Tunisian nights

The first night of Tunisian food featured vegetable couscous, pretend mergues sausages, and cauliflower salad a la sfax.

Tunisian style couscous is quite different to what were used to: It is steamed, rather than made in a pot with liquid stirred in, and the vegetables are served on the side, rather than in the couscous itself.

The vegetables were cooked in a light tomato sauce, and were spicy and delicious. I used carrots and zucchini, but left out the turnips, as I forgot them when I went shopping. I wussed out and didn’t steam the couscous, lacking the required implements, so we had completely inauthentic (but tasty) grains.

Tunisian vegetable couscous

The cauliflower and potato salad (Cauliflower salad a la sfax) is named after a city called Sfax, which is the second largest city in Tunisia. The salad is made of potato, cauliflower, olive oil, harissa, carraway and lemon juice. It was seriously good, and had two of my top five favourite vegies in it, so I was pleased. I will absolutely be making this again, and it may even take the place of my stand-by BBQ salad.

Cauliflower salad a la Sfax

I took the recipe for the vegetable couscous and the cauliflower salad straight from North African Cookery, which you can borrow (when I give it back next week) from the Moreland library, so I won’t publish the recipes here.

Sausages frying in the wok

For protein I decided to add sausages, which had been languishing in the fridge and needed using. In a paltry attempt to fit in with the theme, I rubbed them with hot sauce and fennel powder, and pretended they were the famed mergues spicy sausages. They were really yummy, and I think this is something I’ll try again to keep our frequent dose of B12-fortified convenience a little more interesting.

It was a filling, spicy, flavoursome dinner. The vegetables that went with the couscous were good, but probably not my choice – I think I prefer roasted vegies in my couscous.

Yum

I’m looking forward to tomorrow night- chickpeas, garlic, and more cauliflower and tomatoes.

Hot Dogs and accidental vegan ingredients

The second thing I ever gave up when I gave up meat (the first time) was sausages. The first was meat pies. Its pretty easy to do, because while they are both very tasty, they’re also pretty darn gross. Since discovering vegan meat substitutes, sausages have been the second hardest thing to take on again, after pies.

Due to my unsubstantiated fear of meat-like vegan products I had not, until now, tried the Sanitarium Hot Dogs. I have gotten used the other sausages, but was not yet ready to embrace the weird red colour, and frankfurter flavour I remember from my childhood.

Well that ends now, because its time for vegan hot dogs. We made them new-york style, with white buns, onion sauce, tomato relish and mustard (with some extra tomato sauce thrown in for good measure.  They were stupidly delicious, felt junky, satisfying, and like they would indeed be the perfect food for taking in a live sportsball game. (sorry meat-pie, I’m just not that into you).

I didn’t get photos, because they were gone to quick! It was also the night of the desexing for mumma cat Frances, and she had been meowing like a crazy thing for about 4 hours by the time we came to eat, hopped up on whatever they give cats, so my mind was a little scattered.

I did, however get a few pics of my latest accidentally vegan find- white hot dog buns, from Coles.

I found them in my search for appropriate hot-dog-holding bread. I picked the packet up with trepidation in the supermarket, expecting to find a list of non-vegan numbers staring back at me from the ingredients list. Instead  found this:

Derived from vegetable sources yay!

These were fluffy, white, and practically tasteless (I’d forgotten that about white bread, its been so long). They were the perfect hot dog receptacle.

I don’t usually like big brands, especially those belonging to large supermarkets, evil price-gouging, farmer-f$$king, environment-destroying, small-business stomping creatures that they can be, but I would suggest using these if you are ever in need of hot dogs, and unable to get to a vegan bakery.

Thanks for sticking with me thus far. Next up, pizza!

Azeri things I made before I got sick

I have a confession to make… I cheated a little. I actually did manage to make two Azerbaijani dishes before I got sick. So I’m gonna post them now, and have Fry’s schnitzle for dinner tonight

I made Dushbere, an Azeri dumpling soup, from the recipe over at AZCookBook, and Zebra cake, from a recipe at the same website (she really is fab). There are other recipes around, but I preferred to use the first one I found there.

The dumplung soup was tedios to make, and instead of getting 5-10 dumplings per spoon (!) I only got 1-2. Clearly I need to work on my tiny dumpling making skills.

I substituted mushed Sanitarium sausages for the mince, but I otherwise followed the recipe. It was so yummy, but I’m not sure its worth the work! I don’t have a photo, because I was in a bit of pain and forgot, but I can tell you it was yummy.

Earlier that day I also made Zebra cake. It is a chocolate and vanilla cake that is patterned to look like Zebra stripes. I have posted photos below, and it looks so pretty. I substituted silken tofu for the egg, and soy milk for milk. Mine was a little too wet, so I suggest only substituting about half as much tofu as egg, volume wise.

Zebra cake

It was so pretty that I’m going to appropriate the technique for an Orange and Chocolate Tiger cake, which will hopefully be in the book (a yet-to-be-named chocolate themed Vegan cookbook), whenever I finish it.

Kufta, Ajab Sandal, and cute kids

Before I move on to the rest of this post, check out these recipes and essays, submitted by school kids in Azerbaijan. I think they’re just great. Some are insightful, some sad, and most cute. I especially like the pictures that go with the writing.

I found those while I was looking for recipes, and came across one for something called Ajab Sandal. I don’t know where it comes from, except that at least one person in Azerbaijan makes it. It looked tasty, had more vegetables than some of the other options, and seemed easily veganisable. It is a vegetable and meat stew, with corriander, dill and parsley.

