Vegan omelette

Another week and no posts - I should be ashamed of myself but I'm not because I have been cooking a lot, the recipes just aren't ready to share yet. This To Fu Yung is a case in point.



Soft tofu cakes filled with oriental flavourings and vegetables and served over a lime infused crunchy salad. It's a lovely light snack and very tasty but the texture still isn't quite right, so I'm going to have make several more experiments before the method is fit to publish. Pity me.

Slow Cooking

No, this recipe wasn't made in a slow cooker although I suppose there's no reason not to, except I don't have one. It is however, something that can be described as slow cooked food, a reviving fashion in cooking that claims to bring back the quality of meals, prepared with time and care from raw ingredients and first principles.



This is probably the last chance I'll have this year to cook this dish unless I buy air freighted beans from abroad, something I'm not prepared to do except when stressed and heavily pressured when most ethics are likely to find themselves panting by the wayside. The beans I did find, although British, were right at the end of their season, beginning to toughen slightly, not the tender young pods of summer but because of that ideally suited to a more mature form of cookery.

So, to the recipe. It's not clear who has dibs to the concept of slow cooking beans - if you're in America then the Deep South stakes a claim for a dish of slow cooked beans with bacon and served with corn bread but come back to the eastern fringes of Europe and you'll find that Turkey has a long history of stewed beans, slowly simmered to give up their juices into a delicious oily sauce crying out to be mopped up with soft wheat breads.

Could it be some fortunate cross pollination of methods carried by migration across the world or is just that two cultures independently nurtured their precious crops for a careful casseroling to make the most of every drop of goodness? Who knows, who cares?

Since this is a vegan blog we're going to throw the bacon idea straight out of the window. I've never found a really good vegan bacon substitute, the one thing that used to come close were those little baco bits you found in the ready made crouton aisle at the supermarket but since they appear to be made with GM soya beans they've been crossed off the shopping list for years now. Anyway, who needs something that tastes of burnt pig...

650g fresh green beans - french (or runner as long as they're not too old)
1 big onion, finely chopped.
2 cloves garlic if you want, not essential.
150g fresh tomatoes, chopped.
40g tomato puree (who am I kidding with the weight, it was a big squeeze).
200ml water /or/ substitute a good can of chopped tomatoes with juice for the tomato, puree and water.
olive oil.
black pepper.
and a choice of aromatics: use a pinch of cumin or fennel or aniseed or one clove or anything else you might fancy but don't overdo these flavourings.
1 tsp. sugar.
Juice from 1/2 lemon.

In your oven proof casserole, fry off the onion in plenty of olive oil until it begins to brown, throw in the crushed garlic if used, the tomatoes, puree and water (or tin of tomatoes with juice) and season with your choice of aromatics, pepper, the teaspoon of sugar and the lemon juice. Don't add salt.

Put in the topped and tailed beans. Bring everything to a simmer, then put the lid on the casserole and pop in the oven at a low temperature, say 140C, for 2-3 hours, longer is better and if it needs to wait in the warm while something else cooks that's no problem.

Serve hot from the pan with barbeque tofu and bread or put into a pretty serving dish and allow to cool to room temperature to be served as part of a buffet table. I'm sure the beans would taste great the next day too but ours all went in about five minutes.

Minestrone Soup

This infinitely variable and satisfying soup is based on the Elizabeth David transcription of the method. It makes a tremendously large pot of soup but that's fine because it's better reheated on the second day than the first and it can be frozen in person sized portions for instant warming week day lunches.

There is no salt added to this recipe because I shouldn't eat it and prefer to add my allowance to the bowl. If you want to add salt as you cook put it in after the beans are fully softened.

Ingredients
200g dried haricot beans
olive oil
half a small cabbage, chopped finely
3 onions, sliced
3 garlic cloves
herbs and seasoning

3 small potatoes, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
a piece of celery, chopped
400g tin of chopped tomatoes with juice (not economy brand)
a splash of elderberry ketchup or use a glass of red wine if you don't have seven years to spare.

a handful of green beans chopped into 2cm pieces
55g broken-up macaroni or spaghetti, or pastine, or any of the pasta made in small shapes, such as little stars, little shells, etc.

