The Art of Creating a Mediterranean-Inspired Vegetarian Dinner: A Step-by-Step Guide

To begin our culinary journey, we start with a light and airy white chocolate mousse. To make this delightful dessert, we need to start by beating egg whites until they reach soft peaks. Next, we gently mix in a cold White chocolate and cream mixture, ensuring that the egg whites are well incorporated. The addition of egg whites helps to stabilize the mousse, giving it a smooth and fluffy texture. We then add some crushed raspberries and fresh mint leaves to give our mousse a pop of color and flavor.

To set the mousse, we refrigerate it for at least 2 hours to allow the flavors to meld together. Meanwhile, let's prepare our Mediterranean-inspired starter, Griddle Cretes with Mint Bretta. To start, we need to slice thick pieces of chipata bread and drizzle both sides with olive oil. We then season the bread with a little salt and pepper and griddle each side until toasted. Once cooked, we slice the bread diagonally into half-CM thick pieces and drizzle them with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.

Next, we sear the corett on a smoking hot griddle pan in batches until they're bar-marked on both sides. To make the minty Bretta, we combine roughly chopped mint leaves with creamy ricotta cheese. We spread our toasted chipata bread with dollops of minty otta and top it with seared corett. This simple yet delicious combination is a perfect start to our vegetarian dinner.

Moving on to our main course, Beetroot Risotto. To make this flavorful dish, we need to sauté sliced shalots in a pan until they're softened. We then add a sprinkle of salt and pepper along with a couple of crushed cloves of garlic. It's essential to have your stock gently boiling away while cooking the risotto, as cold stock can slow down the process.

We use El Boria rice, which is perfect for Risotto, and cook it in a wide flat pan until it's golden brown. To add flavor to our Risotto, we sear the rice by sweating off excess moisture, which helps create a creamy texture. We then add red wine followed by the first Ladle of stock, allowing the flavors to meld together.

As we continue cooking the Risotto, we need to keep stirring and adding Ladles of stock until it reaches our desired consistency. We're aiming for 20-25 minutes of cooking time to achieve a perfectly cooked Risotto. While the Risotto cooks, let's prepare our beetroot topping. We peel and rub beetroots with a little salt and sugar, followed by a sprinkle of aged Bals vinegar. Roasted beetroots are then grated over the Risotto.

To finish our dish, we add 2/3 of the beetroot to the Risotto, saving the remaining 1/3 for the top. We sprinkle parmesan cheese all over the top and dot it with butter, which gives the Risotto a rich and creamy gloss. Finally, we drizzle some extra virgin olive oil on top to add a touch of freshness.

To complete our Mediterranean-inspired vegetarian dinner, we'll be serving Griddle Cretes with Mint Bretta, Beetroot Risotto, and an indulgent White Chocolate and Lime Mousse with fresh crushed raspberries. Each dish is carefully crafted to showcase the flavors and textures of Mediterranean cuisine, ensuring that every bite is a delightful experience for your taste buds.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enquick fig Jam Christini with creamy barata and a hearty man of beef cheek Ragu with papadeli beef cheeks just think the size of your little cheeks yeah imagine the size of the cow with them and the cheek is right underneath here yeah m i want you to give them a really nice season with salt and pepper on there please so beef cheeks very cheap a cut that takes sort of a long time to cook yeah but give it a bit of love let it cook in the oven it comes out like a Dream a Little T of oil in the pan what we want to do is get them really nicely colored seared seared into the pan oh cool mhm layer wave see what that is um setting out the Dock of the beach ba ba beach and then I want the onion chunky CU going to cook it for like three three and 1 half hours so you go down down down and then again there and there so it doesn't overcook so a really good color on the cheeks like that so how do you cook these out of restaurants if they take so long they go in the oven literally halfast 6 7:00 in the morning 3 and 1 half 4 hours to be ready for lunch and the longer you leave them in their juices and the cooking liquor the better three nice clothes of garlic good onions in and garlic in please nice where's your Bailey there it is good get those onions and that garlic really nicely colored put the cheeks back in please right red wine in sure okay and the red wine is going to digay the pan so digay will basically sort of rinse all that flavor off the bottom of the pan yeah okay cuz that's going to make the most amazing sauce now you could use tomato puree but chopped canned tomatoes it'll make a much better sauce and to top that with some stock so the secret of brazing is having little of the meat exposed and nice 90% of it submerged see them now yeah they're like little crocodile