Recipe: Warm your cockles with a butterbean and roasted veg cobbler

I have been slightly surprised this summer to see so many floaty floral long dresses being worn. This trend continued in the autumn with platform shoes making an appearance and has cumulated now with the arrival of flared bell bottomed trousers – all very 1970s!

So I got to thinking about the food of the seventies and how things have changed. Any sort of spice other than those used for cakes and puddings (and of course Vencat curry powder!) were virtually unheard of and involved a trip half way across London to get even something as simple as turmeric. 

It was a time when the first vegetarian and wholefood cafes started to appear, although these largely relied on wholegrain rice and cheese sauces for their offer and the dishes were very filling.

It was from that time that the vegetable ‘cobbler’ dates from – so named, I believe, as the topping had the appearance of street cobbles. This is a hearty dish for a cold winter night and served with a slice of Artic roll for pudding would transport you back to the age of flares!

These days though, we are more worried about the cost of heating an oven and if I’ve got mine on for some roast potatoes, I like to make sure all the shelves are full.

This is an excellent chance to roast all sorts of veggies – leeks, carrots, parsnips, celeriac, sweet potato, squash etc and then, portioned and frozen as a mix, they are always available for a quick soup or to use in a recipe such as this.

Ingredients

Serves four

350g roasted veg cut into 2cm chunks (see above)

One tablespoon olive oil

150g onion finely sliced

Two garlic cloves, diced

One bay leaf

200g zero per cent fat crème fraiche

100ml milk

Two teaspoons cornflour

Two tablespoons made Dijon mustard

Salt and pepper

One 325g jar of large butter beans, drained

One tablespoon chopped herbs

500g potatoes, cut into small pieces

100g self-raising flour

Three tablespoons olive oil

One tablespoon chopped herbs

Preparation

Peel the potatoes and cut them into chunks, there should be about 400g.

Bring them to the boil in a pan of water and simmer them until soft, 12 to 15 minutes depending on the variety. Drain and mash them with a fork or put them through a ricer if you have one. Set aside to cool.

Sauté the onion in the olive oil until beginning to turn transparent and then add the garlic and bay leaf. Stir for a few minutes and add half the milk then turn the heat to low to allow the onions to cook through for about 10 minutes. Turn off the heat.

Add the cornflour to the rest of the milk. Add the crème fraiche, the milk mixture, the mustard and the chopped herbs to the onions and stir to mix.

Season with salt and pepper and add the roasted veg and the beans. Turn into a greased oven proof casserole.

Set the oven to 200°C to heat whilst you make the scone topping.

Rub three tablespoons of olive oil into the flour with your fingers or in a mini processor. Add the finely chopped herbs and mix well. Stir into the mashed potatoes and mix until it comes together.

You can soon spot any areas where the flour is not distributed evenly due to the greenish tinge of the herbs.

Turn out onto a floured board and pat out to about a centimetre thick. Stamp out about eight rounds with a 7cm biscuit cutter and lay them on top of the veg/bean mix overlapping them slightly. I had a tiny bit of the dough left, so I placed it in the middle. Brush the tops with a little milk.

Bake in the oven for around 25 to 30 minutes until golden.