Adapted/simplified from this recipe by David Rudnick. This is effectively two sauces, combined at the last minute. You will need a blender (a stick blender will probably get you the best texture).

(None of the quantities are particularly exact. Feel free to experiment.)

Ingredients

The Bright Sauce

• A white onion, finely chopped
• 2–5 (to taste) garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 400ml carrot juice
• ~150g (drained weight) sundried tomatoes (ideally the semi-fresh ones in oil)
• A whole aubergine
• A good-sized handful of shelled pistachios
• A smaller handful of pine nuts
• Olive oil
• Salt & pepper

The Dark Sauce

• A head of black garlic
• ~1 tbsp Marmite
• ~1 tsp gochujang
• 1–2 tbsp light soy sauce (think Pearl River Bridge rather than Kikkoman)
• 400–600g chestnut mushrooms (other varieties will probably work too)
• 100ml carrot juice

Method

1. Preheat the oven to about 180–200°C.

2. Remove the stalks from the mushrooms and reserve. Crumble the mushroom caps (by hand is probably easiest) into small pieces; a mix of sizes gives the best texture, but try to keep them smaller than 1cm in any given dimension. Reserve.

3. Halve the aubergine along its long axis. Place in an ovenproof dish alongside the mushroom stalks, drizzle with olive oil and season with a little salt and pepper. Place in the oven for about 30–35 minutes, or until softened.

4. While the aubergine is roasting, peel and mash the black garlic in a small bowl. Add the marmite, gochujang and soy sauce, and combine into as smooth a paste as you can manage.

5. Add the crumbled mushroom caps to a hot pan and stir to prevent them burning. They should quite quickly begin to release their moisture; once it’s steamed off and the pan starts drying out again, add the marmite–gochujang–soy-sauce paste, reduce the heat a little, and combine thoroughly.

6. Once the mushroom sauce begins to dry (or leave residue on the base of the pan), deglaze with ~100ml carrot juice. Reduce the heat to below a simmer, and keep an eye on this sauce while you prepare the rest of the recipe. This is The Dark Sauce.

7. Time for The Bright Sauce. In a second pan (on a medium heat), add just enough olive oil to cover the base. (If you’re using sundried tomatoes in oil, you can use that oil for instant flavour.) Add the finely-chopped onion and garlic, and stir gently for a few minutes until they begin to soften.

8. Increase the heat as much as you dare, and, a little at a time, add the carrot juice to the pan, stirring constantly to prevent burning. The cold carrot juice will prevent the heat from getting too high, but try not to cool things down too much. As you add the carrot juice, you should get a silky-textured emulsion start to form; once you’re done, take it off the heat and set aside.

9. By this point, the aubergine and mushroom stalks should be either done, or almost there. Remove from the oven, and once cooled sufficiently, remove the aubergine skins either by peeling them or by scooping out the softer flesh.

10. Add the second (bright) sauce, aubergine flesh, mushroom stalks, sundried tomatoes, pine nuts, and pistachios (ideally in that order) to a blender (or a tall vessel you can use with a stick blender). Pulse to combine — the goal is not a smooth texture, but a rough mix with no large chunks. If you blend too homogeneously, you’ll lose the texture contributions from the pine nuts and pistachios.

11. Combine the bright sauce from the blender (this should taste pretty spectacular on its own) with the dark mushroom sauce in the pan. The sweet acidity of the tomatoes and carrot juice emulsion should give the overall flavour profile a lot of brightness, with the aubergine contributing body, and the deep salty mushroom combination adding a rich, meaty, umami flavour underneath everything.

Serve with good pasta as a dish in and of itself, or use as a replacement for the meat in other recipes like shepherd’s pie or lasagne.