heads popping up out the water turn the gas off and leave the lid just off at the end there if we had to cover it completely the steam hits the top of the lid and all that water comes running back it's solar still that's right in the oven 140 150 for about 3 and 1/2 to 4 hours good job Boom for pudding I'm making one of my absolute favorite Italian desserts banac cotta with that quintessentially Italian flavoring espresso start by immersing two leaves of gelatine in cold water and leave to soak into a small saucepan add Casta sugar cream milk sugar and a shot of good strong coffee gently bring to a simmer and remove from the hob squeeze out the soaked gelatin leaves and stir into the hot cream until completely dissolved pour your cream mixture into a jug and fill your molds just short of the rim rinsing your molds in cold water before filling will make it easier to get your panacotta out once it's set leave in the fridge for at least 2 to 3 hours or overnight to make your cinnamon Haz on brittle pour Casta sugar into a pan and cook over medium heat until the sugar melts to a deep golden brown scatter toasted hazelnuts into the caramel dust with ground cinnamon and leave to set at room temperature when your panacotta is firm giving each mold a quick dip into boiling water should ensure a perfect stress-free exit onto to the plate dressed With A Shard of crunchy hazelnut brittle nothing could be so deliciously elegant right Captain Jack quick run through panac cotas are nearly set beef cheeks are nearly cooked we're going to now do the Fig and BR Christini oh okay let's take the figs we're going to make a nice slightly spicy fig Jam take off the tops Y in half and each half into three sugar the touch of salt in there okay we're making a jam but we don't want it to be too sweet and then these little babies what are they what's the shape Stars stares stanes taken from the HED plant and when you dry them like that so intensifies the flavor really important to count how many we put in there okay yeah so 1 2 3 4 five so they're just there for flavor take them out that's right secret here is to get that caramel going so when I hear of jam I don't think of caramel no but this is a very fast Jam caramel starting to color I want you very carefully to drop the figs in there good so the juice out of the figs is starting to break down the caramel you know what that is oh sweet vinegar I love that on my salad got that sort of sweet and sour flavor leave that cooking for 3 4 minutes now let's slice our chipata in Italian crustini means little bits of toast but it could be made out of leftover baguette sourdough or any crusty open textured bread we're staying authentically Italian with chipata season them and then drizzle a little touch of olive oil on there both sides really important because we're going to grill the bread push it down it's a lovely taste lovely take it off with the chipata toasted we need to carefully extract the star and East pods from our piping hot fig Jam right jack we got one little bugger of five oh no go is it there yes it is right now we got the green light to crush so all the Skin's disintegrated in that caramel that looks so nice while Jack carefully spreads the Christini with our hot fig Jam I can unveil the last element to our starter the creamy Italian speciality Bata little money bags looking delicious this looks fun doesn't it we need to season them lightly drizzle over a little olive oil and dust them with lemon zest can you imagine that sat there and you tear some of that off and you stick it on top of that and back to the main course to match our hearty beef cheeks I've chosen to use papadeli rule number one when cooking pasta salt in first salt in first good olive oil in Pastor in twist it round so you don't break it ni bring that back up the bow that's going to take about three or 4 minutes flat leaf parsley scrunch it up for me yep and chop it now wait to see these beef cheeks Beauties look at them they soft they're very soft tiny I want you to taste M it's so good oh Jack you just dribbled on your jumper jok really right drain the pasta salt pepper pasta little drizzle of olive oil I want to put your fresh pasta nicely chopped nicely chopped in this is the magic bit okay you take a little ladle of the juice put that at the bottom and you put the pasta on top of that sauce oo honestly oh my gosh your sisters are going to love you even more now you know that what about when you cook this for your girlfriend one day uh just tell her where you got the recipe from will you promise promise I don't want you stealing Daddy's Thunder one beautiful jaw on there two beautiful Jaws on there m and then the third jaw and then you go over with the sauce how cool is that delicious you've got the barasa and I've got the cheeks let's go stop don't be cheeky get it my ultimate Italian dinner quick fig Jam Christini with creamy borata a main course of slow cooked beef cheek Ragu with papad Deli and for pudding espresso panacotta with cinnamon hazelnut brittle a stunning meal to bring the whole family together in the best