The first feast

The first Iranian things I tried making were from the dinner selection.

The menu went as follows:

• bread
• herb salad
• pickles
• kashk-e badenjan
• chelow
• khoresht – sour tofu and herbs

I read in Saraban that Iranian meals usually begin with flat bread and a basket of herbs and cheese. These are then followed by pickles, lie or lemon, then the ‘main’ component, either soup or stew and rice.

I actually went and made the bread (which is a BIG DEAL because I have tried and failed at bread many times over), but I bought the pickles. The bread I made was barberi, or breakfast bread – I made sure we had some left for breakfast the next day.

I used the recipe from Saraban and it turned out…okish. It was fluffy, but also had that slightly bland, tough thing going on which my bread always has. I’m doing something very wrong with bread, but I just don’t know what it is. Imma buy it instead.

There are no photos of the bread, but there will be some from breakfast.

The herb salad came mostly from our back yard veggie patch, but our eggplants are still pretty weedy looking and haven’t fruited yet, so I bought the eggplant too.

Salad, pickles and khask-e badenjan

The eggplant side dish was the star of the evening. I have added a veganised version of the Saraban recipe below, because it was so fabulous it really must be shared.

The chelow, which is Iranian rice, is another riff off of the pilaf theme which pervades the cuisines of central asia, southern europe and the middle east, this one with a very crunchy bottom. The crunchy-bottom concept is a concept I came across a few years back when I covered Azerbaijan, but I didn’t have the right tools to replicate it then.

Now, with my hard-anodised pan of non-stick wonder, I was able to turn my attention to an appropriately crunchy-bottomed rice dish.

It turned out beautifully – lovely and golden, crispy and fluffy. Sadly though, the crispiness was actually a little too crispy for Mr and I. I think we prefer our grains with a little give. It was gorgeous though, I’ll give it that.

Khoresht and chelow

The stew, or khoresht, was from this recipe for sour chicken stew at Turmeric and Saffron. I followed it for the most part, subbing fried tofu for the chicken, and making a much smaller dish over all. I also used lime instead of bitter orange, because I don’t know where I would get a bitter orange in Melbourne.

Frying tofu in the wonder-pan – looks tastier than it was.

I enjoyed the stew especially the sour part,  but Mr was not so fussed about it. The tofu didn’t really take in much flavour, and if I made it again i would marinate it a long while before frying it.

 

Eggplant with sour creamy sauce

• 1 large eggplant
• salt
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 small onion
• olive oil
• pepper
• dried herbs (the original recipe specifies mint, but I had none so used some dill, tarragon and oregano)
• 3 Tbs tofutti better than cream cheese
• 100ml water
• 2 Tbs vinegar

1. Peel and slice the eggplant into rounds. Salt and leave to sweat for 20 minutes.
2. Pre-heat the oven to 220 degrees.
3. Fry the onion and garlic in some oil until just soft. Set aside, but don’t clean the pan.
4. Wash and fry the slices, then fry in batches until just coloured on each side in the same pan as used for the onions.
5. Put all the eggplant, onions and garlic into a baking dish with some pepper and dried herbs and bake for 20-30 minutes. (Mine were 30 minutes, but that was while I waiting for something else to happen, so it might not need this long)
6. Pull the eggplant out of the oven and mash with a fork. It will be a bit lumpy.
7. Put the mashed eggplant in a serving dish, with some room left over.
8. In a small saucepan which the tofutti, water and vinegar and bring to the boil. Return to simmer, stirring constantly until it is a little thicker.
9. Pour the liquid on top of the eggplant and serve warm or at room temperature.

 

 

Quick Hit – Aoili

I may have stumbled across the best vegan aioli. In the world. Ever.

Ok, so I haven’t had vegan aioli before now, so I may be over-reaching with that statement, but its was pretty darn good. Here’s the recipe:

Vegan Aioli

• 1 pack firm silken tofu (297g)
• 3 tb olive oil
• 3tbp vinegar
• 2-5 cloves garlic, roasted (I’m a 5 clove girl, Mr is more a 1-2 clove person)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp pepper
• 1 tsp nooch
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp celery salt
• 2 tbs water

• Roast garlic cloves (skin on) in hot oven until soft, or about 15 minutes.
• Allow garlic to cool, then peel it.
• Add all ingredients to bowl or blender and blend/mix until smooth.
• Taste test, add vinegar, salt and pepper as necessary.
• Serve with oven baked wedges.
• Bask in the awesome.

