Tofu Sambal, Indonesian style

This is based on the more traditional sambal made with hard boiled eggs. I usually serve it as part of a meal for several people and accompany it with sate, peanut sauce, sesame fried cucumber, salads and lots of rice. It can be as mild as you like which makes it a good option for the rijsttafel to offset other spicier offerings.

Best made with softer chinese tofu I've had to use the unfriendly and dense Bjorg version here which has damaged the texture of the finished dish a bit, but use what you have, it will still be delicious.

For about four people with rice and sides

400g soft tofu
Peanut oil
A medium onion or 3 or 4 shallots
several cloves of garlic (as many as you like)
a small mound of grated ginger (about 3cm of a thick root)
a red chilli, chopped (hot or mild to taste)
some hot pepper flakes or vegan sambal oelek
a tsp. brown sugar
a pinch of turmeric
a tsp. of dark miso
400ml coconut milk
salt
Juice of a lime (or half a lemon)

Finely chop the onion or shallots and gently soften in a good splash of oil. Don't let them brown. Add the ginger, chilli and garlic and stir around for a moment to take the rawness off.

Add the sambal oelek or red pepper flakes to taste. This shouldn't be blisteringly hot and you can leave the heat out altogether if you need to. I used a couple of shakes of pepper flakes but would have used a flat teaspoon of sambal oelek if I had it.

Add the coconut milk and sugar. Traditionally fermented shrimp paste is used in this to enhance the flavour. I have substituted a teaspoonful of dark miso and some extra salt. I also use a pinch of turmeric for an auspicious golden colour but it's not essential.

Mix everything together well and simmer for a couple of minutes. Add the tofu, cut into neat cubes and allow everything to heat together until the tofu is warmed through and the sauce has thickened slightly. Stir in the lime or lemon juice.

Serve with rice and sprinkle with a bit of chopped coriander if you have it.

Chips and Jam

hmmmm, not much of body as a temple this week. I found I had a quantity of old potatoes left over from a bag brought home just before we started the new harvest here. I was going to make mash but the devil spoke into my ear and I ended up with chunky chips.



yes, it is rather a lot on the plate for one person. I've put some aside to make salad with tomorrow.

For pudding then, something healthy. Raw strawberry jam also known as strawberries mashed with a little raw sugar and elderflower snow, also known as old sorbet that's got a bit hard and needs to be shaved into the bowl. It still tasted good.

Takeaway

Sweet and Sour Tofu with Pineapple Fried Rice.

There's a takeaway near where we live in the UK, in Bletchley in fact. I may have mentioned it before, in an area with almost no provision whatsoever for vegetarians or vegans this little gem of a restaurant (they do have some tables but some sort of doom hangs over us and we always have a horrible argument so we've stopped trying to eat there) is almost entirely vegan with just a couple of items on the menu suitable for vegetarians only. Nothing for meateaters at all!

They do make use of a lot of fake meats and ersatz ingredients and I have to say I'm not a great fan of some of these but just being able to stick a pin in a full sized Chinese menu is such a thrill I'm willing to try almost anything. It's one of the first places we head to when I've returned to the UK for the winter.

That moment is quite a long way away at the moment, this will be the longest period I've ever stayed in France without a trip away, if only for a few days. Blame the kittens, or more accurately blame the British Government, the kits don't give a damn.

Anyway, I decided to indulge in a bit of DIY and make my own. It's not quite as good as our usual selection but it's considerably better than some offerings from other Chinese takeaways we've tried.

Light lunch

Carrot salad sandwich with Cheezly.

The carrot salad was made rather like a vinaigrette dressed potato salad. Lightly cooked carrot pieces, mountain cut, were dressed in a whisked oil and vinegar dressing made Moroccan by the addition of hot sauce, sugar, paprika, cumin seeds, salt and pepper.

Cheezly was part of a care package brought over by the Mister. It doesn't seem to have a market in France.

Celebration Dinner 20th June 2009

Mr. Stripey Cat joined me this weekend to celebrate 12 years of partnership. Doesn't time fly when you're having fun?


Starter of Mixed Vegetable Tempura in a Sparkling wine batter.

The vegetables used were carrot slices, onion sliced through the root to give disks, green pepper, whole broad beans in pods and comfrey leaves. It was served on a simple grated salad with a garlic ginger dipping sauce.

