Mike and I are keen to eat more plant-based food and to get more adventurous with cooking vegetables. Having thoroughly enjoyed Graham and Cheryl’s food during my walking holiday in the Algarve hinterland a couple of years back, I had no hesitation in accepting their invitation to join one of their gourmet cooking holidays.
The theme of this Algarve cooking holiday was festive vegetarian dishes, based on the renowned Israeli-born British chef Yotam Ottolenghi‘s recipes, with a twist. Essentially, a flavourful style of food which is rooted in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean traditions, but which also draws in diverse influences and ingredients from around the world.
While there aren’t necessarily traditional vegetarian dishes for Thanksgiving, Christmas or Easter, Cheryl and Graham planned the menus around these themes, taking one special day at a time.
Although they are not trained chefs, the couple have years of experience of catering for their retreats and themed holidays. The concept at their luxury villa is less about show cooking and more about being hands on, with each of us preparing different dishes, either in pairs or individually, around a central kitchen island.
As a result, there was a sense of camaraderie in the sharing of equipment and curiosity over what the others are making. Graham and Cheryl were always on hand to provide the tools and ingredients as well as to double-check or demonstrate, and to subtly manage timings and oven temperatures.
As one of the other participants put it, “it’s like cooking a meal together with friends but with guidance”.
While some of the recipes are rather time-consuming and therefore unlikely to become a regular feature in our weekly meals, we learned (and ate!) a lot and had fun in the process, which is the whole point of such a holiday.
Making staples
We hadn’t expected to be rolling up our sleeves on the evening we arrived but although the main dinner dish was bubbling away in the slow cooker, we guests got the opportunity to ease into the cooking experience with some simple but useful recipes.
I learned how to make tahini from scratch – a surprisingly easy and handy thing to know, given how hard it can be to track down tahini in Portuguese supermarkets. My tahini was then used to make the salad dressing for our dinner.
Meanwhile, Mike and another participant made harissa paste, which is also tricky to find in Portugal. The advantage of making it at home is that you can adjust the spiciness to suit. It also freezes well, apparently.
The following morning was a group chopping session, where we all pitched in to chop an enormous amount of mushrooms, carrots and onion in order to make a mushroom traybake ragu that would be used in different dishes each day.
This also freezes well, so although it’s time-consuming to prepare, you can make a big batch that will last for weeks, if not months.
It wasn’t all cooking!
As a reward for our hard work chopping vegetables and making a Portuguese orange cake, Cheryl and Graham whisked us all off to a local winery.
This gave us an insight into the blossoming wine industry in the Algarve, and the opportunity to try a monovarietal red wine made from the negra mole grape, which is unique to the Algarve, as well as their white, rosé and other reds.
The Negra Mole, by the way, is distinctively light in colour and alcohol level, with fewer tannins and less body than typical full-bodied reds.
Vegetarian Thanksgiving spread
Our “Thanksgiving” dinner on the Saturday was a spicy mushroom lasagne, using the ragu we had prepared that morning, a puy lentil and aubergine stew, cauliflower shawarma, and roasted parsnips with sweet potatoes and caper vinaigrette which turned out quite well, even if I do say so myself!
Substitutions and adaptations
Ottolenghi recipes often use a lot of herbs and spices, some of which are hard, if not impossible, to get hold of in Portugal. What I found helpful was Graham’s understanding of which ingredients could easily be substituted with what’s available, and what could be omitted without spoiling the dish.
Once such substitution was their local carob honey, which is dark and rich and half the price of the honey I buy in my area, instead of maple syrup. I enjoyed its rich caramel flavour so much that I popped to the local supermarket to stock up before we came home.
Sadly, our Portuguese orange cake didn’t turn out as expected; it spent a little longer in the oven than it should have done and was therefore a bit dry. It’s gluten free, using almond and coarse yellow corn flour, which gives it a slightly crunchy texture in the mouth. When cooked optimally, it’s apparently really moist and delicious.
Christmas fare
In keeping with the festive theme, Sunday was another day with an abundance of flavours to celebrate Christmas in true veggie style. My job for brunch was to make the burnt courgette with garlic, oregano and lemon.
While the courgettes were blackening under the grill, I had time to get curious about the other dishes being prepared, including the rather more complex process of assembling the cauliflower cheese filo pie, which results in an impressive and tasty meal.
The stilton and quince quiche was another taste explosion that I particularly enjoyed. That, and sneaking bits of mint chocolate and bowl scrapings while Mike was making the pistachio fridge cake.
Given the very full tummy I had after lunch, I was glad to be able to walk some of it off on a trail along the river, and have time to read my book, before we started the dinner preparations.
For dinner, Cheryl went to the trouble of decorating the table with Christmassy things and we even pulled crackers.
The star of the “Christmas” dinner was the mushroom wellington, despite a mistake that led to two versions being created! Both were delicious and worked really well with the vegan gravy, roast potatoes, asparagus with almonds and capers and harissa carrots.
The vegetarian gravy looked as though it involved quite a lot of work but its cook assured me that it was quite manageable and that you could happily have it cooking away on the side while preparing other elements of the meal. I think I’d be inclined to make a vat of gravy in advance and freeze the extra.
Easter treats
For brunch on the final day of our Algarve cooking holiday, we were joined by four other cooks who live locally and came for a cooking workshop. We split into pairs and went to our prep stations to chop, mix and assemble our dishes for a celebratory Easter feast.
Once the sweet potato gratin that Mike and I were tasked with making was safely in the oven, I had a good old nosey at the other creations. These included: spinakato cigars, butter beans with roasted cherry tomatoes, shakshuka and a courgette frittata. My favourite was the butter beans.
After the day guests departed, Mike and I went for another walk, this time up the hill to a ruined chapel, which afforded wonderful views over the surrounding hills and countryside.
For our final celebratory meal, between us we made Graham’s famed moussaka, lemon potatoes, Greek salad and an upside down lemon cake.
The cake was my job and I’m not known for my baking skills so I was really pleased with the way it turned out. We used a bain marie to cook it in the oven and I suspect that this is why it was so moist.
With a honey and butter sauce drizzled over it, it reminded me of sticky toffee pudding, texture-wise at least. I would happily eat it again, although actually cooking it was quite time-consuming.
The verdict
At 4 nights, I felt this was a good amount of time to experience not only the cooking and great hospitality, but also have some down time to relax and enjoy the natural surroundings. The villa overlooks the Funcho River and has various walking trails to explore, as well as birdwatching opportunities.
We picked up lots of useful tips and tricks, and I discovered that baking cakes doesn’t have to be intimidating! I’m more comfortable with exploring different flavours – capers actually work well with vegetables – and I love the idea of batch cooking a mushroom ragu to use in different dishes.
If you’d like to know about upcoming vegetarian cooking holidays, or explore a tailor-made experience for your group, complete the enquiry form on this page to connect with Cheryl and Graham.