Italian tradition first a hearty starter on Bretta with ricotta and succulent griddled cett for my main I'm serving fragrant roasted beetroot and time risoto but I'll be in trouble with the kids if I don't do a PUD so I'm enlisting the help of my youngest Tilly to rustle up an indulgent chocolate and lime mousse with crushed raspberries so if you unwrap the chocolate start breaking up in Little Bits we're going to make the most amazing white chocolate mousse our first job is to bring half of our cream up to the boil so what kind of cream is that in there dad that is double cream okay so that's going to make a really nice rich chocolate mousse what's your favorite sort of chocolate is it white milk dark um I love white and milk what's yours I absolutely love milk chocolate a that's my guilty pleasure is it really here we go cream in so that goes in there now you can see what's happening straight away can't you it's melting really quickly it's melting really quickly so okay oh excuse me at least your jumpers white so you won't spot it yeah and I've got a nice little snack for later in another Bowl add lime zest cold cream and whisk until it forms soft peaks the lime cuts the sort of rich richness of the cream and that starts to make the chocolate mousse taste a little bit lighter M it smells really good the lime gives it a really nice ziness ziness you're absolutely right next add to the melted chocolate mixture and because I'm whisking it's just getting lighter and lighter and lighter have a little taste M nice yeah the lime gives it a really nice taste Ty I need the rest for the mousse I need some for my tummy no come on chocolate mousse into the fridge our next job is to separate out three egg whites this is where I need you at your absolute best okay because to whip those whites is going to be really tough so we'll take it in turns 30 seconds each okay you go first 10 seconds gone come on silly 15 seconds gone 20 seconds gone come on you can do it 10 seconds to go 5 4 3 2 one and change excellent hold the ball right no no way Jus what come on it's over dad Matilda you can't do that to me 30 seconds this puny little thing and you come with this big little machine gun that's the best way of whipping up egg whites but why didn't I do it that way start tipping that sugar in slowly good go still not very happy you know so I contentious whipped egg whites will make our mousse light and hairy and when they've reached soft peaks we can gently mix in our cold White chocolate and cream mixture once the egg whites hit the cream yeah the chocolate sets the egg whites keep the cream nice and fluffy and you get this nice light mousse in the bowl now I need you to crush some raspberries please with some fresh mint see all the juice is coming out now take your mousse wow that looks really cool now look at that down the bottom there look crushed wpr delicious now we're going to set that in the fridge if you give me a c open the door please our yummy white chocolate mousse will take at least 2 hours to set so we can crack on with our Mediterranean inspired vegetarian starter griddle cette rotta and mint Bretta for this recipe you'll need a griddle pan an essential piece of kit for that Char gr look cut thick slices of chipata bread drizzle both sides with olive oil season with a little salt and pepper and griddle each side until toasted then slice a couple of corett diagonally into half a CM thick pieces drizzle and coat in olive oil and season with salt and pepper sear on a smoking hot griddle pan in batches until all the cetes are bar marked on both sides next roughly chopped mint leaves and combine with creamy ricotta cheese spread your toasty chipata with dollops of minty otta and top with your seared cette super simple and super tasty now we're going to make a delicious beetroot risoto want you to get the shalots just slice them in half and then just chop them like there okay okay now have you ever made a rotto no I haven't actually schots please into the pan for Daddy add a Sprinkle of salt and pepper along with a couple of crushed cloves of garlic once you start cooking the risotto it's really important to have your stock gently boiling away if we're adding cold stock on top of the rice all the time it just slows down the process generally you cook a nice wide flat pan if you cook in a deep pan all the rice sort of Cooks at different temperatures what stock is that in there dad cuz that's a vegetable stock yeah cuz you can't have different stocks if it's for a vegetarian can you you can't have chicken stock I made that mistake once putting beef stock in a vegetarian soup did you no I did Matilda are you sure I'm positive I'm joking fry off the time how nice does that smell it smells delicious rice in that's a bit of a different rice this is El boria rice it's a perfect rice for Roto now it's really important to sear the rice if we were just to put the stocking without sweating off the rice it goes all starchy so keep on stirring for Daddy it's just going to make a FL no FL on the risoto to go with our deep red beetroot theme I'm adding red wine