

½ tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon black salt (or regular salt)
pinch of ground turmeric
1 teaspoon dijon mustard
250 ml (8½ fl oz/1 cup) unsweetened soy milk
1½ tablespoons nutritional yeast

To make the carbonara sauce, combine the potato, onion and garlic in a large saucepan and pour in enough of the water to cover the veg. Add a big pinch of salt and bring to the boil. Cook until the vegetables are very soft, super mushy and practically overcooked.

Add the remaining sauce ingredients (including any remaining water). Blend the sauce until completely smooth using a regular or hand-held blender. Set aside while you cook the bacon.

Heat a good splash of olive oil in a frying pan over a medium heat and cook the bacon until almost crispy; there’s nothing worse than overcooked vegan bacon.

Pour the blended sauce back into a clean saucepan and warm through over a low heat for about 5 minutes to bring all the flavours together. Add the cooked bacon and stir to combine.

Set aside some of the sauce to store for later, then add cooked spaghetti to the remaining sauce – never put the sauce over the spaghetti. Chuck in a handful of parsley and sprinkle with parmesan, if using, to serve.

Note: You can avoid soaking your cashews overnight if you work with broken cashew pieces instead of whole cashews. Just rinse them well and blend.

(Benn Wood, Bonnie Savage, Nicole Goodwin)

Spaghetti squash and sausage

For Australians, spaghetti squash is one of those weird veggies that seemingly came out of nowhere. One day it was nowhere to be seen, the next, everyone was making spaghetti out of squash. But really, let’s say one thing up front: we’re not pretending it’s like real spaghetti.

If you feel like pasta, make pasta. If you’re low-carb and want something yum, make this, but don’t be fooled by the word spaghetti. This is ultimate cold-night food and surprisingly filling to boot. The combo of pesto, creamy wine sauce and sausage is perfection, but it’s the strings of spaghetti squash that bring it all together.

When you stuff the entire dish back inside the squash shell, cover it in cheese, bake it and eat all of it, it's even more perfect.

Serves 2 as a main or 4–6 as a side dish

1 (smallish) spaghetti squash
60 ml (2 fl oz/¼ cup) extra-virgin olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
½ fennel bulb, diced
1 brown onion, diced
2 vegan sausages of your choice: we prefer crumbled, but feel free to slice it into rounds
2 garlic cloves, minced
½ teaspoon chilli flakes
125 ml (4 fl oz/½ cup) white wine
125 ml (4 fl oz/½ cup) vegetable or chicken stock
2 tablespoons vegan cream cheese
50 g (1¾ oz/½ cup) vegan parmesan, plus extra to garnish
2 tablespoons Pesto
60 g (2 oz/1 cup) broccoli or broccolini (tenderstem), cut into florets and blanched
Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F). Cut the squash in half using a large, super-sharp knife and remove all the seeds. Drizzle with olive oil and season well with salt and pepper.

Transfer to a baking tray and roast, cut side up, for about 40 minutes until slightly golden and soft. Remove from the oven and leave to cool. Keep the oven on. Heat the oil in a shallow casserole dish over a medium heat, then add the fennel, onion and a big pinch of salt and cook for about 5 minutes until softened.

Add the sausage, garlic and chilli flakes and cook for about 1 minute, then deglaze the pan with the wine and simmer until reduced by half. Stir in the stock, cream cheese, parmesan and pesto and cook over a low heat until the cream cheese has melted. Remove from the heat and set aside.

Run a spoon along the inside of the cooled squash halves and remove the flesh. You will see the way the squash runs with the grain. Use a fork to separate the strands. (You can reserve the shells for serving, or just use a heatproof dish.) Return the squash strands to the pan with the sauce, add the broccoli and gently stir to coat, then place the pan back over a low heat for a few minutes.

Transfer the squash mixture to the squash shells or a heatproof dish and sprinkle some extra parmesan on top. Bake for 10 minutes, or until you've achieved a golden crust.

Note: You can use this sauce with or without the spaghetti squash, or use regular spaghetti instead. It also makes a killer pizza topping or scroll filling.

Substitutions

Heads up, this is a VEGAN cookbook. When we use words like milk, butter and meat, we’re referring to substitutes. Not all milks, butters and meats come from animals, and the ones we use only come from plants. Here are a few of our favourites:

Butter: Nuttelex, but any dairy-free margarine can work.

Cheese: Green Vie makes tasty vegan cheese (in different varieties) that is readily available in mainstream grocery stores. You can also search out a coconutbased cheese. However, any vegan cheese should do the trick for the recipes that call for it. By now you will have found your favourite, so just use whichever one you like the most. That said, choose the cheese that makes the most sense for the recipe you’re making. If you want a true cheesy flavour, opt for something stronger than mild mozzarella.

Parmesan: Track down Green Vie parmesan and your life will be changed forever. In Shannon’s opinion (at the release of this book), it has the cheesiest flavour – with that natural umami taste – of all the vegan cheeses.

'Smith & DELI-cious' by Shannon Martinez and Mo Wyse (Hardie Grant, £20). Photography © Benn Wood, Bonnie Savage and Nicole Goodwin