There are plenty of rather boring vegetarian Christmas dinner recipes, but few that can rival the turkey, goose or duck for succulence and flavour. One that does work very well, and can at least partly be grown at home, is a parsnip loaf, but not the kind of boring, tasteless, chew marathon that earnest student-type vegans serve up to their friends. Instead, this loaf offers a melting texture, a surprising sweet/savoury flavour that give depth to each mouthful, and a generous amount of luxury to the tastebuds.

Ingredients

Around 500 grams parsnips – this recipe is a good way to use up long thin ones, or even ones that have forked. Peel, then half lengthways and put in water with a splash of lemon to keep them white.

3 chopped onions – we like to use some of our stored red onions for their colour, or you could use white ones or even half a dozen shallots if you have them to spare.

A small handful of sage leaves (pick from the allotment before frost and use fresh, or open freeze and store in a bag in the freezer)

200 grams cooked chestnuts – either the vacuum packed type, or buy cooked from a farmer’s market

100 grams chopped walnuts

100 grams breadcrumbs

½ tsp mace

1 beaten egg

A little melted butter

A small jar of really good cranberry sauce, or you can use a good onion relish if you make one over the summer. The flavour needs to be tangy but sweetish.

Method

Fry onions in olive oil until very soft and then tear up the sage and add it to the onions for a further minute. Turn out into a large bowl and add finely chopped chestnuts and walnuts, breadcrumbs, mace, beaten egg, and seasoning to taste before beating together.

Grease a 900g loaf tin, then line it with greaseproof paper that covers the bottom and the two short ends, also well greased.

Cook parsnips in boiling salted water for around 4 minutes and drain well, allow to cool enough to handle. You need to use the thinner end of the parsnips first and slice off sections that will lay across the bottom of your greased tin, widthways. Take them out again, coat them with a little melted butter and replace them on the greaseproof paper. Then spread around a third of the nut mix over them and pack it down tightly.

Now you put a nice thick layer of the cranberry sauce or relish over the nut mix, but allowing a small bare margin around the edges and top that again with the remaining nut mixture packing it well down so your loaf is nicely solid.

Cover with foil then bake for around an hour at 180 C or gas 4. It’s a forgiving dish, as long as the foil is tightly sealed, and will accept another half hour of cooking if you’re running late.

To serve, run a round-bladed knife around the edges then turn out, using the greaseproof to help you lift the loaf. Serve with extra redcurrant sauce or relish and roast vegetables. This is especially good with mushroom gravy.