vegan

Baked Kuri Squash and Apple Maple Pudding (and it's vegan too)

maki — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:33:06 +0100

This very healthy squash pudding from the archives manages to still taste good. I think it would make a very good side dish to a Thanksgiving dinner, from which vegans and vegetarians can partake of without feeling deprived. It is not that sweet - probably less sweet than many traditional side dishes. I hope you give it a try! Originally published November 19, 2007, and tweaked a bit - note the addition of a little miso!

You know how certain diehard carnivores react to words like ‘vegan’ ‘no dairy’ and, gasp, ‘tofu in a sweet dish’. There’s no reason to tell them that all of these phrases are applicable to this smooth, creamy baked squash pudding, until they’ve actually eaten and enjoyed. It even is devoid of white sugar, though it is sweetened with maple syrup. The simple combination of creamy squash pudding, flavored and sweetened with real maple syrup with the pure sweetness of the squash shining through, and sweet-sourness of the apples works perfectly together. (The tofu merely adds the creamy texture; you don’t taste it at all.) It’s rich, but rests very lightly on your stomach - not a bad thing after a heavy main course.

This recipe is adapted quite heavily from one in a Japanese cookbook, Saisai Sweets (Vegetable Sweets), by the wonderful Yumiko Kano, who I have mentioned previously. The original recipe called for soy milk, but I’ve used silken tofu instead for a richer, thicker consistency. I’ve omitted other things like rum-soaked raisins, and upped the maple syrup for more sweetness.

Vegan Baked Kuri Squash and Apple Maple Pudding (or crustless pie)

This will make a pudding or a crustless pie that is about 10 inches / 28cm or so in diameter, enough for 6 to 8 servings (though I’ve seen one disappear in one person recently).

I’ve given weight measurements rather than cup measurements, because the proportion of squash to tofu is what’s the most important thing here. Scale up or down according to your needs.

1 lb (450-500g) of cooked red kuri or Hokkaido squash, skin on, or roasted butternut squash or other sweet, dense winter squash, flesh only (see below for how to cook the squash)
1 block (300g / about 11 oz) silken tofu, well drained
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
A few gratings of nutmeg (about 1/4 tsp.)
2 Tbs. neutral tasting vegetable oil, such as sunflower
1/2 tsp. sea salt
1 Tbs. mild, smooth white miso
8 Tbs. real maple syrup (not ‘pancake syrup’ or ‘imitation maple syrup’), plus extra for drizzling on top
2 medium sweet eating apples
1 Tbs. lemon juice

Equipment needed: food processor, a pie or quiche or tart dish

If you are doing this for Thanksgiving, cook the squash ahead of time - up to 2-3 days in advance.

To cook the red kuri squash, either: cut in half and scoop out the seeds and fluffy bits in the middle. Poke several holes in the skin side with the point of your knife. Lay cut side down in a baking dish filled with about 1/2 inch / 1 cm of water. Bake at 350° F / 180° C until soft - a skewer poked through the skin side should go through easily. Drain away any left over water.

Alternate method in a pan: de-seed, de-fluffy bit and cut up the squash into about 1 inch / 2cm chunks. Put in a very heavy pan (such as a cast iron enamel one) with enough water to come up to about 1/2 of the squash chunks. Simmer, lid on, until the chunks are tender; drain away any excess water.

If you are using butternut squash, which has a much harder skin than red kuri squash, bake in the oven cut in half as above until tender.

Cool the squash after cooking to about room temperature. Store, tightly covered, in the refrigerator.

To make the pudding:

Preheat the oven to 350°F / 180°C (if it’s not already on of course.)

Put the cooked squash (skin and all if you are using red kuri squash - see notes), tofu, oil, salt, miso and maple syrup into the bowl of a food processor with the steel chopping blade. Process until totally smooth - you may need to scrape down the sides of the bowl a few times. Taste at this point, and see if you want to add more maple syrup (but remember you will be drizzling more syrup on top later).