I was really pleased with the tempura. The batter was a mix of 50/50 cornflour and wheat flour beaten just before using with enough sparkling dry wine to make a thin coating on the vegetables. The crunch was robust enough to hold its character while everything was fried and plated meaning we could sit and eat together, rather important for this meal.


Greek Aubergine Bake with crushed garlic potatoes and sesame coated horta.

The aubergine bake was based on a recipe I last used about 20 years ago, and originally contained feta cheese. For a vegan version I substituted soy yoghurt and some Cheezely. The flavour was good but the yoghurt separated during the long oven cooking and looked a bit unattractive. More work needed before I release it to an unsuspecting public.

We've been harvesting our new potato crop eagerly but are agreed that the flavour of the baby spuds this year hasn't been great. To give these a bit of character they were par boiled, crushed a little and then coated in olive oil and garlic slivers before roasting in a hot oven for 45 minutes or so. Very easy and adaptable, they will keep warm succesfully if the first course over runs.

The sesame horta was another really delicious dish. Greens from the garden, leafy weedy magentaspreen, beet thinnings just beginning to make tiny beetroots and Good King Henry, were blanched briefly to wilt them, drained and cooled. They were squeezed by hand (this was a very manual cooking experience) into a long sausage, dressed with lemon zest and toasted sesame, cut into sections for the baking/serving dish and drizzled with a little good olive oil. They were then popped into the oven for 20 minutes so that they were warmed in time to serve with the main course and potatoes.


Cherry sponge on a cherry conserve with Elderflower sorbet.

A tender sponge filled with fresh, pitted, cherries and cooked in a muffin tin to make serving portions. The sorbet was made by using some of the elderflower syrup made a couple of weeks ago sharpened with extra lemon and the ice crystals rendered a little smoother with a big splash of gin.


Almond fondants.

To have with our coffee I made these rather simple chocolate coated fondants which I had intended to flavour with peppermint. Alas, the countryside French don't have any need for peppermint oils and I wasn't able to get any flavouring so had to use almond instead. They were very sweet but as we'd eaten so much we really didn't need more than one each.

Of course, there were loads of leftovers but we had them for lunch today. And now he's gone back to the UK and the cats and I are alone again for another few weeks.

No recipe required

This is, one way or another, pretty much what I've been eating for the last week.

Vegetable stew, made with some bought and some gathered vegetables, ingredients served with a carbohydrate.

Sometimes the stew is more soupy and I eat it with bread, sometimes I mix the rice or pasta straight into the pan, tonight I made polenta, cooled it in a sheet and then refried sections to top off the vegetables. I haven't done it yet but I suppose the next alternative would be to make some dumplings.

It's reasonably healthy, undeniably cheap and extremely easy to make but it's not haute cuisine or anything approaching innovative cookery. I don't know when my interest in food preparation or recipe creation will return.

Potstickers on Ice

Not a new recipe exactly, more the necessary modifications made in the face of inappropriate ingredients. Vegan potstickers are most likely to be filled with a heavily seasoned mixture of chinese cabbage and mushrooms.

In the absence of those items today's filling comprises shredded onion and carrots, along with a small tin of beansprouts (I'm in France remember!) and a bunch of weed seedlings, in this case magentaspreen, seasoned with a small semi-dry (aka nearly off) chilli and some garlic.

Stir fry everything together adding the garlic and chilli last and allow to cool.

It's usually recommended that potsticker wrappers are bought from the Chinese supermarket, but it's perfectly possible to make your own and they can be as dainty or substantial as you want them to be. I wasn't in the mood for prissy and the robust filling needed a sturdy surrounding so I made a simple flour and water dough, very similar to the lagana paste (or indeed pasta or chapatti or any number of simple pastries) and rolled small portions out thinly filling them as I went. These are probably a bit big for guests but as a substantial lunch in private they weren't at all bad.

Heat some oil that will take a high temperature in a frying pan with a lid and quickly fry the little parcels (I usually make mine like the picture but other shapes are acceptable) so that the bottom becomes crispy and golden then with the heat still high add about 150ml of stock (or water at a pinch) to the pan and put the lid on. Allow to cook, covered for about 10 minutes or so until the stock is absorbed and the dumplings are cooked through. Serve with the dipping sauce of your choice.


Drugs are baad.

This, despite appearances to the contrary, is coconut ice made with brown sugar. It's delicious, but there's a reason I rarely make sweets or cakes. I can't stop eating them.