We’ve had it twice this week – twice with wedges, and once some leftovers used in some brown rice sushi.

Wedges, Aioli and Kangkong salad

Carrot and Cucumber Sushi and Cold ginger tofu

Cannelloni

Cannelloni is my favourite pasta dish. I adore it, and make it whenever I can. I used to love it filled with egg and cheese and covered in parmesan, but I think my vegan version stands up to the test.

Vegan Cannelloni

You can use bought pasta cannelloni “shells” if you like, but the recipe for the dough follows if you’d like to strike out and try making your own. It takes more time, but ts well worth it for the perfect al dente finish, not to mention the zen that kneading dough can bring.

Keira’s Favourite Vegan Cannelloni Recipe, makes 4 serves

Note: this works best if you have a rectangular baking dish about 33cm x 20cm x 5cm. You may need to increase the topping recipe if you have a larger, or two small dishes.

For the Pasta

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 cup water

Filling

• 350g tofu, crumbled
• 100g cheezly, crumbled
• lots of nutmeg
• one bunch kale (about 6 leaves), chopped finely and cooked (I boil it)
• salt
• pepper
• 2 tbs nooch
• little soy milk

Topping

• 3 tbs Olive oil
• 1 onion, chopped finely
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 6 -8 large tomatoes, diced
• 3 cups water
• 2 bay leaves
• 4 tbs tomato paste
• sugar, salt and pepper as necessary

Method

1. In case you didn’t read the ingredients properly, now is the time to cook the kale
2. Pre-heat oven to 160 degrees
3. Start with the sauce. In a large saucepan heat some olive oil, then add onion and fry for about 10 minutes, until soft and translucent.
4. Add the garlic, and fry for another 5 minutes, being careful not to burn it.
5. Add tomatoes and cook for 15 minute over low heat.
6. Add all other ingredients (save the salt and sugar). Bring to the boil, then return to slow simmer, lid on, for the time being (about 40 minutes)
7. In a large bowl, or just on your bench, if you’re feeling adventurous, pile the flour and make a well, resulting in a volcano shape.I wrap a towel around my bowl, to stop it sliding around while I mix the dough.
   

   volcano

8. Pour the water into the well, and slowly add the flour into the middle, little by little, until all flour is combined with the liquid, and you have a loose dough.
9. On a floured surface knead the dough until it becomes smooth and elastic, about 10-15 minutes. Rest the dough in an oiled bowl, covered, for 30 minutes.
10. While the dough is resting make the filling. In a clean large bowl, mix all the ingredients for the filling together. This works best if you use your hands. Taste, and add salt and pepper and more nutmeg as necessary. Its the nutmeg that helps replicate the classic cannelloni flavour, so feel free to go heavy.
11. Check on the sauce. If it is beginning to look right, take it off the heat. Taste and add what you need (I like a little sugar in mine, if it isn’t in the tomato paste.) If it isn’t ready yet, you know what to do – leave it on the heat. Its ready when it tastes good, and is thick enough to coat the spoon.
12. Place about 1/5 of the sauce on the bottom of a large baking dish, coating it in a thin layer. Don’t forget to fish the bay leaves out first, and discard them.
13. On a floured surface, roll out the dough in 1 or 2 batches, as bench-space allows. Roll out until the dough is about 3-4mm thick, in a rectangle shape, approximately the same width as your baking dish, and a double the length. If your dough keeps bouncing back, you need to let it sit longer before rolling.
    

    Rolled out

14. Starting at one end, place the filling mixture down the edge of the dough. Brush the dough with some water, and roll into a cannelloni shape. Cut along the edge to form a cylinder. Place the pasta shape into the baking dish.
    

    the filling

15. Repeat with the remaining dough and filling. My dish takes about 8 large rolls, so I use one 8th of the filling for each one. This will depend on the size of your dish/es.
    

    Without sauce

16. Once all the rolls are in the baking dish, cover with the sauce, ensuring that all pasta is coated.
    

    With sauce

17. Place the dish in the pre-heated oven, and cook for 35-40 minutes.
18. Enjoy with an enormous salad.
    

    Yum

Gintaang Talong and Adobong Gulay

Gintaang Talong is Eggplant in Coconut milk. Similar to the squash in coconut milk, but much simpler. Basically, you just get some eggplant, and simmer it in coconut milk. Easy.