In the meantime, peel and core two medium eating apples. (I used Cox’s Orange. You want a sweet, eating apple, not a hard, sour cooking apple here. Golden Delicious is a universally available type that will work fine here.) Slice into thin wedges, and toss into some acidulated water (water with a little lemon juice in it) to stop the slices from turning brown. Drain well and pat dry with a clean kitchen towel.

Fill the tart or pie dish with the pumpkin cream. Arrange the apples in a nice pattern on the cream, pushing down each slice a bit (they will sink a little, but this is a very dense cream.) Drizzle the top with more maple syrup. Alternatively, sprinkle with maple sugar if you have it.

Bake for about 30 minutes, until the top is lightly browned.

This pudding, or crustless pie, is great warm, at room temperature or chilled.

Notes

If you don’t have real maple syrup, try a flavorful clear runny honey instead.
If you can’t get a hold of kuri squash, you can substitute another squash, preferably a kabocha type, that is denser and sweeter than most other types. Try butternut squash, rouge d’Etampes or Muscat (Musque de Provence). Do not use regular pumpkin - it is far too watery and fibrous.
The orange skin of the kuri squash cooks up quite soft, and the orange adds to the vibrant color of the pudding. If using other, more tough-skinned squash varieties, just scoop out the flesh and discard the skins.
If you don’t care about keeping it all vegan, use butter instead of the oil. Dot the top with more butter. Butter does tend to improve everything.
Try ripe pears instead of apples.

Black bean vegan mini-burgers

maki — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 09:23:36 +0200

From the archives. This is terrific freshy made and hot, but is even better cold, so it’s great for bentos. Originally published in November 2007.

Over the past couple of years as I’ve pursued largely vegetarian eating, I’ve gradually accumulated a small arsenal of small, round bean patties or balls, which are great as snacks, for bento boxes, and just for dinner, in my regular rotation. This one was inspired by one of the first beany-round thing I made, the samosa-like lentil snacks from The Hungry Tiger, and a Japanese vegan cooking book called Saisai Gohan (Vegetable Meals) by Yumiko Kano. (Yumiko Kano is currently my favorite cookbook author in any language, and I’ll talk more about her down the line.) I’ve adjusted a few things to make them gluten-free.

These have the earthy, deep flavor of the black beans that is enhanced by the spices and the sauce, and they are delicious hot or at room temperature. Even diehard carnivores like them. They’re really perfect for bento lunches, and I’ve used it in the all-vegan Bento no. 5 on Just Bento. I also used them as a pita-sandwich filling in Bento no. 6.

I have described two methods of cooking these: in the oven, which is good for making them in quantity, and in a frying pan, which is perfect for making a few at a time.

Black bean vegan mini burgers

This amount makes about 12 tiny or 8 small burgers; multiply to suit your needs proportionately. It keeps pretty well in the refrigerator for a few days, and freezes well too, so it makes sense to make in some quantity.

For the burgers:

2 cups (500ml) of cooked or canned black beans, drained
3 tsp. fermented black beans, or 2 tsp. miso
1 small piece ginger, finely chopped to produce about 2 tsp. chopped ginger
Green onions, to produce about 3 Tbs. chopped
1/2 cup chopped fresh mushrooms
2 Tbs. chopped walnuts
1/2 cup rice flour
1 tsp falafel spice mix, or cumin powder
2 Tbs. or so of olive oil

For the sauce:

4 Tbs. tomato paste
a few drops of Tabasco
1 Tbs. maple syrup
A little hot water to thin out the sauce, if needed

Suggested equipment: a food processor

If you’re going to be baking them, preheat the oven to 200°C / 400°F.

Chop up the ginger, green onions and mushrooms finely, and sauté in about half of the olive oil until the mushrooms are wilted and brownish.

In the meantime, chop up the nuts. Add to the sauté pan to toast a bit.

If using the fermented black beans, chop finely until they’re almost a paste.

Reserve a couple of spoonfuls of the beans. Mash up the rest of the beans with a masher or in the food processor. Put the fermented black beans in and process until it’s fairly smooth. Add the spice and rice flour and process again. Add the sautéed vegetables, the reserved beans and the nuts, and pulse-process until mixed (you want some of the texture to remain).

