Soak'n'Bake

One of my continuing niggles at living in France is not that tofu is unavailable but that the tofu that is stocked in the large supermarkets is so unremittingly hard, like recycled tyres. I long to be able to buy fresh tender tofu and have a dream of starting a whole cottage industry here specialising in Japanese style foods because unless I make it myself it's rarely to be found. So, start-up investors, please step forward now.

Of course, in the absence of such a resource I do make use of what's available. Just recently I've discovered that grating the block changes it into a form that can be used with some success but my standard method of rendering the rubber edible follows.



Over the years I've come to rely on a very simple marinade for tofu. This works on all sorts of tofu, not just the French stuff, and has just six main ingredients. Other things can be added, lemon grass or chillies are good, but the basic form is excellent just on its own.

Take the juice of a lemon, add to it about the same volume of soy sauce, a thumb sized piece of root ginger grated as finely as you can manage, as much garlic, crushed or in cloves as you desire. Stir in anything from a teaspoon to a tablespoon of black treacle, depending on taste; I like quite a lot, then add a good dollop of a neutral oil. I have used peanut oil here but rapeseed or sunflower is fine. Olive oil will also work but detracts from the mildly oriental slant. Whisk altogether well and put the marinade into your baking dish.



My favourite little dish will take three blocks of 200g each of the firm stuff. I halve the pieces, then cut each one into six or seven thin slices. Stacked into the dish, each slice is eased away from its neighbour to allow the marinade to penetrate around all of them. The whole dish is wrapped up in foil and can then be left for as much as twelve hours in the fridge or for just a few minutes in the warm kitchen until you are ready to bake.

Pop the covered dish into the oven, temperature and timings aren't very important here. I usually give it an hour to an hour and half, from a start in a cold oven and encompassing any temperatures my other cooking requires. When you think it's had long enough, remove from the oven and allow to cool in its own liquid. Store covered in the fridge with juices around it for up to seven days.

And here it is served warm with some roasted cauliflower, currently my favourite veg. and a little marinade poured over as a gravy. It doesn't look that exciting, this is just the sort of simple supper I make for myself when no one else is around but it tastes good and the rest of the panful will make sandwiches, snacks and additions to everything from risotto to pizza over the next few days.

The Stripey Cat Supper Club underground pop-ups

My theme for MoFo this year is menu-testing for the Supper Club, of which more later - I'm hoping a string of failures will improve my skills and remove my bad judgement in time for next month - but I realise that some readers browsing past for the first time may have not the slightest idea what I'm on about.

Supper Clubs are aren't that new, but most recently have come to a sort of fashionability peak with celebrity chefs and high end restaurants jumping on board to take the glory. Most people could therefore be forgiven for thinking they are some sort of marketing vehicle for the already established but the origins and ethos is much deeper than that.

Cooked food sales have always been a way to add value to raw ingredients and provide a way of making a living. You don't need to be famous or have a lot of money to get started or to put yourself on a never-ending commercial grindstone. It's a much gentler form of enterprise.

Think street food, artisan producers who work from their own kitchens, the shared meals offered by housewives from their own homes to strangers across the world to help offset the costs of feeding their own families.

I've written about it before here and there's not much point in duplicating that post but inviting diners to your own home is a way of sharing skills and company and food that is intensely personal. It really is a hospitable business.

There are now three dates set for this autumn, all in the UK:

Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire - at our own home, with Mr. Stripey to oversee front of house. Newport Pagnell is near Milton Keynes. 12th November 2011

Sherwood, Nottingham - with Alex, who has been a contestant on Come Dine with Me so will have some stories to tell. 26th November 2011

Ealing, West London - with Chris, who is a talented candid photographer. Bring your cheesiest smiles. 3rd December 2011

At each event you will be welcomed with an aperitif and nibbles, three courses of vegan food cooked by me and finishing with coffee (or tea) and petits fours. Water and some soft drinks will be available throughout the meal but if you'd like wine or other alcoholic drinks with your meal please bring your own. We can provide glasses and corkscrews but we're not allowed to sell alcohol.

Seating is at shared tables and we're happy to accept bookings from single people, groups and couples.

Tickets are already available from Wegottickets for Newport Pagnell and will shortly be available for the other venues. Check on the links above to see when they're up. You can also follow me on twitter @catofstripes or the Stripey Cat Supper Club page on Facebook for more information or email me directly about it at catofstripes[at]gmail[dot]com if you'd like to make a booking and pay in cash.

And if you can't make any of these dates but still fancy an Underground Supper Club experience nip over to Find a Supperclub, become a Fan where you'll find lots of events across the country to choose from (although they won't all be veg*n).

Of Seaweed

We're always on the lookout for interesting new vegan food items and last week, shopping in the local Super U, we came across these little pots of seaweed goodness, algal caviar, commercially produced molecular gastronomy. They're not cheap at 6€80 a shot but make a fun garnish. Most importantly, they are a form of novelty junk food that helps make shopping a treat again.