I followed the recipe exactly, using mashed sausages (I had four left over after the piti) instead of mutton mince. It tasted good during my taste tests, and Mr says the final result was good, but I didn’t quite get to tasting it properly.

You see, I have a thing about dill. Its due to a nasty scent-memory from a high school hospitality course. Each student was supposed to make hollandaise sauce. Real hollandaise sauce curdles easily, and is flavoured with dill. 2 1/2 hours of the scent of curdled eggs and butter with dill 9 years ago, and I still can’t stomach the stuff today, as the smell puts me off food. It was  a small miracle that I liked the salad yesterday! Ah well. Dill-phobia aside, it looked good, I initially liked it, and Mr said it was tasty. So check out the recipe and give it a go.

Unfortunately, due to the dill incident, I didn’t get a good photo last night (I avoided the kitchen for a bit). So this photo was taken this morning, of the left overs. It doesn’t look a pretty, but it gives you an idea of what it looks like.

Ajab Sandal

Soup tonight is Kufta-Bozbash. The internet claims that the ingredients are the same as last night’s piti, however the mice is turned into kufta (meatballs), presented in a broth. I had a lot of soup left over from last night, so I decided to get my recycle on. I strained the soup, and mashed the vegies and sausages with my hands. I added some bread crumbs, rolled them into balls, and popped them in the oven on moderate for about 15 minutes. I re-heated the broth, and served the cooked balls in it. My kufta was clearly not the same as if it had been made out of mince, but they tasted good, and were quite fluffy due ot the potato from the soup. The broth tasted wonderfully full bodied and buttery, as it had improved over night.

Kufta Bozbash

It might be worth noting here that we don’t usually eat mutli-stage meals, or nearly this much margarine and faux meat.  In the in between weeks, I’m tempted to make us eat steamed veg and gruel to compensate!

Piti, Khangal, salad and Sherbert

This was easier Azeri food.

Piti, usually a mutton soup with mutton fat (challenging to replace), Khangal, pasta with mince and yoghurt sauce, salad, and sherbert, a sweet drink.

I don’t know why this photo is going all stretchy, and wordpress isn’t letting me fix it. Sorry.

Clockwise from top: Salad, Khangal and Piti

First, the Sherbert. This was actually the second time I had turned my hand to sherbert-making. The first time, Mr mistook the liquid cooling in a bottle for me trying to soak a bottle, and tipped it down the sink. In his defence, it is clear. Then again, if he had given it a sniff, surely he would have noticed it had a strong smell of roses. In any case, it got made again.

I followed the recipe from the Ministry of Tourism, sort of. I didn’t use rose petals, because I can’t imagine where I would find them, without becoming a petal-robber, stalking Brunswick in the night. So I used rose water instead. Its easy to find here, with the big Lebanese  influence in the area. Given I didn’t use real rose-petals, I also didn’t see the need to let it draw for such a long time. I didn’t add ice, I just poped the mix in the fridge until it was cold. My last change to the recipe? I added a little tiny bit of pink food colouring, so it wouldn’t get poured down the drain this time.

It was pretty good. Sweet, rose-falvoured (I love rose water!) with a lemony, citrus flavour underneath. (the lemon-acid referred to in the recipe is citric acid). Totally worth the small amount of effort, and it might just go into rotation at home.

Next was the Piti (I’ve also seen it spelled Pyty). It is usually made of mutton, mutton fat, butter, and vegetables. The veges were easy, of course. For the mutton I substituted Sanitarium vegan sausages, chopped into small bits and fried in olive oil. After that I followed this recipe, however as before, I could not find dried sour plums, so they were left out. I cooked it until the sausages were quite soft, to simulate the tender meat in the real deal, and added some beef flavoured stock to compensate for the lack of mutton butter.

This was also pretty tasty, and surprisingly buttery. Again, I can’t tell how close to the real thing it was, but it tasted good to me.

Last was Khangal. I have only found one description of this dish on the internet, and no recipe, but it sounded so good, I guessed at a recipe, which is below. It is a pasta dish, with mice meat, butter, and garlic yoghurt sauce. Challenging to veganise in Australia, where we don’t have vegan natural yoghurt, or butter, but we gave it a shot, ad it was fantastic! it will be made again, and was great with the salad I added. According to the article (link above) Khangal is not a dish shared with guests. If I guessed at the recipe correctly, that’s a shame, because it was very tasty, and might go with the sherbert into my dinner options list.

The salad was just a quick mixture of cucumber, parsley, corriander and dill.

Vegan Khangal Recipe

• One packet sanitarium mince
• One onion, chopped finely
• Olive oil (about 3 tbs)
• mixed spice
• cumin
• dried mint
• pepper
• salt
• chicken style stock
• flat pasta broken into strips (or you could make your own)
• Tofutti sour cream (1/3 cup)
• 1 clove garlic, chopped very very finely
• 1 tbs vegan margarine

1. Chop all ingredients.
2. Boil enough water to cook your pasta in, and begin to cook pasta. If you are going to make your own pasta, do so now, and cook it right at the end. (I didn’t have time this time around)
3. Fry onion in a large frying pan, until soft.
4. Add mince. It may need mashing with a fork to get the right consistency. Fry for at least 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
5. Add stock and spices to taste. Stir through. I like mine very flavourful, others don’t. Do your own thing.
6. Add about 1/3 cup water, stir through and allow to simmer until water is soaked up.
7. Mix the garlic with the sour cream in a small cup.
8. Drain the pasta. Place it back into the saucepan and add margarine. Leave to melt (off heat).
9. Place pasta on plates, cover with mince, then add dollops of sour cream mixture. Serve with salad.