I used the recipe from http://www.asiarecipe.com which has an excellent section on vegetarian Filipino foods.

It turned out like this:

mmm, yummy eggplant

So, sort of grey, and not super appetising, but actually quite nice, if a little bland.

We had it with Adobong gulay, or vegetables cooked in vinegar and soy sauce. I have read the Adobo is a quintessential Filipino meal, so i thought I’d better give it a try.

I used the recipe from the book I mentioned in an earlier post (the title of which I can’t remember, but its blue and at the Coburg Library) But this recipe from Asiarecipe.com is similar. I used potatoes as the vegetable, I used apple cider vinegar and I added tofu to get some protein on our plates. The recipe I used called for tinned tomatoes, but none of the net versions do, so do what you feel, I guess. This was very yummy, and quite sour to my tastes.

Potato Adobo

Filipino food should be served with very different flavours on the same plate – the people pride themselves on their interesting palate, and like to have spicy, salty, creamy, sweet and sour flavours in contrast to each other. To stay at least a little traditional, we had the creamy, almost bland eggplant and the tangy, sour adobo together, making for a stark contrast. This was different for me, as I usually try to match flavours, but it was tasty and fun.

Flavours at war

 

Devil Curry and Ais Limau

After the disastrous attempt at sambal, I decided it would be wise to go back to the world of following recipes.

This one is a recipe from The Food Of Malaysia, by Wendy Hutton, which by the time you are reading this, will be back in the Preston Library for you to enjoy.

Devil Curry, called so for its chilli content, is a Malacca Eurasian dish, with Indian, Malaysian and Spanish influences. I followed the recipe, being a little shy after the sambal-incident, however of course I left out the chicken and replaced it with tofu.

Devil curry didn’t end up being all that hot. I don’t know why, it just wasn’t. Maybe because we’d been eating chillies all week, or maybe I used the wrong variety. In any case, it didn’t bother us, as it was delicious.

Yum, Devil Curry

Hearty and full of potato and tofu, spicy with chillie, ginger, turmeric, lemon grass, garlic (I love garlic!), and a little sour with the vinegar, it was a perfect meal when served up with rice.

I also made us some Ais Limau (Lime cordial) to go with it. There is no trick to this, but I’ll post the recipe for the syrup-ly challenged.

Ais Limau

Ais Limau

• 4 Limes, juiced
• 1/2 to 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 litre water
• 2 Limes, cut into wedges
• ice

In a small saucepan add the lime juice and sugar. Stir over low heat until the sugar dissolves. Add the water and stir until mixed thoroughly. Remove from heat, decant into a glass bottle, and cool.

When cool, add ice and lime wedges to glasses. Pour the cordial over and enjoy

“Edible” Playdough: at least it wasn’t blue

Next up in our culinary trip to Tanzania, we tried Kuku Paka (tofu in coconut milk), Kachumbali salad, and Ugali, the national grain dish. I let you know now, it was a dreary night, with a rush to eat, bad photos, and not my best cooking effort. Sorry.

For the tofu in coconut milk, I reformed this omni recipe, substituting tofu for the chicken. It tasted great – a lovely mild curry, with lots of yummy coconut milk – but turned out a little thin. I figured that would be ok though, as it would be served with the Ugali.

Ugali is usually made with maize, and is basically a grain-mush, so far as I can tell. It is eaten with curries, by scooping some into your hand, putting a thumb-sized well in it, and using it to scoop up sauces and stews. We are big fans of eating sans-utensils, so I thought this would be fun.

I looked up various recipes, and eventually settled on this one. It is supposedly very popular, and served with most meals, and I was hopeful that it would turn out better than it sounded. Alas, water and corn-grit mixed together and heated until it is the consistency of playdough tastes and feels quite a lot like it sounds… gritty and beyond-bland.

After a few determined mouthfuls, I caved, and made some very quick cous cous instead, to help us finish the meal. This is one of those times when I just have to admit defeat, and sigh over the immense Western-ness of my palate. *sigh*

We also had Kachumbali salad, which is apparently the most ubiquitous salad in Tanzanian cooking. It consists of cabbage, tomato, chilli, onion, corriander, oil and salt. I used this recipe from Taste of Tanzania. I’m not usually a fan of cabbage, however this salad was divine.

