the cooked and the raw

Although it’s been raining for days and days, I really feel it’s time to introduce some summer fruit and vegetables into my diet. The other day I bought some very summery ‘vegetable creatures’: strawberries and cucumbers. I’ve always loved both, but never thought about having them together as main ingredients in a salad. I got the idea from a book on vegetarian Indian cuisine (Yamuna Devi’s The Best of Lord Krishna’s Cuisine), and slightly changed the recipe. This sweet-savoury salad is indeed very light and refreshing, and works perfectly as a salad, on its own, or as an easy fruit salad to finish a meal. I think I’ll make it more often as soon as the weather gets warmer. A great thing about it, is that you can make it sweeter or more savoury by varying the amounts of salt and rice malt syrup ;) For best results, choose organic fruit and vegetables. 

Makes 2 servings.

Ingredients:

For the salad

1 basket fresh strawberries

1 medium-sized cucumber

For the dressing

1 cup freshly squeezed orange juice

1 tablespoon fresh mint, minced

whole sea salt (to taste)

rice malt syrup (2 to 4 teaspoons, depending on taste)

powdered dried ginger (to taste)

Salad

Wash the stawberries, drain them and remove the caps, then cut them into halves or quarters. Wash the cucumber and cut it into slices or smaller bite-sized pieces. Set aside and prepare the dressing.  

Dressing

In a medium bowl, whisk the orange juice, rice malt syrup, salt and ginger together, then add the mint and stir.

To assemble

Add the strawberries and cucumber to the dressing bowl, toss and serve. Alternatively, you can serve the salad directly into individual small bowls.

One of my favourite ingredients is agar, also known as kanten, an excellent vegetarian substitute for gelatine. This natural gelling agent is obtained from algae or seaweeds (but it doesn’t taste as such, which is certainly a plus!) and can be used instead of ordinary gelatine of animal origin. I use a lot of agar: to thicken soups and sauces, and to make puddings, jellies, and other desserts like pannacotta. When I don’t feel like having elaborate desserts, agar is the perfect solution for a light but satisfying treat. For these jellies I used organic ingredients.

Makes 4 servings.

Ingredients:

For the ‘jelly puddings’

500 ml mixed berry juice (the one I used was a blend of blackcurrant, cranberry, strawberry and raspberry juices)

3 teaspoons agar powder

For the white chocolate sauce

100 g white chocolate (I used vegan white chocolate chips)

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

200 ml soy milk

1 teaspoon cornstarch

Jelly puddings

Pour the mixed berry juice into a heavy saucepan and bring to a simmer. Add the agar and stir until dissolved. Simmer for 3 to 4 minutes, stirring continually to prevent the juice from sticking to the bottom of the saucepan. Remove the saucepan from the heat and pour the hot juice and agar mixture into small pudding molds. Set aside and allow to cool for at least 2 to 3 hours. You can unmold the jellies when they are cold and completely firm.

White chocolate sauce

Pour the soy milk into a pan and bring to a simmer. Add the white chocolate and slowly let it melt while stirring. Once the chocolate has melted, add the ground cinnamon and stir. You don’t want the sauce to overboil. If the mixture is still to liquid, you can add 2 tablespoons water mixed with 1 teaspoon cornstarch. Cook for a couple of minutes and when the sauce thickens, it means it’s ready and can be left to cool. If you like the sauce to be runny, you don’t need to add any cornstarch. (You can use this sauce for almost any other kind of dessert, as white chocolate pairs well with so many things… Here, I think the sweetness of the chocolate balances the tangyness of the berries…)

To assemble

Spoon some white chocolate sauce over individual dessert plates. Arrange the jellies on the white chocolate sauce, sprinkle with cinnamon and serve.

‘Blogging-wise’ I’ve been rather lazy in the past few days (more than one week, actually) …but I’m finally back with a recipe for an easy late-winter, early-spring comforting soup. This has a smooth, velvety texture that many I’m sure will like… Cauliflower and carrot are sweet vegetables that provide an excellent contrast to the spicy, fresh ginger.

Makes 4 servings.