Method
1. Put the haricot beans to soak overnight. Next day melt the sliced onion into the oil, adding the garlic, the cabbage, and plenty of herbs, marjoram, thyme, basil, or whatever may be available. Let this get really soft and slightly golden then add the drained haricot beans. Cover them with 1.8L hot water and let them boil gently and steadily for 2 hours or until the beans are cooked.

2. Now put in the carrots, potatoes, celery, wine or elderberry ketchup and the tinned tomatoes. Allow to cook for 20 minutes.

3. Ten minutes before serving, add the green beans, and the pasta. You may need to add a little more water if the liquid has reduced a lot, don't add more than 500ml.

4. Add a little chopped parsley over each serving and serve with bread. Some may like to add nutritional yeast. (o.k. I know ED would never have said the last bit!)

Nigella's peanut butter chocolate cups

Made these over the weekend, incredibly sweet and rich, even with a reduced amount of chocolate. I can only manage two a day.

Nigella's recipe here adapted for vegans by changing the butter to oil and deleting the milk chocolate. I also used crunchy peanut butter instead of smooth. Worked o.k.

Chili with Sprinkles

For someone who has trouble with all hot spicy food there's been an unusual tendency this autumn to pile in the peppers. Last night I decided on a black bean and smokey tofu chili which was nowhere nearly as delicately spiced as the chili I had at Greens recently but was still tangy, satisfying and strangely fulfilling. You can read my review of the Greens restaurant here.



So this recipe is really only a variation of everyday cooking in most homes and has nothing too noteworthy that should be written down for posterity but those of you who are addicted to crunchy seed mixtures might like to know how easy it is to make your own.

Spicy Seed Sprinkles are made with your choice of fresh, and that's important, dried seeds. You will definitely need sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds and you might want to add sesame seeds or hemp. Cashew nut pieces or unsalted peanuts are also good. A few aromatic seeds can be interesting but don't overdo the strong flavours, a pinch of cumin or fennel is plenty.

Very very lightly grease a frying pan and set your seeds in the pan over a gentle heat, moving them around continuously until they start to swell, pop and go golden. You don't want them to burn so take the pan off the heat while you find the tamari or soy sauce and the tabasco if you need it.

With the seeds back over a gentle warmth and swirling them around as you add it, sprinkle in a few shakes of sauce and one or two dashes of tabasco if liked. It will splutter and steam a bit but keep the seeds moving until they are all coated and the seasonings are dry. Tip out onto a clean plate and spread out to cool. Break up any clumps and stir around every few minutes until they cool. They will become crisper as they cool but once fully cooled put into an airtight container immediately (or eat) or they tend to absorb moisture and become sticky again.

The Bane of the Vegan

or Stuffed Peppers.

The very sight of them as the veg*n option on the menu is enough to make any animal free eater give up and go home immediately. Representing all that is unimaginative and low effort in bulk catering, where exceptions to the norm are not welcomed and costs are cut to a minimum, Stuffed Peppers are the absolute pits.

Party organisers be aware, if your caterer cannot or will not cater well for vegans, you won't be getting much of a bargain for your other diners either, whereas any restaurant or hotel capable of cooking interesting vegan food to a price will be right up there with the best for all their culinary efforts. These things are important.



But wait, do these look as if they are stuffed with Batchelor's rice, they do not, and despite the tendency of stuffed peppers to be flavourless, these are not, and if this was the sort of food served to vegans at official functions and formal dinners would I complain? I would not. So how is it done?

Make a mash of about 500g cooked floury potato, 150g cooked celeriac and 350g cooked swede. You can cook them all together in a single pan, cut the celeriac into smaller pieces than the other vegetables as it takes a little longer to become soft.