A little salty, sour and slightly warm, it was the perfect accompaniment to the curry, but I think it would also work well with vegan BBQ or a spicy tomato-based dish. The dish I wasn’t sure about ended up saving the night!

It was, as I said, a bit of a rushed night, but I’m not sure that even that can excuse this photo:

Top left: Ugali. Everything else: Tofu in coconut milk

White-girl curry tofu

I haven’t heard many other Aussies talk about this dish with the fervor my sister does- she is a true fan. When we were kids its was a big hit at our place, and the only point of tension would be the debate about using sausages, or barbecued chicken. I used tofu this time, after suffering from sausage-overload during a weekend away. I fully expect to bear the wrath of my sister for committing this atrocity

When I was a kid this was just called curry. Curry chicken, curry sausages. I learned to call it ‘white-girl curry’ after moving away from home and eatng a lot of actual curries. Its nothing – really nothing- like curries from anywhere else in the world. Turns out curry doesn’t usually have flour in it!

So, what is white-girl curry? It is basically just onion, celery and meat, in a white sauce flavoured with chicken stock and Keen’s curry powder. Its fluorescent green, and you eat it with white rice. Sound familiar?

It may have originaly been an Australian Women’s Weekly recipe (I’m almost sure it would have been), but I learned to make it from my Mum when I was a kid. Its one of those recipes that was never written down, and yet everyone makes it the same way.

Being a Monday night, the night I work and Mr and I don’t see each other, I didn’t get a good photo. I did manage to take a quick snap of some leftovers after work, which may not look great, but at least it gives you an idea of the colour.

A very small amount of curry tofu

So, without further ado, the White-girl Curry Recipe. Please note I don’t often measure, unless I’m trying to write up a recipe for you. I fell into bad habits last night, so the soy milk measurement below is a guess. Add more if you need, and add it slowly so as not to make it too thin.

This recipe serves 2-3

• 1 onion, small dice
• 3 stalks of celery, chopped into small pieces
• 300g firm tofu, cubed
• 1 tbs olive oil
• 1/2 tsp Keens curry powder
• 1/2 tsp Massel Chicken flavoured stock
• 1/3 cup plain flour
• 2 tbs vegan margarine
• about 1  1/2 cups soy milk, maybe more
• 1 tsp Keens curry powder
• 1 tsp chicken flavoured stock
• salt to taste
• White rice (we used basmati) to serve

1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan. Add the onion and cook for 5-10 minutes, until soft.
2. Add the tofu, celery, and the first lot of curry and chicken stock powder. Cook for a few minutes, until tofu and vegies are coated with the curry powder (it will go yellow when it’s ready). Remove from saucepan, put tofu and vegies aside.
3. In the same saucepan (don’t wash it!) add the flour and margarine. Stirring, melt the margarine. The mixture will form a dough. Stir over medium heat until the dough starts to form crumbs.
4. Lower heat. Add a little milk, very slowly, whisking to form a paste. Continue until all the milk is added.
5. Add second lot of curry and chicken stock powder. Turn heat up to medium, and continue to stir until the mixture begins to thicken to about the consistency of pouring custard.
6. Turn heat to low. Add the tofu and vegies mixture, and stir until heated through (if they have cooled).
7. Taste now. Add salt, more curry or pepper if needed.
8. Serve over cooked rice.

Scattered Sushi

Scattered sushi, or bara sushi, or chirashi, is basically just potential sushi fillings/toppings arranged over rice in an interesting way.

Some people make it by actually just scattering the toppings, but others pay a great deal of attention to presentation. There are so many gorgeous scattered sushi pics around, and to get an idea of what you can do I suggest you run an image search for chirashi.

For my scattered sushi I made a pot of sushi rice, and tossed it with some toasted sesame seeds. I then topped this with some simmered veg (capsicum, mainly), thinly chopped carrot and daikon radish (to replicate the orange colour of shredded omelette), wakame, marinated tofu, zucchini, simmered mushrooms, cucumber and wasabi leaves.

It was a serious challenge of my knife skills. Just as I was basking in the glory of my perfect, tiny, carrot and daikon sticks:

So tiny they've become translucent!

… I had to sigh a little at my zucchini flowers. they were so dodgy that they ended up looking a lot more like stars. Kinda.

