beouf bourguingon

At the risk of being very clichéd (ooh, French word), I’m going to ask… have you seen Julie and Julia?

If you haven’t, as a food blog reader, you should. If you have, you’ll know that Beouf Bourguingon has become the dish that all food-bloggers must cook and write about, and so you’ll understand my trepidation when it came to turning seitan and fake bacon into something rich, satisfying, and melt-in-your-mouth Frenchish.

This dish usually requires long cooking on the stove and/or in the oven, which is something that seitan, in my experience, just doesn’t handle well. Also, its full of wine, which requires some tender negotiations at my place, as Mr hates the alcohol industry, and I have tried the non-alcoholic vegan stuff before – it only comes in sweet, which doesn’t work in dinner.

I was successful in my diplomatic mission, so it was on to conquer the seitan.

In my normal, scattered style, I read a bunch of recipes, got a feel for it, then started to cook, with some vegan adjustments. I will give you a recipe of sorts, but you’ll have to excuse the lack of measurements. I measure only when writing recipes, and even then, it feels like a bit of an imposition!

It ended up almost perfect. Gorgeous, rich, winey sauce, perfectly cooked vegies. Unfortunately, the seitan was a little rubbery, as I had feared. The recipe below reflects what I did, but if I make it again I would adjust it to use Fry’s Beef-style Strips instead of ordinary seitan, and I would add them close to the end to avoid the rubber-effect.

"Beef" Bourgingon and creamy celeric puree

You’ll need:

• Fake Bacon, diced
• A chunk of seitan, chopped, beef style (note, this may have been better with the Fry’s strips, and I suggest you try it).
• a bunch of tiny onions
• mushrooms, sliced thinly
• garlic, minced
• carrots
• celery
• about 1/4 cup flour
• a few tablespoons tomato sauce
• “beef” flavoured stock powder
• 2-3 cups red wine
• salt, pepper, dried thyme
• 4 bay leaves
• some fresh parsley

1. Brown the mushrooms in margarine, then set aside.
2. Brown the whole small onions in oil and stock, then set aside.
3. In a large saucepan, cook the bacon in some oil, set aside, leaving oil.
4. In the same pan, cook the garlic for 5 minutes. Add the carrots and celery, and cook over medium heat for 10 minutes.
5. At the same time, bring the wine to a boil in a small saucepan. Boil for 5 minutes.
6. Remove the  vegies from the saucepan. Coat with flower, then return to pan and fry until lightly browned. Stir occasionally, but don’t get too concerned about them sticking at this point.
7. Add the wine, bay leaves and stock powder (dissolved in water) at this point. Bring to the boil, then lower heat to simmer for 45 minutes.
8. Add the seitan, mushrooms, thyme, onions, and tomato paste. Continue to cook for another 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
9. Remove the bay leaves. Leave on low or no heat until ready to serve.
10. Just before serving, add the parsley and bacon.

We had it with a e celeraic and potato puree: Boil diced celeraic and diced potato until they’re beginning to fall apart. Mash with soy milk, vegan cream cheese, chicken-flavoured stock powder, salt, pepper, margarine and nutritional yeast. Its rich and fatty, and really pretty fabulous.

Yum.

Puerto Rico *catch-up double post Tuesday*

I decided to include Puerto Rico in my America stop for two reasons: most people don’t realise that Puerto Rico is somewhat Governed by the USA, and there are actually more Puerto Rican people living in mainland USA than in Puerto Rico.

I’m a little behind on the plan, so Monday night became Puerto Rico night, as we spent the weekend gallivanting around the city eating other people’s food (and a big shout out goes to Laksmi Villas in Dandenong- best Indian Vegetarian we’ve come across in Melbourne, seriously good coconut chutney).

I chose to make Rice and Pigeon Peas, which claims to be the national dish, and Chicken Tofu Fricasse. Both dishes were a little time consuming, but it was nice to get back into the swing of it after a few days off. I used recipes from Rican Recipes, and made a couple of adjustments to veganise.

Rice and Pigeon Peas, as the name suggests, usually uses Pigeon Peas. I don’t know where I’d get these, and in the end I used ordinary peas, which worked, although made the dish less authentic, and less protein-packed. I also used brown rice instead of white, to make it a little more nutritious. I also didn’t have a packet of onion soup, and so added some celery salt and a little stock powder.

Pigeon Peas and Rice

The Rice and peas were seriously delicious, and was my favourite of the two dishes. They were a risotto-style dish, with a strong tomato and spices flavour. The recipe was easy to follow, although if you give it a go do make sure to click the links for Sazon (spices) and Sofrito (tomato and onion mixture) first, as you’ll need to have some extra ingredients to make them and add them to the pot.

With it, we had Tofu Fricasse, my vegan version of Chicken Fricasse. Again I followed the recipe with the exception of some necessary substitutions, such as tofu instead of chicken, and my last strip of vegan bacon instead of the ham.

Cooking tofu fricasse

This dish was a sort of casserole by Aussie standards. It had potato, peas, whole olives, onions, tomatoes and tofu, making it a hearty and satisfying winter meal. The one thing I would change next time around? I would use ordinary wine or stock, instead of using the last of the non-alcoholic stuff I did use- silly Keira, Lambrusco and savory don’t mix. It turned the Fricasse a little sweet, which didn’t mesh well with the other flavours.

They were served together with some avocado and some coriander from the garden, which added to the yumminess.

The finished product

Both dishes turned out well, and I would happily make them again. I loved the combination of tomatoes, olives, capers, cumin and chilli, which int something you come across very often. Many other dishes at Rican Recipes looked fabulous too, and I had to stop myself from making the Caramel Flan (we’ve definitely had enough dessert for a little while). Maybe I’ll have to make another stop at Puerto Rico during the culinary tour. We’ll see.