Vegetarian By Association

Polenta: Versatile And Easy

2008-06-29T08:46:00.003+03:00

Polenta is virtually unknown in these regions which is a shame, its delicious and remarkably easy to make. It features long shelf life making it a pantry staple and is a side dish you can easily make on a whim, while still producing something very elaborate and tasty.
Polenta is corn meal (coarse ground corn flour) used in many cuisines the world over but this particular name is Italian. Its flavor is of corn, its texture is slightly grainy while still featuring a creamy richness that provides a great supporting role for many dishes.

You can vary polenta in many ways, the two main uses of Polenta include a more creamy mashed potatoes like serving and a gratin cake like version. Both are very simple to make and both feature some amazing variations that can be carried out with a very wide range for tuning the flavor/texture to your liking.

To make Polenta take 4 cups of liquid for a change I recommend avoiding wine, its taste is too strong and carries through. For liquid I typically use vegetable stock with about half a cup of soy milk (totaling 4 cups). Bring to a boil and slowly pour in the polenta (1 cup) while mixing all the time to prevent clumping.
Keep mixing until the consistency is to your liking (add water as necessary). When done you can finish this with salt/pepper as well as butter, olive oil, parmeasan etc...

To make this into a gratin just pour it into an oven safe baking dish and smooth it up, you can cover the top with nuts (e.g. pine nuts) or cheese. Slide into a 200 degree (celcius) oven until the top is lightly browned, let this cool a bit before digging in.

You can also make a sweet variation by removing the stock from the cooking liquid and adding some sugar (roughly half a cup of light brown sugar). When done I mix in a dash of salt and a dash of cinamon. I then make a gratin out of it and fill the gratin dish with banans (which I cover using the polenta). The top I cover with nuts such as pistachio and again slide into a 200 degree oven for a desert cake that is unique and trivial to make on the spot.

Whole Wheat Ravioli

2008-06-21T21:05:00.005+03:00

I used to be overweight, most of my life I dealt with a weight problem and to this day still have to watch everything I eat. No matter how much sports or diet fads I tried, nothing really helped. But I'm stubborn and after quite a few years I eventually made some serious headway, sure I lost weight in the past but never as much as the first time I tried a high protein diet.

Today, I understand it wasn't so much the high protein diet as it was other things (such as cutting all wheat out of my diet) but back then I also started working out very aggressively and together with a high protein low calorie diet I was finally losing some serious weight.

Problem is, I love bread... It was just too painful I could live without bread and pasta but it was hard to me to live without both...

So I started looking for alternatives and stumbled onto soy flour, high protein and a possible vehicle to make high protein bread/pasta!
Bare in mind I wasn't cooking at all back then, I tried making soy ravioli and it was a disaster mainly because I had no knowledge of gluten or gumming agents. Frankly its a good thing this didn't work because soy flour alone tastes awful (its usually mixed with other flours since its flavor is harsh).

I started asking Chefs about this and why did it fail, surprisingly they had no idea... Only one chef I met at the time was even aware of the concept of gluten development. Talking with these Chefs triggered my natural curiosity, surely someone thought about the idea of connecting cooking with chemistry which is how I stumbled onto molecular gastronomy by accident.

As I developed my cooking skills in the early years pastas and ravioli were some of my specialties, lately I find my self using more dried pasta than the fresh I used to make all the time. I also hardly make ravioli at all which is a shame because its such a great dish and can be frozen (uncooked) for that special occasion.

Years after mastering pasta I watched a world famous British chef preparing pasta dough on TV, he was very adamant about not adding salt to the dough... Which reminded me about gluten formation, salt helps the gluten form during kneading and without it the dough doesn't come out properly. This might somehow pass with high protein flour but it won't do for whole wheat flour. Besides political reasons (Italy has interesting salty past) there is no reason to avoid salt in pasta, it just makes everything taste better and in reasonable amounts poses no health problems.
Salt is only avoided in some cases of yeast dough preparation and the reason for avoiding the salt in the pasta dough was never explained by that chef.

Last weekend I made these whole wheat ravioli's and filled some with sweet potato filling, I filled some of the others with broccoli. Whole wheat is special since its relatively low in gluten and requires special treatment. I served them with a fresh sauce of tomatoes, pine nuts and garlic butter.

