Tag: seitan

Vietnamese Vegetable Curry (Cà Ri Chay)

Vietnamese Tofu Curry

This Vietnamese curry brings me back many years. The mix of savoury spices and rich root vegetables was a surprise when I first tried it. It reminds me of my first years in Toronto, trying new cuisines and opening my eyes.

I think the first Vietnamese dish I ever tried was a vegetarian curry. A group of co-workers filed into the (now gone) Peach Garden restaurant around the corner, and I had NO IDEA what to get. Being veg at the time, I was happy to be able to narrow down my options.

Vegetable curry, with fake “meat”, sounded like a good idea to me.

It was incredible. I wasn’t able to put my finger on what made it so special. There were the root veggies – I knew they weren’t all potato, but I had never tasted these flavours before. I figure they were an assortment of white-fleshed yams and purple-veined taro.

It was the sauce. Like, and yet incredibly unlike the Indian and Thai curries that I was becoming familiar with. Maybe more like a marriage of the two?

When looking at the list of spices in the curry powder, it’s not hard to imagine why: a healthy dose of turmeric (hello, yellow!) mixed with star anise, cloves, coriander, nutmeg and cinnamon. As I prepared my curry powder, I was a little worried that it would be too cinnamon. My freshly ground cinnamon was incredibly pungent, and seemed to overpower the mix at first. I shouldn’t have worried; it worked perfectly.

If you have a favourite Vietnamese curry powder, feel free to use it here. I have linked to the recipe that I use, and can vouch for it.

Eating the curry brought me back to my early days in Toronto. This is where I first fell in love with curries – Thai, Indian, Vietnamese (and, eventually, others!).

This is also where I decided I had to learn to make them myself…

Vietnamese Tofu Curry (Cà Ri Chay)

This dish can easily be made vegetarian/vegan by omitting the fish sauce (and using a vegetable broth) and gluten-free by omitting the seitan. These changes won’t drastically change the dish.

4-6 servings

Ingredients:

  • 2 teaspoons vegetable oil or coconut oil
  • 1 block extra firm tofu, chopped into 1″ pieces
  • 3 shallots, chopped
  • 1-2 cups chopped mushrooms (optional)
  • 4 garlic cloves, chopped
  • 4 Tablespoons Vietnamese curry powder
  • roasted chili flakes, to taste (optional)
  • salt, to taste
  • 2 chinese eggplants, cubed
  • 1-2 cups gluten (seitan) pieces (optional)
  • 2 cups root vegetables, peeled and cubed (sweet potato, potato, taro)
  • 1 lemongrass, cut into 3″ lengths and bruised (a mallet or a pestle work well)
  • 2″ piece of ginger, sliced thickly
  • 3 kaffir lime leaves or bay leaves
  • 1-2 teaspoons fish sauce
  • 1.5 cups of light broth (like vegetable or chicken – can even use water)
  • 400 mL of coconut milk
  • 1 cup green beans or long beans, cut to 2-3″ lengths
  • scallions, fresh cilantro and/or Thai basil to serve

Preparation:

  1. Heat oil in a stir fry pan, over medium-high heat. Fry tofu until browned on all sides, and a bit crispy. Remove and set aside.
  2. Add a bit more oil to the pan. Sauté shallots and mushrooms over medium-high heat, until liquids are released. Add chopped garlic, and sauté for about a minute.
  3. Add the curry powder, chili flakes and a pinch of salt. Stir regularly, and sauté for one to two minutes.
  4. Add eggplant, gluten (seitan) and potatoes and mix well.
  5. Add lemongrass, ginger, kaffir lime leaves, fish sauce and broth. Mix well and simmer, covered, for 10 minutes.
  6. Add the coconut milk, and simmer uncovered until root vegetable pieces are tender. The sauce should be fairly thick, similar in consistency to a milkshake. If the sauce is a bit too thick for your taste, add a little bit of water.
  7. Add beans in the last 10 minutes of cooking. Try to remove the lemongrass pieces and ginger.
  8. Add tofu and some of the Thai basil just before serving.
  9. Serve over rice, topped with some scallions, cilantro and/or Thai basil.

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Daring Confit & Cassoulet

Vegetarian Cassoulet
Vegetarian Cassoulet

What the heck is a cassoulet? I had heard the word before, but wasn’t too sure what it was before it became the Daring Cooks’ challenge for January.

Cassoulet is a particular kind of white bean stew that originated in France. It’s become one of those dishes that ignite debates over who made it first, and what recipe is authentic. Sorry to offend, folks, but mine isn’t especially “authentic”, being vegetarian. There is usually a lot of meat involved.

One of the things that you see in many cassoulet recipes is duck confit. One of the requirements of the challenge was to make some kind of confit, and again there were some veggie options. I had to look up what a confit was, exactly, since I’ve always heard it associated with duck. Basically, ‘confit’ is used to describe a few things, in particular a method of preserving food by cooking it in a fat. In the case of meats, they are usually cooked in their own fats. For things like garlic, it is cooked in oil.