followed by the first Ladle of stock to get things started now we're off wow it's giving it a cloudy sort of look what's happening to the stock the stock is reducing down and the rice is sucking it in that's right so the rice is actually getting nice and plump when a risotto is live when it's like this now we can't stop cooking it we have to cook it all the way okay ready for the next Ladle I'm ready good girl here we go Ladle in so we have to make this for literally 20 25 minutes and we're nursing it all the way beetroots peel them rub them a little bit of salt and sugar yeah and a little bit of age Bas vinegar in there roasted them and going grate my parmesan how's that Rice doing rice is doing good now that is exactly where we want to be now look look at that nice glossy textured rice so beetroots I want you to put 2/3 of the beetroot in there for me saving 1/3 for the top good sprinkle the parmesan in there for me please all over nice it's like it's snowing yeah and then we're just going to get some nice butter in there the butter gives the risotto a really nice gloss look at that beautiful let that come down let it come down first all right get you sp in there now for Daddy beautifully there you go good wonderful shake it R should be like the lava it just flows out and then the rest of the be on top and then we finish and some extra virgin olive oil on top there I'll pick up the Bretta you take that to the table okay let's go Dy this is my ultimate vegetarian dinner delicious corette Ricotta and top Bretta anxious roasted beetroot and thme risoto and for put an indulgent white chocolate and lime mousse with fresh crushed raspberriesquick fig Jam Christini with creamy barata and a hearty man of beef cheek Ragu with papadeli beef cheeks just think the size of your little cheeks yeah imagine the size of the cow with them and the cheek is right underneath here yeah m i want you to give them a really nice season with salt and pepper on there please so beef cheeks very cheap a cut that takes sort of a long time to cook yeah but give it a bit of love let it cook in the oven it comes out like a Dream a Little T of oil in the pan what we want to do is get them really nicely colored seared seared into the pan oh cool mhm layer wave see what that is um setting out the Dock of the beach ba ba beach and then I want the onion chunky CU going to cook it for like three three and 1 half hours so you go down down down and then again there and there so it doesn't overcook so a really good color on the cheeks like that so how do you cook these out of restaurants if they take so long they go in the oven literally halfast 6 7:00 in the morning 3 and 1 half 4 hours to be ready for lunch and the longer you leave them in their juices and the cooking liquor the better three nice clothes of garlic good onions in and garlic in please nice where's your Bailey there it is good get those onions and that garlic really nicely colored put the cheeks back in please right red wine in sure okay and the red wine is going to digay the pan so digay will basically sort of rinse all that flavor off the bottom of the pan yeah okay cuz that's going to make the most amazing sauce now you could use tomato puree but chopped canned tomatoes it'll make a much better sauce and to top that with some stock so the secret of brazing is having little of the meat exposed and nice 90% of it submerged see them now yeah they're like little crocodile heads popping up out the water turn the gas off and leave the lid just off at the end there if we had to cover it completely the steam hits the top of the lid and all that water comes running back it's solar still that's right in the oven 140 150 for about 3 and 1/2 to 4 hours good job Boom for pudding I'm making one of my absolute favorite Italian desserts banac cotta with that quintessentially Italian flavoring espresso start by immersing two leaves of gelatine in cold water and leave to soak into a small saucepan add Casta sugar cream milk sugar and a shot of good strong coffee gently bring to a simmer and remove from the hob squeeze out the soaked gelatin leaves and stir into the hot cream until completely dissolved pour your cream mixture into a jug and fill your molds just short of the rim rinsing your molds in cold water before filling will make it easier to get your panacotta out once it's set leave in the fridge for at least 2 to 3 hours or overnight to make your cinnamon Haz on brittle pour Casta sugar into a pan and cook over medium heat until the sugar melts to a deep golden brown scatter toasted hazelnuts into the caramel dust with ground cinnamon and leave to set at room temperature when your panacotta is firm giving each mold a quick dip into boiling water should ensure a perfect stress-free exit onto to the plate dressed With A Shard of crunchy hazelnut brittle nothing could be so deliciously elegant right Captain Jack quick run through panac cotas are nearly set beef cheeks are nearly cooked we're going to now do the Fig and BR Christini oh okay let's take the figs we're going to make a nice slightly spicy fig Jam take