Ingredients:

½ medium onion, finely chopped

1 medium sized cauliflower, cut into bite sized pieces

5 carrots, peeled and cut into bite sized pieces

1 tablespoon fresh, minced ginger (and some more for garnish)

1 cup unsweetened soy milk

4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

whole sea salt (to taste)

fresh parsley, for garnish

Place the bite sized pieces of cauliflower and carrot in a steamer fitted over a saucepan, add enough water to come just below the bottom of the steamer and sprinkle some salt over the vegetables. Bring to a boil and steam just until crisp tender (it will take about 15-20 minutes, over medium heat). In the meantime, heat the olive oil in a large saucepan or wok over medium heat, add the onion, ginger and sea salt and sautè until fragrant, for about 5-10 minutes. Add the soy milk, reduce the heat and cook for about 5 minutes. When the vegetables are crisp-tender, remove them from the steamer (but keep the cooking water), add them to the soy milk and onion mixture and sautè for a few minutes. Remove the vegetables from the heat and transfer them in the bowl of a food processor, add about half a cup of the cooking water you saved and process until smooth. Add some more water for a runnier soup. Adjust seasoning as needed, stir the soup into serving bowls, drizzle some olive oil onto it and garnish with fresh parsley and fresh, minced ginger.

Yesterday I baked a sweet but at the same time salty bread, with rosemary and raisins to be precise, something similar to ’pan di ramerino,’ which is a traditional Easter Tuscan bread. This combination is something that I believe works really well in breads and flour-based preparations. For this bread I referred to one of Ilona Chovancova’s amazing recipes of ‘Cakes Maison’ for the amounts of flour and liquids to use (and replacing 1-butter with olive oil, 2-cow’s milk with soy milk and 3-the eggs with silken tofu). This organic bread, or loaf cake, is perfect on its own or as an addition to any meal. I had the last slice for breakfast this morning, with a spoonful of homemade plum jam spread on it… :) For this bread I used organic ingredients ;)  

Ingredients (makes 1 loaf):

150 g wholemeal flour

150 g unbleached kamut flour

5 tablespoons silken tofu

250 ml vegan buttermilk (which is 250 ml soy milk plus 1 teaspoon apple vinegar)

75 ml extra virgin olive oil

4 tablespoons raisins

2 tablespoons minced fresh rosemary

3 tablespoons organic baking powder (I used cream of tartar)

½ teaspoon whole sea salt

Preheat the oven o 180° C and lightly oil a 24 cm loaf pan (alternatively, you can lay a sheet of parchment paper down on your loaf pan). In a large bowl, combine the flours, baking powder and salt. In a separate bowl, combine the tofu, vegan buttermilk, and olive oil. Add the wet mixture to the dry and fold until the dry ingredients are moistened. Stir in the raisins and rosemary and fold until they are evenly distributed. Do not overmix. The batter should be rather sticky and thick (if you realize it’s really too thick while mixing all the ingredients, feel free to add 1 or 2 more tablespoons of soy milk). Transfer the batter into your loaf pan and spread evenly. Bake for about 45 to 50 minutes, or until a wooden stick or toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean. Let cool for 10 to 15 minutes before unmolding. Let cool completely on a rack.      

If you have to convince someone that tofu is a tasty alternative to meat and animal proteins, try with scrambled tofu. Scrambled tofu allows you to be very creative: it can be paired with almost any kind of vegetable, from zucchini to carrots, from seaweeds to peppers (just to list a few…). It’s also great with nuts. I think that firm or extra firm tofu work best for this kind of recipe but this is just my personal suggestion as I know that some people prefer the softer version. I’m very ashamed to confess that for this scrambled tofu I used frozen spinach…which is not good at all …but it happened! The tofu and the lemon, of course, were organic ;)

Ingredients (makes 2 abundant servings):  

250 g firm, organic tofu

1 ½ cups cooked spinach

½ red onion, chopped

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 teaspoon rice malt syrup

1 tablespoon shoyu

2 tablespoons raisins

2 tablespoons pine nuts, toasted 

zest of 1 organic lemon, grated

whole sea salt (to taste)

chili powder (to taste)

Blanch the tofu by placing it in a pan of boiling water. Simmer for 2 minutes, remove the tofu from the boiling water and rinse it under cold water. Set aside. 

It’s always a good idea to blanch tofu before sautéing it or baking it or using it for dips. The blanching procedure, which is very easy and takes only a few minutes, makes tofu more absorbent of flavours and its soy protein a lot more digestible.

In a wok, heat the olive oil and sauté the onion until it’s tender, then add the shoyu and the rice malt syrup. Keep cooking over medium heat for 1 more minute. If you are using frozen spinach you can throw it into the wok once you have cooked it separately in a pan of boiling water (and drained them well) and sautè for a couple of minutes. If you choose fresh spinach you’ll have to figure out the amounts (as you’re going to need more than 1 ½ cups) and stir fry the spinach in the wok until wilted. Crumble the tofu using your hands and add it to the vegetables. Cook for 3 to 5 minutes, then add the pine nuts, raisins, chili, lemon zest and a pinch of salt. Taste and adjust seasoning with additional salt and chili if necessary, stir and serve.