Divide the mixture into 8 to 12 portions. With moistened hands, make into flat little patties.

If baking in the oven, oil a baking sheet and then brush the tops with a bit more oil. Bake for about 10 minutes, flip then bake 5 minutes more.

If cooking in a frying pan, heat up the pan with the rest of the oil. Fry the burgers until crispy, carefully flip over and fry the other side.

In the meantime, mix the sauce. Brush the sauce onto the hot burgers, or serve separately for dipping.

Good hot or at room temperature.

Notes

Fermented black beans (dul see) are actually black soy beans. You can get them at any general Asian or Chinese grocery store. You can use miso instead if you have that on hand, though it will be a bit less salty and well, different. Black bean sauce can be used also, but be aware that that has some wheat flour in it if you’re gluten-conscious.

If you don’t want to bother with making the sauce, use your favorite ketchup with a few drops of Tabasco added.

These keep well for a few days in the fridge, though they are better if you re-heat them to take the chill off before eating. They also freeze well.

Rice flour is available at Indian grocery stores (red rice flour is a bit different and interesting to use here), or in Japanese grocery stores where it’s known as joushinko. It’s mainly used here as a binder, so you can use regular wheat flour instead if gluten-sensitivity is not an issue.

Variation: Add fresh chopped coriander.

Zucchini (Courgettes) braised in rosemary infused olive oil

maki — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 14:23:28 +0200

I have not doing a lot of serious cooking lately, at least not the kind that results in a useful blog post. Most of my cooking energies have been expended on another project, which is wearing me down a bit (more on that at a later time). What I have been cooking for actual meals is very simple food, that requires minimal kitchen time, though not necessarily quick to cook.

The subject of this article is zucchini (courgette) slices that are slowly braised in a fragrant oil. It requires perhaps 10 minutes of actual kitchen time, but an hour or more to complete. Days even, if you choose one option. You don’t need to hover over the pan for that time, but you do have to be nearby, to keep an eye on the hot oil, not to mention any errant pets, children or clumsy adults that wander in.

The wait and vigilance are worth it though. The zucchini slices, scented with the pine-mintiness of rosemary, become brown and sticky and almost caramelized on the surface, and soft and creamy on the inside. It’s great as an accompaniment to roast or panfried meats or fish, or as part of a vegetarian meal (try it with pasta). I could have it every day, just on its own, if it weren’t for the rather ruinous effect it has on my waistline, even if the oil is good-for-you olive oil.

This is the taste of late summer in Provence for me.

Recipe: Zucchini (Courgettes) braised in rosemary oil

Preliminaries: For optimal results, make some rosemary infused olive oil. Just put some good olive oil in a clean glass jar, about two thirds of the way up, then stuff the jar full with rosemary. No garlic, no chilis, and certainly not a dainty single sprig. Put the lid on the jar and leave it out on your countertop. Give it a shake when you see it, once a day at least. In a few days you will have a headily rosemary-scented olive oil. At this point you can leave the rosemary in to make the scent even stronger, or remove the rosemary.

If you are in a hurry, you can scent your olive oil as you cook the zucchini slices by putting a couple of sprigs into the simmering oil. Beware of the rosemary burning though, which will impart a bitter taste.

3 to 4 small to medium zucchini (courgettes)
Rosemary infused olive oil, or olive oil plus a couple of sprigs of fresh rosemary, or rosemary hydrolat if you have it (see notes below about hydrolat)
Salt

Slice the zucchini (courgettes) into 1/2 inch / 1cm thick rounds. Pat the slices dry with paper towels or a kitchen towel.

Pour 1/2 inch / 1cm oil into a large frying pan, and turn the heat up to HIGH. Put the zucchini in one layer in the pan - do not overcrowd the pan. Keep the heat on HIGH until the oil starts to bubble up rapidly, then lower the heat to low-medium, or to the point where the oil is quietly bubbling around the zucchini.

