Vegetarian: a ckbk Livestream and Q&A with Michael Daniel + Felicity Cloake

Chef Michael Daniel, co-founder of The Gate vegetarian restaurant in London, is joined by Guardian columnist and author Felicity Cloake.

ckbk livestreams are free monthly virtual events, bringing together chefs, cookbook authors and other food experts to share tips and techniques and to answer your questions on culinary topics.

This livestream was recorded — you can watch the replay here.

In this ckbk livestream, Michael Daniel, author of The Gate Vegetarian Cookbook and its followup, The Gate Easy, is joined in the kitchen by Guardian columnist, food writer and cookbook guru Felicity Cloake.

Michael and Felicity cook a dish from The Gate Vegetarian Cookbook and answer your questions on vegetarian cooking. (If you would like to cook along with them, see the recipe link and ingredients below.)

Topics covered in the livestream include

• How Michael's Indo-Iraqi-Jewish background has influenced the modern vegetarian cooking at The Gate
• Adapting traditional dishes to suit a vegetarian diet
• Bringing together cuisines from around the globe on one menu
• The benefits of cooking from scratch
• The differences between restaurant cooking and home cooking
• Tweaking and remixing familiar recipes, to keep them fresh and interesting

Ask a question

Register to attend the free livestream to ask questions in real time to Michael and Felicity. You can also submit questions in advance – just send an email to hello@ckbk.com with the subject line 'Vegetarian Q&A'.

A chance to win a free meal at The Gate

Register and tune in to the livestream for a chance to win a vegetarian meal at The Gate Restaurant, named by Condé Nast Traveller the "jewel in the crown" of vegetarian restaurants in London. One lucky participant will be randomly chosen to receive a voucher for a three-course meal for two, including a free welcome drink!

Join the cookalong!

The featured recipe is Beetroot Cutta with Kubba - a traditional Indo-Iraqi soup served with kubba (semolina dumplings). Here's a list of the ingredients to prepare if you'd like to cookalong with Michael and Felicity.

Beetroot Cutta

• 55 g (2 oz) butter
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 1 tbsp finely chopped garlic
• 2 tbsp finely chopped fresh root ginger
• handful each of mint and coriander leaves, plus extra for garnish
• 1 kg (2¼ lb) raw beetroot, sliced
• 6 celery stalks, roughly chopped
• 1 medium potato, diced
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1.5 litres (2¾ pints) vegetable stock
• salt and black pepper

Kubba

• 250 g (9 oz) semolina
• 125 g (4½ oz) rice flour
• pinch each of salt, garam masala and chopped coriander

Kubba filling

• ½ onion, puréed
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• small knob of fresh root ginger, grated
• ½ carrot and 1 celery stalk, grated
• small handful each of mint and coriander leaves, chopped
• handful of soft breadcrumbs
• juice of ½ lemon

About the participants

Michael Daniel, Chef

Michael Daniel is the founder and owner of The Gate restaurants, an award-winning Vegetarian/Vegan restaurant that is now in its fourth decade of trading. He is the co-author of two feted cookbooks: The Gate Vegetarian Cookbook and The Gate Easy Vegetarian. He opened his first restaurant with zero formal training but armed with a deep love of his grandmother's food which was a blend of Indo-Iraqi-Jewish cuisine.

Felicity Cloake, Guardian columnist and cookbook author

Felicity Cloake is the award-winning author of the Guardian’s long-running How to Make the Perfect column as well as six books, the most recent of which, One More Croissant for the Road, was shortlisted for the Fortnum and Mason food book of the year award. Her next book, Red Sauce Brown Sauce: A British Breakfast Odyssey is out in June 2022, published by Mudlark.

ckbk

ckbk is the ultimate digital subscription service for cooks, bringing together hundreds of the world's best cookbooks and making the full content accessible via the ckbk website and app. ckbk's collection is built based on recommendations from leading chefs and authors and includes more than 115,000 cookbook recipes featuring timeless classics as well as newly-published bestsellers.

Be sure to check out Michael's cookbooks, available in full on ckbk

• The Gate Vegetarian Cookbook
• The Gate Easy Vegetarian Cookbook

For more vegetarian cookbooks, see ckbk's dedicated vegetarian bookshelf. There are already more than 60,000 vegetarian recipes on ckbk, so you will never be short of options!