off the tops Y in half and each half into three sugar the touch of salt in there okay we're making a jam but we don't want it to be too sweet and then these little babies what are they what's the shape Stars stares stanes taken from the HED plant and when you dry them like that so intensifies the flavor really important to count how many we put in there okay yeah so 1 2 3 4 five so they're just there for flavor take them out that's right secret here is to get that caramel going so when I hear of jam I don't think of caramel no but this is a very fast Jam caramel starting to color I want you very carefully to drop the figs in there good so the juice out of the figs is starting to break down the caramel you know what that is oh sweet vinegar I love that on my salad got that sort of sweet and sour flavor leave that cooking for 3 4 minutes now let's slice our chipata in Italian crustini means little bits of toast but it could be made out of leftover baguette sourdough or any crusty open textured bread we're staying authentically Italian with chipata season them and then drizzle a little touch of olive oil on there both sides really important because we're going to grill the bread push it down it's a lovely taste lovely take it off with the chipata toasted we need to carefully extract the star and East pods from our piping hot fig Jam right jack we got one little bugger of five oh no go is it there yes it is right now we got the green light to crush so all the Skin's disintegrated in that caramel that looks so nice while Jack carefully spreads the Christini with our hot fig Jam I can unveil the last element to our starter the creamy Italian speciality Bata little money bags looking delicious this looks fun doesn't it we need to season them lightly drizzle over a little olive oil and dust them with lemon zest can you imagine that sat there and you tear some of that off and you stick it on top of that and back to the main course to match our hearty beef cheeks I've chosen to use papadeli rule number one when cooking pasta salt in first salt in first good olive oil in Pastor in twist it round so you don't break it ni bring that back up the bow that's going to take about three or 4 minutes flat leaf parsley scrunch it up for me yep and chop it now wait to see these beef cheeks Beauties look at them they soft they're very soft tiny I want you to taste M it's so good oh Jack you just dribbled on your jumper jok really right drain the pasta salt pepper pasta little drizzle of olive oil I want to put your fresh pasta nicely chopped nicely chopped in this is the magic bit okay you take a little ladle of the juice put that at the bottom and you put the pasta on top of that sauce oo honestly oh my gosh your sisters are going to love you even more now you know that what about when you cook this for your girlfriend one day uh just tell her where you got the recipe from will you promise promise I don't want you stealing Daddy's Thunder one beautiful jaw on there two beautiful Jaws on there m and then the third jaw and then you go over with the sauce how cool is that delicious you've got the barasa and I've got the cheeks let's go stop don't be cheeky get it my ultimate Italian dinner quick fig Jam Christini with creamy borata a main course of slow cooked beef cheek Ragu with papad Deli and for pudding espresso panacotta with cinnamon hazelnut brittle a stunning meal to bring the whole family together in the best Italian tradition first a hearty starter on Bretta with ricotta and succulent griddled cett for my main I'm serving fragrant roasted beetroot and time risoto but I'll be in trouble with the kids if I don't do a PUD so I'm enlisting the help of my youngest Tilly to rustle up an indulgent chocolate and lime mousse with crushed raspberries so if you unwrap the chocolate start breaking up in Little Bits we're going to make the most amazing white chocolate mousse our first job is to bring half of our cream up to the boil so what kind of cream is that in there dad that is double cream okay so that's going to make a really nice rich chocolate mousse what's your favorite sort of chocolate is it white milk dark um I love white and milk what's yours I absolutely love milk chocolate a that's my guilty pleasure is it really here we go cream in so that goes in there now you can see what's happening straight away can't you it's melting really quickly it's melting really quickly so okay oh excuse me at least your jumpers white so you won't spot it yeah and I've got a nice little snack for later in another Bowl add lime zest cold cream and whisk until it forms soft peaks the lime cuts the sort of rich richness of the cream and that starts to make the chocolate mousse taste a little bit lighter M it smells really good the lime gives it a really nice ziness ziness you're absolutely right next add to the melted chocolate mixture and because I'm whisking it's just getting lighter and lighter and lighter have a little taste M nice yeah the lime gives it a really nice taste Ty I need the rest for the mousse I need some for my tummy no come on chocolate mousse into