Whole Wheat Ravioli (make a bundle and just freeze)

Hardware
Pasta machine - electric is a must! I use the mixer attachment machine
Mixer - must have you can't make this by hand or in the food processor!
Large Round cutter or simple ravioli filling apparatus
Pastry brush

Software (Pasta)
1/2 kg regular wheat flour (optionally you can use semolina durum but its expensive and perishable)
1/2 kg whole wheat flour
Pinch of salt
3 tbs olive oil
Approximately 12 eggs - guess, this is really hard to determine. It depends on flour type, weather etc...

Place the flour into the mixing bowl with salt, olive oil and mix to combine using the paddle attachment.
Crack in 8 eggs and mix add eggs until a dough is formed (dry dough).
Switch to the dough hook and start mixing, the dough should form a uniform not too sticky dough. If there are crumbly bits in the bottom add some egg or water.
Mix for 15 minutes for gluten formation.
When done remove and let rest to allow further gluten development.

Sweet potato Filling

Ingredients
One large sweet potato
4 tbs roasted garlic (recipe bellow)
Pinch paprica
Pinch cinnamon
Optional grated Parmesan (half cup)

Steam the peeled and diced potato for 20 minutes.
Mix using a table spoon with the other ingredients

Broccoli Filling

Ingredients

Half package frozen broccoli
5 tbs roasted garlic (recipe bellow)
Juice from half a lemon
2 tsp Dried oregano
Optional grated Parmesan (half cup)

Microwave broccoli a few minutes (microwave preserves nutritional and flavor elements best).
Mix in blender with the rest of ingredients.

Roasted Garlic

Hardware
Tin foil
Oven

Software
5 heads of garlic
Olive oil

Cut whole heads in half through the middle so all the cloves would be halved. Place the top and bottom of all the heads on the tin foil sheet and cover with generous amount of olive oil (salt is unnecessary here).
Fold tin foil on top of cloves to create a sealed bag with a small room for steam to escape. Put into the over in the lowest temperature possible for 3 hours, the odor will let you know when its done.
When cooled just squeeze the heads contents into a jar, the garlic will slide out like toothpaste it would be sweet and serves as a very flavorful butter substitute.
Cover the top of the garlic in the jar with olive oil to prevent oxidization and store in the fridge.

Preparing the ravioli

Roll out a sheet of dough (keep the rest covered and work in batches) keep it well floured to avoid sticking.
Cut and separate rounds using the round cutter, place a very small spoon of the filling in the center of each round.
Use pastry brush to cover the edge of half the round with eggwash (egg white mixed with a small amount of water) and fold the round while making sure to remove as much air as possible.
Place folded ravioli on wax paper to avoid sticking.
Freeze on wax paper to keep, once frozen you can place them into ziplock bags for longer term storage.

To cook the ravioli, either frozen or raw (do not defrost them they will become sticky!) just throw them into boiling water.
Plain flour ravioli are ready when they float, whole wheat ravioli take a bit longer.

Serve after roasted vegetables for a great summer dinner...

The Trick For Brown Rice Cooking (And Whole Grain Thoughts)

2008-06-09T22:25:00.005+03:00

There is a trick for cooking brown rice which is trivial, yet hardly anyone knows it... Its sad because cooking brown rice is as simple (or even simpler) than white rice yet people avoid it because its a hassle.

Normally when cooking long grain white rice we soak it and wash it (to remove starch) this is a 30 minute process we need to go through before we start cooking the rice... In brown rice the trick is simple, cook it in boiling water for 15 minutes, then dump the water (keep the rice) and just prepare it exactly the same way as you would white rice (don't wash it further! Water will stop the cooking!).