Leave like this for at least 30 minutes, until the undersides of the zucchini slices turn golden brown. Turn the slices over, and cook until the other sides are also golden brown.

Do not add salt during the cooking process! Salt will draw out the moisture from the zucchini, which is not what we want here. We want the moisture to stay inside while the surface gets crisp and caramelized.

Once the zucchini slices are darkly golden brown (they will have shrunk quite a lot too), remove them from the oil. You can drain them on paper towels to get rid of excess oil if you like. If you are using hydrolad, add about 1/2 teaspoonful at most to the hot zucchini slices and toss rapidly right now. Add a pinch of salt - don’t oversalt, or you’ll mask the delicate rosemary scent.

Serve piping hot, or at room temperature.

You can save the cooking oil for another dish. If you mix the braised zucchini with pasta, sauté the freshly cooked pasta in a bit of the oil. Wonderful!

Chef Erick Vedel’s Provençal cooking classes in Arles

I learned the slow braising technique at a wonderful class in Provençal cooking given by Erick Vedel in Arles, the town in Provence made famous by Vincent Van Gogh (he left an ear there, literally). Chef Erick scented his zucchini with mint hydrolat - hydrolat is the water that result when herbs and other plants are steam-distilled for their essential oils. Getting a hold of hydrolat may be a problem, unless you have some lab equipment to do your own, so I’ve used rosemary-infused oil instead (I just prefer rosemary with zucchini instead of mint). If you can get a hold of either rosemary or mint hydrolat, by all means use that - I’ve included instructions in the recipe. Using a drop or two of edible essential oil would work too, but be very sparing or you’ll overwhelm the zucchini.

I’ll have more about Chef Erick’s classes in later posts, but in the meantime if you’re interested in a great culinary experience and you’ll be in the area, I can highly recommend his classes. (If you’re a bit persnikety about order and cleanliness and stuff, be forewarned though, his kitchen is let’s say, well lived in.) Here he’s showing us how he distills lavender, using his huge antique copper distiller.

Erick Vedel’s website

Incidentally, I haven’t really posted a lot about my time here in Provence (though we have actually been living here for the better part of 6 months or so, with occasional forays elsewhere) because I have been scared of jinxing our chances of being able to stay here permanently, if I talked about it or something. I know, irrational. Things are looking up in that area now…once we are officially and truly settled you’re likely to read a lot more about it here. (That is in case this small mention has jinxed it! Ack. ^_^;)

Nasu no miso dengaku: Japanese slow-roasted eggplant with dengaku sauce

maki — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 09:02:04 +0200

It’s still summertime, but I can feel the cooler days of fall coming, especially in the evenings when the temperature is dropping just a bit more than it did a few weeks ago. This is one of the best times of the year for food lovers, especially if you love vegetables.

Eggplants (aubergines) are in high season now and will be around for at least another month or so. While you can get them year-round, they are at their best of course in their natural season.

This is a classic Japanese way of serving eggplant, and it’s really easy. All you do is to slowly roast the eggplant until tender, either in the oven or on the stovetop in a frying pan, then serve with a glossy, salty-sweet dengaku (田楽）sauce. I could eat this every day, with a bowl of plain rice and some cold mugicha to wash it down.

Recipe: Slow roasted eggplant (aubergine) with dengaku sauce (nasu no miso dengaku 茄子の味噌田楽)

Serves 1-2, depending on what else is served at the same meal.

1 large, round or 2-3 small, fresh eggplants. Try to get ones with thin skins.
Olive or sesame oil

For the dengaku sauce:

3 Tbs. miso. Here I’ve used a haccho miso (八丁味噌）with some texture to it, but any miso you like will do. See Japanese miso primer.
1 Tbs. sugar
1 Tbs. sake
1 Tbs. mirin
1 tsp. grated fresh ginger
1 tsp. olive oil or sesame oil
water

Prepare the eggplant, according to the type:

If you’re using a big round one: Cut off the blossom end, and reserve to use as a decoration.