the fridge our next job is to separate out three egg whites this is where I need you at your absolute best okay because to whip those whites is going to be really tough so we'll take it in turns 30 seconds each okay you go first 10 seconds gone come on silly 15 seconds gone 20 seconds gone come on you can do it 10 seconds to go 5 4 3 2 one and change excellent hold the ball right no no way Jus what come on it's over dad Matilda you can't do that to me 30 seconds this puny little thing and you come with this big little machine gun that's the best way of whipping up egg whites but why didn't I do it that way start tipping that sugar in slowly good go still not very happy you know so I contentious whipped egg whites will make our mousse light and hairy and when they've reached soft peaks we can gently mix in our cold White chocolate and cream mixture once the egg whites hit the cream yeah the chocolate sets the egg whites keep the cream nice and fluffy and you get this nice light mousse in the bowl now I need you to crush some raspberries please with some fresh mint see all the juice is coming out now take your mousse wow that looks really cool now look at that down the bottom there look crushed wpr delicious now we're going to set that in the fridge if you give me a c open the door please our yummy white chocolate mousse will take at least 2 hours to set so we can crack on with our Mediterranean inspired vegetarian starter griddle cette rotta and mint Bretta for this recipe you'll need a griddle pan an essential piece of kit for that Char gr look cut thick slices of chipata bread drizzle both sides with olive oil season with a little salt and pepper and griddle each side until toasted then slice a couple of corett diagonally into half a CM thick pieces drizzle and coat in olive oil and season with salt and pepper sear on a smoking hot griddle pan in batches until all the cetes are bar marked on both sides next roughly chopped mint leaves and combine with creamy ricotta cheese spread your toasty chipata with dollops of minty otta and top with your seared cette super simple and super tasty now we're going to make a delicious beetroot risoto want you to get the shalots just slice them in half and then just chop them like there okay okay now have you ever made a rotto no I haven't actually schots please into the pan for Daddy add a Sprinkle of salt and pepper along with a couple of crushed cloves of garlic once you start cooking the risotto it's really important to have your stock gently boiling away if we're adding cold stock on top of the rice all the time it just slows down the process generally you cook a nice wide flat pan if you cook in a deep pan all the rice sort of Cooks at different temperatures what stock is that in there dad cuz that's a vegetable stock yeah cuz you can't have different stocks if it's for a vegetarian can you you can't have chicken stock I made that mistake once putting beef stock in a vegetarian soup did you no I did Matilda are you sure I'm positive I'm joking fry off the time how nice does that smell it smells delicious rice in that's a bit of a different rice this is El boria rice it's a perfect rice for Roto now it's really important to sear the rice if we were just to put the stocking without sweating off the rice it goes all starchy so keep on stirring for Daddy it's just going to make a FL no FL on the risoto to go with our deep red beetroot theme I'm adding red wine followed by the first Ladle of stock to get things started now we're off wow it's giving it a cloudy sort of look what's happening to the stock the stock is reducing down and the rice is sucking it in that's right so the rice is actually getting nice and plump when a risotto is live when it's like this now we can't stop cooking it we have to cook it all the way okay ready for the next Ladle I'm ready good girl here we go Ladle in so we have to make this for literally 20 25 minutes and we're nursing it all the way beetroots peel them rub them a little bit of salt and sugar yeah and a little bit of age Bas vinegar in there roasted them and going grate my parmesan how's that Rice doing rice is doing good now that is exactly where we want to be now look look at that nice glossy textured rice so beetroots I want you to put 2/3 of the beetroot in there for me saving 1/3 for the top good sprinkle the parmesan in there for me please all over nice it's like it's snowing yeah and then we're just going to get some nice butter in there the butter gives the risotto a really nice gloss look at that beautiful let that come down let it come down first all right get you sp in there now for Daddy beautifully there you go good wonderful shake it R should be like the lava it just flows out and then the rest of the be on top and then we finish and some extra virgin olive oil on top there I'll pick up the Bretta you take that to the table okay let's go Dy this is my ultimate vegetarian dinner delicious corette Ricotta and top Bretta anxious roasted beetroot and thme risoto and for put an indulgent white chocolate and lime mousse with fresh crushed raspberries\n"