The seaweed Perles are made in Brittany, at Algues de Bretagne, ZI de Dioulan - 29140 ROSPORDEN. Sadly the website is 'under construction' but at least the products are being marketed across France.


Les perles de l’océan – vinaigre & echalotes

There were two sorts available, although I believe Algues de Bretagne make several others, one being flavoured with truffle aromas (nearly all truffle flavourings are artificial) and the other with shallot vinegar. They do stock them in the chilled fish cabinet though which makes searching them out a bit traumatic.


Perles Fondantes - truffe

I didn't much like the shallot version, even with my preference for sharp vinegary tastes these were too much for me but the warm earthiness of the truffle version was pleasant if not quite as appealing as the Caviart product which for inexplicable reasons is very hard to obtain in the UK (and despite being told it's available in France I've never seen it here either).

The technique is not beyond me and trying these makes me aware that I can tailor flavours to my own taste but for instant gratification I hope they continue to be available.

Slow Cooker

I'm not sure where I first read about using a slow cooker to bulk cook onions to a rich browned caramel for use in other dishes. It might have been on Veggie Venture or it could have been, well I don't know, it's pretty much available all over the web these days. I've had the idea bookmarked for a long while and with the prospect of needing to be able to cater for much larger numbers than usual it seemed an appropriate moment to give it a whirl.

Using about 750g of prepared sliced onions (a couple of pounds) it took nearly six hours to reach the stage in the picture above. It is an easy method but I'm not sure that having a slow cooker running for six to eight hours just for a preparatory step in a recipe is worth the hassle. I could have softened, browned and caramelised a similar amount of onions in not much more than an hour by conventional means and felt much more in control of the process at the same time.

Still, it's another option for multitasking and the end result, well cooked sweet soft onions using very little fat, a quality product.



I used half the yield to make French Onion soup which was very good. The cheese covered crouton garnish used Redwood's Soya Free Cheezly - this isn't a product I'll be searching out to use again, I much prefer their more traditional soya cheese substitute. I'd intended to make pissaladiere with the other half of caramelised onions but they quickly disappeared in other cooking so that practise will have to wait for another time.

I will be taking a couple of days break from VeganMoFo 2011, my brain is beginning to boil and I've had no time to look at other people's blogs at all. Should be back on Monday all being well. Ciao.

Supper Club Tests #2

You know, I really, really don't like the new editor software in blogger. I think I might change back to the old style if it's still possible.

Anyway, today I was messing about in the kitchen trying out a few ideas that I thought were simple no-brainers that would just work and which turned out to be roads to ruination and despair. That's why testing recipes is so important.



First up, some griddled marrow in teppanyaki sauce. So simple, but although the Mr. enjoyed his portion I ended up feeling rather nauseous. This method was intended to be used to make a starter salad but I think I'm going to give it a miss. Even if I enjoyed the taste I think cooking it for 12 diners would be stretching my endurance at the start of a long evening.



After that, I moved on to attacking some simple sesame crackers, destined to be eaten with a paté. I've made these before quite successfully but created by the power of random additions. Today's testing was to try for something reliably reproducible with no nasty surprises at serving time. Trouble is, last time I made them I had a pasta maker to roll the paste thinly and evenly and a properly temperature controlled electric oven instead of my temperamental gas oven here. I made two batches, one with more oil than the other. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to decide which ones tasted nicest but neither recipe was quite what I was looking for. More work needed.



And finally, lunch! This could hardly go wrong, garlicky, tomatoey Imam Bayildi. It was good, but needed more oil, which I would probably have added if I hadn't been feeling so disgusted with the griddled marrow. It's not easy being me.

Chestnuts roasting

October is the month when our sweet chestnut trees shower us with nuts. Yesterday we gathered a huge bag full and there are plenty more to come. If you can find a tree to forage from take strong gloves as the spiny husks will prickle your fingers cruelly. Discard any nuts that are not plump and full in their chestnut coats and watch out for any that have tiny holes in them, they will be maggoty. When you get your harvest home dump the lot in a big bowl of water and throw away the ones that float, they are probably maggoty or rotten too. After an hour, drain the water away and let the good nuts dry. Then store in a plastic bag in the fridge. They will keep for a few weeks but check for moulding and remove anything nasty as needed.

Chestnuts are really useful in a vegan diet, tasty and starchy, they are great for making nut loaves, burgers or cooked with rice. They're also a traditional street food of the English, roasted over charcoal and served in
paper cones on frosty days.

Unfortunately this Dickensian image is more or less a memory in most parts of the country now although I think some are still available in London, presumably for the tourists.

I intend to dry most of our collection for our winter stores but we had to have some straight away. It's easier to cook them in an oven than over a open fire. Make a slit or peel a little skin on each nut, this is to stop it exploding during baking, and roast / bake in a hot oven for 45 minutes or so until the nut swells up and becomes tender and fragrant. Eat with a little salt and some sweet wine.