To prepare a pilaf of whole rice (brown, red etc... are all the same) just do something like this:

Ingredients:
Cooking olive oil
1 cup whole rice (brown, red etc..)
2 stalks celery
1 carrot
2 Medium Onions
4 garlic cloves
dash of cumin, paprika and cinnamon
1 3/4 cups of stock diluted with water boiling (very hot doesn't need to be at boiling temp)

Hardware:
Wide shallow pan with a lid

Preparation:
Put the cup of rice in a pot of water and boil for 15 minutes
Finely chop the peeled carrot and celery
Cut the onion in half and thinly slice (Lyon style)
Crush, peel and mince the garlic, set aside
Warm up the oil in the skillet until fragrant and a bit shimmering
Add the onion, celery, carrot and some salt on top.
Mix vegetables until uniformly covered with oil and salt
Cover the pan and let cook, open every two minutes (or when you smell/hear something) and mix to prevent the bottom from burning.
Once the onion is very lightly browned add the garlic, mix and cover for a minute
Add the spices and mix until everything is uniformly covered and wait
Drain rice from the cooking water using colander
Add the drained rice into the pan and mix to incorporate for a while (until you smell the rice cooking)
Add the hot stock mix and cover
The final rice will still have some chew to it (unlike white rice) and it will take slightly longer to cook (roughly 20 minutes).

I generally learned to like whole grain food, I think it actually tastes better than white rice/flower. Cooking it is a bit different and it spoils more easily (so keep it in the fridge), but you will be rewarded by a richer taste and a more filling result. It might be higher in terms of calories but since you will eat less its actually good for your diet.

Making Stock (Vegetable broth really)

2008-05-24T23:20:00.001+03:00

Well its not really stock, its technically vegetable broth but I'm getting ahead of myself...
The French are often blamed for making rich foods, but the real amazing concept in french cooking is stocks. These are essentially clear soups made from bones simmered for many hours to produce a distinct and deep flavor not to mention fine body and exceptional nutritional properties (think chicken soup).

What is it good for?

It gives flavor to everything, adds depth and contributes body. If you use water instead it will all evaporate and leave no flavor, density or nutritional impact. If you use wine instead the food will come out too boozy.
Today you can buy ready made stocks in the store but vegetable stock tends to taste awful and even the standard stock is pretty bad.

What can I do with stock/broth?

There are dozens of uses which I will cover in future posts but the easiest is reduction sauces. Reductions are the easiest and most elegant sauce types just mix some wine/balsamic vinegar with stock (equal parts) in a sauce pan and let stand on a hot stove until you get a sauce. 1 cup of each will produce a few table spoons worth of wonderful and trivial sauce that goes with just about anything and looks stunning.
Stock fits everywhere: in pasta sauces, curries, rice/grains you name it!

Making stock is easy but time intensive, that is why I make a HUGE amount (18 liter pot reduced to 5 liter at the end) and freeze most of it. It freezes well and used to last me for 6 months but I finish it in 3 in recent years.

The main problem is getting vegetable stock to the level of meat stock and that is somewhat difficult. Bones give a couple of things to stock that we just can't really get without them: Gelatin & Umami.

Gelatin is produced in the process of cooking down bones it is used in commercial cooking for pretty much everything, mostly jellies, yogurts, sweets but also many savory dishes. Gelatin does pretty much what the name implies, it gels the liquid causing it to act less like a liquid and more like a thick substance or even a gel.
This is remarkably useful in cooking since it gives stuff created with stock a firmer and thicker texture thanks to the gelatin. Gelatin is a protein that can only be manufactured in this process, by cooking down bones. There is no synthetic substitute for gelatin, it is usually produced from beef but can be produced from fish (for kosher reasons).

While there is no substitute for gelatin as it is we can use several things that produce similar result: Agar agar (not a misspell) is very common, I don't use it in stocks but when I need gelatin I just use it instead. Its not as easy to use or as strong but it has some advantages, it works very differently from gelatin which is a protein (agar agar is a carbohydrate).

But I digress, in making the vegetable stock I want it to be thicker than plain water which is why I add the following:
1. Potatoes chopped - normally I wouldn't add potatoes, they cloud the stock. But they contain carbs which thicken the stock and make it "sticky" which is important when we cook it down. I add very little though.

2. Chickpeas (Humus) - Not too much since their flavor is intense. They contain allot of pectin which is a naturally occurring thickener that makes Jam's gel.

These two elements help but don't produce anything near the gelling effect of gelatin which is why agar agar is useful on occasions. I can't add it to the stock though, because it will thicken the soup but will break down when I try to incorporate it into other dishes later on.