Zucchini stars. Lacking a little. (and half of them were only half a star!)

We ate our bowls of scattered such with some extra soy sauce and wasabi. It was a filling and healthy meal, although a little lacking in flavour for my liking. I’d love to try it made by someone who knows what they’re doing!

Here’s what it looked like being prepared:

First- rice with sesame seeds

Carrot and daikon

Everything else!

Wasabi leaf - fun to make

Teppanyaki and stuff

The plan was to make sushi, but when I wandered into the kitchen I was so sleepy and generally out of sorts that fiddly food was out of the question. Instead, I decided to make something teppanyaki-ish, with some vegies and noodles.

I have fond memories of real teppanyaki, which I first encountered at a friend’s birthday when I was 13 (?, maybe 14?). It was awesome. Good food, primarily made up of former creatures, cooked in front of you and then thrown at you. This wasn’t like that.

I used a recipe from the Australian Women’s Weekly (from now on shortened to AWW) Cooking Class Japanese for both the teppanyaki and the simmered green beans.

I subbed tofu and vegetarian Luck Chunks (from Global Green) for the prawns, chicken and beef the recipe called for. These were soaked in soy sauce, garlic, chilli and brown sugar, cooked, and served with a dipping sauce of soy, mirin, sugar, ginger ad sesame oil.

Teppanyaki is supposed to be cooked on a grill, near or at the table, and eaten immediately, in batches. Like most people I know, however, I don’t own a grill, I don’t have space for a BBQ, and (unlike most people) I don’t actually own a table. So I cooked it in my wok, in one batch, like the culinary heretic I am. It turned out more like a stir-fry than a BBQ, but it was delicious and, thankfully, easy.

I have really very poor hand eye coordination (especially given I’m a personal trainer!), and was almost too tired to cook, let alone throw food at anyone, so to avoid having to clean tofu off the carpet we settled for meekly placing the food on our plates.

Tofu and Vegetarian Luck Chunks (Mock Beef)

Simmered green beans- simple and yum

The green beans were simmered in a light broth of vegetarian dashi, soy sauce and rice wine.

We ate them both with some chilled Cha Soba (green tea noodles) tossed with sesame oil, sake, sesame seeds and little bits of nori.

Cha Soba - not a very good picture

This was a very simple and filling meal, which was exactly what we were in need of after a long day. Yum!

The taste of Autumn

According to Practical Japanese Cooking, Yudofu, or simmered tofu, has become so synonymous with Autumn that the word is now considered a ‘season word’. Essentially just blocks of tofu simmered in barely flavoured water and served with condiments, I thought this dish was likely to be too bland for our salt-addicted household. Boy was I wrong. Warm tofu dipped in the vinegar/sake/soy sauce, and eaten with spring onion, minced ginger and seaweed flakes is awesome! I can see why it would be so popular in Autumn, being warm but not too heavy, with really lovely piquant flavours in the sauce and the ginger. It was a really interesting way to serve tofu, and something I’d definitely eat again.

Condiments for the yodofu

We also had clear vegetable soup, simmered mushrooms, bought goyoza, and some green veg and rice. The vegetable soup was simple an had a nice smooth flavour. The recipe came from Australian Women’s Weekly Japan Cooking Class although I left out the potato and bean shoots as I didn’t have them, and added some celery as filler in their place.

Clear soup with vegetables

The mushrooms were simmered in a mixture of mushroom stock, soy sauce and vegetarian dashi, with a little raw sugar thrown in at the end. I used shimeji mushrooms instead of shiitake, as Mr isn’t such a fan, and they’ll e in lots of dishes this week, so I thought I’d try not to over do it for him. They turned out a little on the salty side, but were good with a lot of rice mixed in.

Simmered Mushrooms

The goyoza was bought at Global Green the other day, and was actually really good, although somewhat unattractive. I was surprised, because I have found bought dumplings to have odd flavours in the past.  They did fall apart a little when frying, but that may be because I didn’t have time to let them thaw, so I gave them a quick boil before frying, making their pastry wet and sticky.

Enormous pile of fried goyoza

Greens, glorious greens!

The greens were very simple, just steamed over the top of the soup just before it was done. It was a very yummy meal altogether, but the yodofu really was the star of the show, I thoroughly recommend you give it a try.