A Mediterranean Dinner by Candlelight

We've been having some late summer sun this autumn and that's meant some wonderful outside days. It seems a pity to huddle around the fire eating soup and stew when it's still possible to sit outside late into the evening, eating by candlelight in the afterglow of the day and watching brilliant stars overhead.

It looks like the best of it is over now but last night we had a last chance dinner of Greek inspired dishes, made with vegetables and herbs from the garden and served with lemon, olive oil and warm summer breezes.

The French and Runner green beans are more or less finished as green vegetables but they're still packed full of big tender beans that can be shelled out of their pods and used in stews and braises like this dish of Giant Greek Beans. These beans aren't yet dry so don't take long to cook; if you are using dried beans soak them well and cook until just tender before using as below.



Take a couple of big handfuls of mature beans without pods. Put them in a pan with just enough water to cover, the juice of half a lemon, a pinch of fennel seeds and a bay leaf. Add a couple of cloves of garlic and a big glug of olive oil and leave to simmer for about 20 minutes until the beans are cooked how you like them. I also added some young achocha pods to the pot. You could add some sliced green pepper if you like it.

Meanwhile skin some big meaty tomatoes, remove the hard cores and chop into small pieces. Add the tomato to your beans in their pot of liquid and allow to heat through. Add salt and pepper to taste. Finally add a big handful of finely chopped parsley, stir through and turn off the heat. Serve at room temperature with lots of bread for the juices.



Greek roast potatoes are just like ordinary ones cooked in olive oil with the addition of lemon juice. I par-boiled some  Pink Fir Apple but other firm roasting potatoes are fine. Coat the hot drained potatoes in olive oil and lemon juice and roast in a very hot oven for 40-50 minutes stirring after about 25 minutes. You can add extra woody herbs like rosemary if you want and a few peeled cloves of garlic tossed in are lovely.

I've been trying to get to grips with the huge list of bloggers taking part in this year's MoFo. It looks like there's some great stuff out there and I hope to be able to visit most of you at least once over the month.

My top tip, use a different browser to subscribe to the blogroll RSS in a reader under a throwaway identity. Last year I tried to put the big list into my usual reader and really messed it up. By having a separate identity in a different browser there's no chance of overwriting your usual settings, which I find really helpful. It's still possible to comment as whoever you want to be, so you're not lying to anyone.

Supper Club Tests #1

I've been testing recipes for the Supper Club dates for November.

Something I'm considering are vegetables that are salt baked; coated in a thick layer of salt and baked gently until they are tender all the way through. It sounds appealing and jacket potatoes have been done this way by some for many years but more recently other vegetables have become the vogue on tasting and traditional menus alike, familiar and yet a little bit novel, well flavoured without stretching the bravery of diner's palates much further than they're accustomed to.



I had a go with a celeriac root and a similarly sized beetroot as a first attempt. The vegetables were washed very well, grit is nasty, but the skins were left intact to provide a barrier against too much salt pervading them.

I used a deep ceramic casserole for two reasons, mainly to help hold the salty coating around the roots without having to use too much salt and also to catch any juices should they exude. I was a bit worried that the salt would attack the glaze but although it seemed as if the salt crystals were inextricably welded to the dish just after it came out of the oven it came away easily once it was cooled. 

The salt was sea salt, my favourite Sel de Guerande from Brittany. Straight from the bag it was just damp enough to cling thickly to the sides and top of the vegetables nestled on a shallow bed of more salt.

They were baked in the gas oven at about 180C-200C for one and half hours. I tested them with a knife for tenderness, smaller or larger roots will need different timings.

Carefully extract the roots from the salt. Some of the coat will break off in chunks and some will need to be brushed off with a cloth or even a stiff brush. It's all rather hot too so use protection for your hands. When all the salt is cleared from the veg. remove them to a clean bowl or board and clean up all the salt from the working area before proceeding. An unexpected mouthful of salt crystals is quite nasty. The used salt can be crumbled when cool and reused for baking.

Then you can carve your dish. It's best to peel the salty skin away and make thin cuts, either sliced or narrow wedges as desired.

This is the moment when I have to admit I was less than overwhelmed by it all. The intensified celeriac flavour was almost too strong to be pleasant, the beetroot no better that roots roasted without salt. I'm going to try again with the intention of dressing the finely sliced vegetable flesh with some sort of balancing sauce but for the moment this lovely sounding idea is still a work in progress.

It was my Birthday

and for a change I was in the UK celebrating in some of the best weather ever for the month of October, just like when I was born, a goodly number of years ago.

The weather was so wonderful we had breakfast in the garden made on the barbeque.




The family were here to celebrate with me and this is the cake...



it's a no bake cake made with pepparkakor, chocolate, raisins and for the first time ever, malt syrup which worked very well. Very rich, very good with coffee.

A first post for Vegan Mofo, no logos or links today, on the road with cats which is quite complicated enough for this overheated brain.