So most of the functionality of gelatin is solved... Partially at least.

What about Umami? Or better yet, what in the world is Umami?

Umami is the savory 5th taste. Most people know about 4 tastes: Sweet, Sour, Bitter and Salty (spicy is not a taste although it is delicious).
Umami is number 5 and was discovered in Japan in the turn of the 20th century, in the 90's it was proven with reasonable certainty to actually exist. It can best be described as the taste of fish, parmesan, red wine or beef. Tomatoes are probably some of the closest flavors too.

To get the Umami flavor into the stock I use Japanese Kombo seaweed and mushroom stems, both packed with remarkable amounts of Umami.

So without further ado this is how I make stock:

One very important thing before we start: DON'T ADD SALT!
Don't be "clever" I made that mistake and it just gets too salty after reduction, its not necessary and it doesn't help.

Take the largest pot you have and measure its content in liters or pints, this is easy just find a container whose size you know and fill it with water then fill that water into the pot. E.g.:
A one liter cup would take 18 times to fill my stock pot which is 18 liters deep.

Ingredients all amounts are for 4 liters of stock just multiply based on the size of the pot and vary freely since this is not exact science at all!:
Kombo Seaweed - 1 leaf
Dried Chickpeas - 1/2 cup
Mushroom stems (I use the mushroom itself for something good, no need to waste it on stock) - 5 stems (they tend to cloud the stock so don't overdo mushrooms).
Potato - 1
Onion - 4 large (yellow or white would be better, purple runs off)
Leak - 1 large
Carrot - 2 large (don't overdo them they make the stock too sweet)
Celery sticks - 8 (no leaves! really! they turn the stock bitter).
Whole garlic - 1 head
Pepper corns - 10
Bay leaves - 5
Whole Allspice - 3
Freshly grated nutmeg - a pinch
(you can add spices but be aware that everything you make with the stock will taste of them, I love cumin but don't want it in my italian cooking...).

Optional:
Celery root, Parsley root and generally anything you can think of as long as you avoid:
Seedy fruit (like tomatoes and eggplant etc...), starchy vegetables (like potato too much can be bad and we already have allot), leaves (we are not making soup so even if you like leaves in soup this won't be a good idea here long cooking will bring out their bitterness).

Night before preparation:
Fill pot 3/4 with water
Clean the Kombo leaves with a wet towel and brisk motion (its OK for it to have white powder on it but try to get it off, its too salty).
Put the Kombo leaves in the water pot and put it in the fridge overnight (approximately 12 hours).
Soak the chickpeas overnight in water too (separate from the stock pot obviously!)

Morning:
Place the stock pot on the stove and remove the Kombo leaves, you can use them for a salad but I usually throw them away.
Throw away the water of the chickpeas and wash them before adding them to the pot, place the pot on a low simmer.

Prepare all the vegetables. Cut them all up very coarsely and add into the pot no need to chop anything down.

Optional, if you want to go the extra mile:
Keep a few select vegetables aside and place them in your stove for roasting until they brown properly. Then deglaze the pan using some of the stock liquid and add everything into the stock.

After roughly 8 to 12 hours the stock should be done, remove as much of the vegetables as possible before filtering using a cheesecloth folded twice over itself (creating four layers).
You now have vegetable stock that will be reasonable enough to fool most people used to chicken stock.

As the stock simmers do not fill it with additional water, the idea is to "reduce" the stock and concentrate the flavor. Remove foam from the top using a spoon or a mesh strainer.

Basic Cooking Concepts

2008-04-19T13:06:00.000+03:00

To simplify future posts I'll try to explain some basic concepts of cooking that apply to all cooking (not just vegetarian) but are even more important in the case of vegetarian cooking.

These concepts are far more important in vegetarian cooking since they impart flavor, body and nutritional values elements which are much needed in vegetarian food. Meat in this regard is relatively simple, it "takes over" the entire meal... Both nutritionally and in terms of flavor/texture impact, vegetarian food needs far more to prevent it from falling into "just a bunch of side dishes" trap.