Chop 150g onions and fry gently with a couple of teaspoons full of a mild curry powder, garam masala or your own favourite mix of toasted coriander, cumin and fennel seeds ground finely. Put in a good grind of black pepper and some finely grated fresh ginger, about a tablespoon after grating. Add about 100g of crushed nuts, I used brazil nuts but hazelnuts or cashews would be fine and if you have them a small handful of raisins or sultanas. Add a little chopped green chili to taste, this should not be a hot mix but just flavoured with scent of chilies. Add this cooked mixture into your mash and stir well.

Stuff your peppers. This amount of mash will stuff about 8 peppers or maybe 10 if they're small. If that's too many for your needs, bake the left over stuffing in a small well greased loaf tin. It can be served with the peppers or saved for lunch the next day. Put your stuffed peppers in an oiled tin, tightly packed to keep them upright and pop the lids back on. Bake for at least 45 minutes at 180C and for half an hour longer if you like your peppers to be well cooked.

To serve with the peppers you will need a sauce. Chop a medium onion with two or three cloves of garlic and put to sweat in a little oil. Add a tin of tomatoes, chopped or whole, a bayleaf or two and six or eight crushed cardamom pods. Allow all this to simmer gently for 20 or 30 minutes until everything is very soft, then hook out the bay leaves and cardamom pods before liquidising the sauce with a hand blender until smooth. Add a pinch of nutmeg and salt to taste and keep it warm until the peppers are ready.

Serve one or two peppers per person, extra stuffing if liked and cover with the tomato sauce, then add a big spoonful of soya yoghurt. Delicious.

Tofu Tempeh Roast

I've been in the wilderness with cooking just recently but last night's dinner was interesting enough to record here. Marinated tofu and tempeh with sliced ginger and sweet pepper rings roasted in the oven until crispy and served with spinach and rice. It's a work in progress, I'd like the marinade to be a little thicker, richer, sweeter and the accompanying vegetables to be just as simple but more succulent still. Even without that, it was a good meal.

For pudding, a rather less successful apple bake using leftover apple puree and a cake batter that I just invented on spec. Took ages to cook and was really rather flat and soggy, but nice enough hot with some Swedish Glace icecream.

Penne Rigate con Piselli

No picture because despite my best efforts the yoghurt split and the whole thing looked a little unappetising because of it but it was much more delicious than it looked and so I'd certainly make it again.

Rigate in Italian means striped or in the case of pasta, ridged. The ridges hold lots of sauce and are most important for this dish but the actual shape of the pasta isn't too important so long as it is tubular. Ditalini, little thimbles, very short cut tubular pasta is often used instead of penne or other forms.

I was lucky enough to find some fresh peas in the local Somerfield supermarket. Despite the vast body of literature you can find supporting the frozen pea for taste and nutrition proper peas in their pods have a magic that's hard to beat. Grow them if you can, but don't miss buying them if they look fresh and young, because it is worth it.

This makes enough for four as a pasta course, three as a main course and two greedy people.

750g peas in the pod
250g penne rigate
garlic
saffron
soya yoghurt
cornflour
olive oil
sesame oil
freshly ground black pepper

Pod your peas, try not to eat too many as you do it. Put a huge pan of water on for the pasta and bring it to a good boil. Put a large pinch of saffron in a small bowl and add a couple of tablespoons of hot water.

In a deep frying pan put a splash of olive oil and a teaspoonful of toasted sesame oil and gently fry off your finely chopped garlic. I haven't given a quantity because everyone differs in how much garlic they enjoy. I used three cloves. Add the peas and stir around in the garlicky oil, season with black pepper, then add a few ladlefuls of hot water and bring to a simmer. Just how much you'll need is debatable, there should be enough to barely cover the peas so that they will cook in water but not too much or the sauce will be overly watery later.

Put your pasta into the fiercely boiling water and set a timer if you're like me and prone to forgetting how long it's had. Read the packet for timings.