I made garlic confit.

Garlic Confit
Garlic Confit

So what exactly does one use garlic confit for? You can use it much the same way you might use a baked garlic – the cooking process mellows out the flavours, and gives it a creamy spreadable texture. This makes it (and the oil it’s cooked and stored in) easy to use in dips, soups, sauces… just about anything. Being a big lover of garlic, I thought this would be a fun thing to try making.

That done, I had to decide how to retain the spirit of a cassoulet without the meat. I opted to make the seitan sausages from last month’s challenge, and use them in the stew. I also added some smoked paprika to add some depth to the flavour.

I’m pretty sure it didn’t taste like a real cassoulet, but it was really good!

Vegetarian Cassoulet - closer
Vegetarian Cassoulet

Our January 2011 Challenge comes from Jenni of The Gingered Whisk and Lisa from Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives. They have challenged the Daring Cooks to learn how to make a confit and use it within the traditional French dish of Cassoulet. They have chosen a traditional recipe from Anthony Bourdain and Michael Ruhlman.

Recipes after the jump!
Continue reading Daring Confit & Cassoulet

Adaptation – Seitan Tomato Bredie

Seitan Tomato Bredie

Since I haven’t issued myself a month-long challenge for May, I’m taking on a couple of one-off challenges. This challenge was issued by Nupur, who writes for One Hot Stove. The goal is to find a recipe posted on another blog, and change something major about it and repost, with a link to the original blog post.

This probably isn’t a surprise, but I chose to veggify a meat dish. This dish could also be made gluten-free by using a non-wheat flour to thicken at the end (er, and by not using seitan, which is basically all wheat gluten).

I chose to make a South African Tomao Bredie (stew), which was originally posted by Asha, who writes for Fork Spoon Knife.

The reason I chose this particular recipe is because it is a South African dish that makes use of many spices that I’ve been ignoring lately. This is a very aromatic dish, featuring LOTS of ginger, allspice, cloves, cardamom and peppercorns. YUM! I’ve never tried cooking any South African dishes before, so I thought this would be a great place to start.

Also, the poster wrote about the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency books when describing why SHE chose the recipe… while I haven’t read the books, I really enjoyed the TV series on HBO (Miss 97%!). So… yes, I choose recipes for a combination of reasons, some that make sense and some that do not.

I suppose I need to adapt the inspiration for this dish as well, instead of just stealing the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency reference… If I try really hard, I can just imagine Wikus Van De Merwe eating this (before his run-in with the aliens) in Joburg.

District 9 - Wikus Van De Merwe

Wikus Van De Merwe, from the movie District 9

This was a great dish to have on a cool fall day. Yes, I know it is the middle of May — it FEELS LIKE FALL this week! I’m trying really hard not to be angry at the weather man, filtering some of the anger into cooking. Enjoy!

Tomato Bredie

The original recipe can be found at Fork Spoon Knife.

Marinade Ingredients:

  • 1 inch chunk of ginger, minced
  • 2 tsp all spice powder
  • 1/4 tsp salt

Stew Ingredients:

  • 1 lb seitan, cut into 1″ cubes (I used this recipe)
  • 1 tsp oil
  • 4-5 whole cloves
  • 1 cinnamon stick, or 1/2 tsp ground
  • 4-5 cracked black peppercorns
  • 1 medium onions, diced
  • 1 inch chunk of ginger, minced
  • 2-3 cardamom pods
  • 6 medium tomatoes, diced, divided (4 for the stew, 2 for garnish)
  • 1 jalapeno, diced (although I don’t think the dish needs it… the ginger offers enough heat)
  • 1 cup vegetable stock
  • salt, pepper as needed
  • 3 medium potatoes, cut into 1 inch cubes
  • 1 medium green pepper, chopped
  • 1 Tbsp butter
  • 1 Tbsp flour

Aromatic Rice Ingredients:

  • 2 cardamom pods
  • 1 cinnamon stick, or 1/2 tsp ground
  • 4 cloves
  • 4 cracked peppercorns
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1 1/2 cups basmati rice
  • 3C water

Preparation:

  1. THE NIGHT BEFORE: Coat the seitan pieces evenly with the marinade.Cover and refrigerate overnight.
  2. Heat the oil in a deep sauté pan on med-high heat. Toast the cloves, cinnamon, whole peppercorns in the oil until you can smell the spices.
  3. Add the onions and sauté until browned.
  4. Add the seitan, ginger and cardamom and brown the seitan a little bit. Turn the heat down to medium, cover and let simmer for 5-7 minutes.
  5. Add the tomatoes, jalapeno, stock, salt and pepper and stir well. Simmer for five more minutes, stirring occasionally.
  6. Add the potatoes and simmer until they are cooked through, about 10-15 minutes.
  7. While the stew is simmering, prepare the rice:
    1. In a medium pot, heat up 1 tsp of oil. Add the spices, and cook until you start to smell them.
    2. Add the rice and salt, stir thoroughly, and let it toast a little bit (but be careful not to let it burn!)
    3. Add the water, let it come to a boil and reduce to med-low heat. Cover immediately and cook until the rice absorbs all of the water. Fluff with a fork when done.
  8. About 10 minutes into the simmering, add the green pepper.
  9. When the stew is cooked through, melt the butter in a small pan and add the flour to it. Cook for a minute and then add the roux to the stew to thicken.
  10. Once the potatoes are cooked, heat up a small pan on med-low heat to prepare a roux. Melt the butter, and add the flour, stirring constantly until it forms a thin paste. Cook for about a minute.
  11. Add the roux to the stew to thicken. Make sure it all gets incorporated into the stew, leaving no clumps.
  12. Serve over hot aromatic rice and top with some fresh diced tomato. I also added some chopped green onion and diced avocado… not sure if it’s especially authentic, but it added some nice colour and I wanted to use up an avocado.

Daring (New) Brunswick Stew

(New) Brunswick Stew

The 2010 April Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Wolf of Wolf’s Den. She chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make Brunswick Stew. Wolf chose recipes for her challenge from The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook by Matt Lee and Ted Lee, and from the Callaway, Virginia Ruritan Club.

I opted to make a variation on the first recipe given. I usually don’t eat meat, so this dish posed quite a challenge for me. I think there were three or four different kinds of meat in the recipe… I replaced all of the meat with shrimps and seitan, the broth with a vegetable/shrimp broth. Since this likely changed the flavour quite a bit, I’ve jokingly labelled my variation of the recipe (New) Brunswick Stew. Any Canadians reading this will get the New Brunswick/seafood reference… right? (I’m sure there is nothing specifically New Brunswick about it. I just wanted a cute title).

I started by making a broth, which I based on one I got from a Seafood Gumbo recipe I plan to try eventually. I also had to make some seitan, a vegetarian meat substitute made with wheat gluten (sorry, GF folks!). Both of these things added to the cooking time, since I had to make them from scratch.

Next, I fried up some chile peppers. I got some fun dried chiles called Chilhuacle Negro that have a medium heat (5/10). I’m pretty new to chiles, so I didn’t want to get any that were too hot. That said, I should have kept some of the seeds in for a little more heat. This was where the excitement starts – the smell of the peppers and the oil in the pan are heavenly!

Chilhuacle Negro

Chilhuacle Negro

Here is what the stew looked like in the early stages – the seitan is still in large chunks (to be sliced into thin strips in a later stage). While the broth started off looking quite red (from the chile peppers and the smoked paprika), it mellowed into a nice warm golden colour by the end.

(New) Brunswick Stew - in progress

(New) Brunswick Stew – in progress

Here is the final product, and the shot that everyone on Daring Cooks seems to be doing – the standing spoon shot. This came from the original recipe. To describe the texture of the finished stew, they said that Brunswick stew is not done properly “until the paddle stands up in the middle.”. Everyone has been doing their version of this shot, so I felt obliged to do the same. It was a hearty hearty stew, but the broth was not too thick and gloopy.

(New) Brunswick Stew - Standing Spoon

(New) Brunswick Stew – Standing Spoon

In the end, the stew turned out great! It was a bit of a challenge deciding what to use instead of meat, but I think the seitan worked wonderfully! This is definitely something I wouldn’t have known to seek out, and there’s no doubt I’ll be making this again.

Recipe after the jump.

Continue reading Daring (New) Brunswick Stew

Seitan Paprikash

Seitan Paprikash

“Could it be…SATAN?”

I think I just dated myself with that quote. Today’s pieced-together recipe features a vegetarian meat-substitute favourite, seitan (sounds kinda like ‘satan’).

I’ve been a little obsessed with paprika lately, so a Seitan Paprikash sounded yummy. I looked at a few different recipes and cobbled one together that sounded good.

Seitan is kind of a strange ingredient, with about a million ways to make it. I started this one by making a dough with gluten flour, water and some seasoning.  I had to stretch it and let it rise and stretch it and rip it some more in an attempt to give it some kind of texture. Then it was simmered in a flavourful broth, and suddenly I had ‘meat’. I suppose it’s most like a ‘chicken’ because it was lightly flavoured, but it stood in place of pork pretty well in this dish.

Seitan Paprikash

I actually added some spinach to this, because I had some. Shhhhh!

This dish was quick and easy to make, and was a nice change from the usual pasta. The creamy sauce went really well with the seitan. Since this dish is lacking in veggies (in that you might actually end up with a forkful that does not contain a vegetable), we also had some asparagus and a bit of avocado salad. Mmmmmmm.

Side note: I can’t wait for asparagus to be in season here. I’m getting SO JEALOUS reading other peoples’ blogs about the fresh local asparagus they’re able to get!!! Grrr!

Recipe after the jump! Continue reading Seitan Paprikash