I use wine extensively in cooking, I always have a decent red/white wine for making dishes ranging from sauces to Risotto. However, wine isn't enough. French chefs have been using stock for decades to provide flavor and body to their food, these stocks are made from simmering (optionally roasted) bones for 8 hours or more... The difference in flavor (and nutritional impact) is amazing.
I make a vegetable stock, but not a typical french vegetable stock (which is mostly flavorless). I make the stock based on a combination of Japanese/French methodology with some great ideas I got elsewhere. This is something I make every 3 months or so and I can freeze it for extensive periods of time. I will try to write a more detailed post explaining how I make stock at a later date.

Most dishes start with what the French call an aromatic "base", the French have a classic aromatic base which I often use called mirepoix pronounced (mir puwa). The mirepoix is a combination of finely chopped onions, celery and carrot. This combination can be varied considerably for many uses (I vary it with the likes of chillis, bell pepers and even apples), these aromatics are usually sautaed in the pan before "building" the dish on top of them. This provides a strong body and flavor to the dish not to mention the nutritional impact of these vegetables.

There are many techniques used to create sauces and in fact most sauces are created using 2 or even more different techniques, the most common technique for sauce creation is known as "reduction". This is one of the simplest techniques possible, it consists of placing a flavored liquid (usually wine & stock etc...) over heat and just letting the water evaporate out of the sauce thus increasing the ratio of solids in the sauce. This causes the sauce to be more viscus and thus feel more like a sauce than a liquid. I will try to write in the future explaining the different types of sauces and the theory behind them.

Some Simple Dishes

2008-04-18T17:37:00.001+03:00

When I teach a class (normally advanced Java development) I like to first provide an overview of the finished product to prepare the expectations of the class. Same holds true for every subject, so before I go into theory and overview of what I do/how I do it here are some simple dishes I made recently. Most of these I just made for lunch during the middle of the week for no special occasion and require far less effort than what it might seem...

Asian style tomato, rice noodle salad

Tempeh with Perl Barley Pilaf

Sour cauliflower on red rice

Sesame tofu Avocado salad with coriander pesto sauce

Green beans on red rice pilaf, mung beans in red wine glaze

Vegetarian By Association

2008-04-18T14:36:00.000+03:00

I'm a meat eater, I love meat... Red meat, what the hell am I doing writing a vegetarian food blog???
Well, life takes you in strange directions over the years you just might end up in a completely unpredictable place. My significant other was not a vegetarian when we met, as she got deeper into her Yoga practice and teaching she decided to no longer eat meat. She was never a big meat eater so for her the transition was rather simple, I however am a huge foodie who could not imagine a life without meat...
I became a partial vegetarian when I'm with her and learned to appreciate some of the good things about vegetarianism, in this blog I hope to help others who in my position were faced with a significant other who is vegetarian or who want to be vegetarian but are reluctant.

I can go on about the slow transformation in which I learned to appreciate vegetarian cooking but the bottom line is that I learned to cook and like "proper" vegetarian food. When prepared properly vegetarian food can be very satisfying even to an avid meat eater such as myself.

I often hear people using the exact same excuses I used against cutting down meat, so just so we are on the same page:

I get headaches when I don't eat meat all day and I feel weaker - thats because I didn't eat meat but followed a bad diet
Nothing tastes as good as meat - there is no meat substitute... Don't try to sell tofu (or even Tempeh) as a meat substitute they are more like cheese. However, too much of a "good thing" makes us lose some of our appreciation to meat, I learned to appreciate it much more in recent years.
Proper nutrition in a vegetarian diet is really hard - thats true, but there are some basic simple principals you can follow to eat healthy vegetarian food. Sadly malnutrition is a common problem with some vegetarians.

I still eat meat on occasion but I only cook vegetarian food, its got several advantages which I learned to appreciate. You don't have to completely quit meat in order to gain some of the following advantages from a vegetarian diet:

Lighter food - none of that heavy can't get up after eating feeling
Environmentally friendly - even if you are a global warming skeptic you can't argue against the environmental benefits in terms of land usage for a vegetarian diet
Less perishable food, more affordable food
Easier with guests who maintain dietary restrictions
Safer food - lesser chance of food borne contaminations

In my next post I will go deeper into the practical aspects of vegetarian cooking.