Mix your saffron, its liquid, a 125g pot of soya yoghurt (or about that quantity) and a biggish teaspoonful of cornflour. My mistake I think, was insufficient cornflour but then I didn't want a custard, just to stop the yoghurt splitting. Good luck with that.

By now the water on the peas should have reduced and the peas will be tender. Carefully mix your yoghurt mixture into the pan to make a fairly liquid sauce that is golden and green with peas and will coat your pasta delightfully. When I did this I panicked and thought the sauce was too wet but actually it wasn't at all once the pasta was added.

Drain your cooked pasta well, mix into the sauce and serve, with a little chopped parsley over the top.

There's posh

Few meals of note in the last week but these were a bit special and good enough to have two nights in a row (since I made enough for four where were you on Thursday!?).

Polenta rounds, cooked, cooled, cut and charred under a hot grill, layered with a creamy carrot, brazil nut and spinach stuffing and topped off with sauteed mushrooms and onions masked with a rich wine and porcini sauce.

We served them with a little steamed cabbage and some boiled potatoes drizzled with extra of that glorious sauce.

To follow, chocolate coconut iced. A work in progress, I think I need a better icecream maker but the flavour was good.

Jam don't shake

We seem to be moving away from the original purpose of this blog but it's hard to do cooking for one in Normandy when you're cooking for two (or more) in Newport Pagnell...

Anyway, on a walk on Sunday we found a hedgerow apple tree where the fruit, and I hesitate to call them crab apples because the tree looked more like a seedling from an eating apple, were heavy, dark and pendulous. Oh no, that's the Rocky Horror Show, I meant to say heavy, enticing and nearly ripe. So I picked a bagful.

This is what I did with my free harvest.



Actually I made more jelly than that, nearly 1.5kg I think although I've not weighed up, but jars are boring to photograph and this presentation nearly shows the luscious shinyness of the of the finished preserves.

To make, chop your apples up skins and all, just removing any bad or bruised bit and put in a thick bottomed pan with just enough water to cover the fruit. Gently bring up to a simmer and allow the apples to cook until they are soft and broken down. Mash them a bit to make sure all the pieces are fully cooked. Then set up your jelly bag and set the pulp to drip for several hours. Don't squeeze the bag if you want clear jelly.

After a few hours, measure your juice. I got 2 pints, 40 imperial fluid ounces and that's a bit over a litre. If you're American you'll have to make your own calculations from that.

For the two flavours I chose mint and chili but actually apple jelly can be flavoured with almost anything, so experiment!

For the mint jelly take a pint of juice, a pound of sugar, 60ml light vinegar (white wine or cider), the juice of a lemon and a quantity of mint. I used a quarter cup (yes, I know, it's about two tablespoons or 60ml by volume) of dried mint but I would have preferred fresh mint. If you have it chop it finely until you have about two tablespoons full... Some people add a drop of green colouring and so might I have done if I'd had any, but use something naturally derived and avoid the chemicals.

Dissolve the sugar in the juice, add the vinegar, lemon juice and mint and bring to a boil. Boil hard for as long as it takes to set, this will probably be more than ten minutes but not more than twenty. I test for set with a teaspoonful of mixture onto a cold plate. Allow to cool a little then push it gently with your fingertip. If wrinkles form ahead of the finger then it's ready to pot. This is the moment to add your colouring if you're using it.

Be very careful not to burn yourself in this next stage. Pot into hot, sterile jars and put the lids on immediately.

For the chili jelly use a pint of juice and a pound of sugar as above. I didn't add any lemon or vinegar and don't think it's needed. Add two teaspoonfuls of dried chili flakes at the start of cooking and proceed as for mint jelly. One problem I had with mine was the flakes floated to the top during cooling. You can get around this by allowing the jelly to cool slightly before bottling but I really like the security of hygiene gained by doing everything while it's boiling hot.

Use as relish for savouries and as a surprise in puddings.