Very easy to make I did all this entirely by eye so can't give you a proper recipe but there are plenty on the web. Basically you make a sugar syrup boiled to soft ball stage, mix in desiccated coconut and sometimes flavourings or colour and press out in a pan to set. The usual flavour is vanilla which works well and the colouring is often pink, added to just half the batch so that a double layer of pink and white can be formed. I didn't think the vanilla or the pink would be worth the trouble given the brown sugar.

It's incredibly sweet, and fattening and I've nearly finished the entire batch since last night. Drugs are bad.

Lettuce and Tarragon Risotto

Although I'm perfectly comfortable with the fact leaves are good for you and even evangelise about it to others from time to time I find actually eating a lot of raw vegetation really quite dull. This is a way of getting more leafy greens into me, without my jaw aching. Regular readers will also note that it's a way of getting more of my favourite white rice included in my diet, but that's not important right now.

At the risk of boring everyone I'll just run over the steps involved in risotto again.

Chop an onion (or shallots) finely and melt down in some olive oil. It's o.k. to use a tad more oil in a vegan risotto as there will be no added fat from cheese or cream.

Put in a quantity of rice, probably a little less than you think you'll need. Risotto rice is always recommended but as it happens I've been using some Riz Rond (aka pudding rice) and the sky hasn't fallen yet. It's working just fine.

Get the rice oily and warmed. Chuck in a good glassful of white wine. I've got a bottle of cooking wine, a (just) drinkable Blanc de Blancs vin de table but if you're buying in a dry Italian wine or a Muscadet is probably better.

Let that sizzle and boil. Add a quantity of chopped tarragon. If you have no tarragon a spoonful of Pastis is good or a slug of vermouth. Add salt and black pepper.

The stock; don't use a stock cube unless you crave monosodium glutamate (which happens), plain water will do. The water doesn't even have to be hot although if you're using cold add it in small doses so that the pan never stops cooking. Of course if you have a good and compatible vegetable stock to hand use it by all means.

Add liquid in small quantities, stirring regularly and keeping the pan simmering, until the rice is nearly cooked.

Add another wine glass of liquid and some nutritional yeast. This really does do most of what the parmesan would do in a traditional recipe but it needs moisture to dissolve in and adds no fat. Don't overdo it, it is a matter of taste how much you'll need.

Stir everything around and pile in a lot of washed, roughly chopped lettuce. Put the lid on the pan to help it wilt down a bit and then remove the lid and stir it in. You may need a little more stock or water but the lettuce gives off quite a lot of liquid as it cooks. Keep stirring, testing the rice and observing until everything is cooked to perfection and serve.

Nostalgia

My first experiences of French food, when I was 12, were on an exchange trip from my school to a school in Maubeuge. We were all assigned host families and partners from the school there and the idea was that after we had stayed with them, they would come and stay with us. Except for some reason I was paired with a boy who wouldn't travel. Or maybe it was that my parents were too mean. Anyway, I was dropped off in the depth of the countryside miles from the town with no chance of seeing any of my friends except on the organised trips and with a boy who didn't mix.

It was not a happy time. The family were very nice to me but couldn't overcome my shyness, their son's shyness and the total language barriers between us all. However, there was a lovely girl who worked for them, milked the cows in the morning, did all the cleaning, most of the cooking, everything as far as I could see and although we couldn't swap a word we got along pretty well.

One evening she put this on the table. Simple lightly cooked fresh cauliflower and a strong oily vinaigrette rich with garlic and herbs. I'd never had anything like it before in my life and I loved it.



Use a good olive oil and plenty of seasoning. Don't overcook the cauliflower and include a few of the leaves if they are crisp and fresh.

Sorry about the picture. I cut my finger eviscerating an artichoke yesterday and combined with general sadness don't have much energy for fancy photography.

foodgawker or tastespotting?

Which food photo accumulator do you prefer? tastespotting or foodgawker?

There are now over 200 feeds in my reader, I'd like to reduce that a bit and the content in these two has considerable overlap.

It's good to skim across looking for new presentations or ethnic foods I've never heard of although most of the content involving meat, dairy and cupcakes isn't for me. However, it's getting a bit dull seeing the same stuff in two places, especially when there's a group release from one of the baking gangs. Foodgawker seems to be a bit quicker in getting the links up but tastespotting is longer established and I think may have more contributors. One of them has got to go.

Do you have a favourite or am I missing the perfect alternative site that will meet my needs? Why do people post their links on both sites and is it a good or bad thing? Do you know the meaning of life? Answers in the comments please, I'd really like to hear from you.