If you are using a big long one (e.g. the standard Italian or American type eggplant): Take off the blossom end (optionally reserve for use as decoration) and cut the eggplant into thick slices crosswise, or into half lengthwise. (Note that I don’t recommend this type of eggplant for this, since the skin tends to be rather tough. Choose one of the other kinds if you can.)

If you’re using a small thin Asian-type eggplant: Cut in half lengthwise, keeping the blossom end on for decorative purposes.

Rub the cut surfaces of the eggplant with a little sesame or olive oil. Roast it in an oven at 200°C / 400°F, cut side down and tented with some loose foil until tender (the time depends on the size of the eggplant, but it’s about 10 minutes for a small eggplant, 30 minutes for a big eggplant, with the slices somewhere in between). It’s tender when you can pierce through easily with a skewer. You can try cooking the eggplant in a toaster oven too, but I haven’t tested this myself so you’re on your own as to timing and so on.

Alternatively, you can slow-roast the eggplant in a dry frying pan. Place cut-side down in a non-stick pan, and cover loosely with some aluminum foil. Pan-roast until tender over medium-low heat, turning once. This method is especially suited for small eggplant - it takes 5-10 minutes and doesn’t heat up the kitchen as much as the oven method.

While the eggplant cooks, prepare the dengaku sauce. Combine all the ingredients in a small pan, and set over low heat. Mix the sauce vigorously with a wooden spoon, until the sauce turns glossy. Adjust the consistency by adding drops of water. It should not be too runny, but should flow thickly, rather like a thick ketchup.

Serve the eggplant warm, coated with sauce.

About dengaku sauce

Dengaku (田楽 - the characters mean ‘rice paddy’ + ‘harmony’ or ‘music’ or ‘play’) is a classic miso based sauce. There are many variations, but the basics are the same: miso with sweetener, a little oil for adding gloss, and sake and/or mirin for added flavor. Sometimes a little soy sauce is added, or dashi stock instead of water, or even MSG. My version comes from my mother, of course, and is quite simple.

You can make dengaku sauce in quantity and keep it in a closed jar in the refrigerator, but I don’t bother since it’s so easy to make fresh. If you do make it and store it, warm it up a bit before using.

Dengaku sauce is terrific on other grilled or roasted vegetables, firm tofu, blanched konnyaku, and so on. It’s a bit sweet for my taste for serving on meat and fish, but you can try it out!

Add spice to dengaku-sauced foods by sprinkling on some shichimi tohgarashi (7-ingredient pepper, see Essential staples of a Japanese pantry).

Big, fat, round eggplant

These are the eggplants I used for the version at the top of the page, bought at my favorite farmer’s market in Provence:

You might be thinkng, “But Japanese eggplants are small and thin and cute!” Well the standard ones are, but in Kyoto (the home of Japanese haute cuisine) there is a variety of eggplant that is similar to the one in the photo called kaganasu （加賀茄子）- big, round, and quite thin-skinned. Here’s a photo of one.

There’s nothing like the combination of juicy, soft eggplant with that sweet-salty, thick dengaku sauce. Wait, I think I need to go to the market today…

Other favorite eggplant recipes from the archives:

Japanese country style stewed eggplant (nasu no inakani)
Steamed eggplant with spicy peanut sauce
Grilled eggplant and mushroom miso soup (you can make this just with eggplants)
Ratatouille

My Mother's Simply Braised Spring Vegetables with a hint of Japan

maki — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:52:08 +0200

Here’s another recipe from my mother. She just told me the recipe, and the reminiscences, verbally, (she says the recipe is too simple to write down!); I’ve written it down in the first person, from her point of view.

When I was young and Makiko and her sister were small, Makiko’s father was sent to England by his company. After brief stays in London and Kent, we settled in Wokingham, a small town in Berkshire. (Nowadays I have heard it’s grown a lot bigger.) This was in the 1970s, when we had to go all the way to London to buy basic ingredients for Japanese cooking, like soy sauce. Making any kind of Japanese food was a struggle.

I grew some Japanese vegetables that I really missed, but had no chance of buying even in London at the time, in the garden of our rented house - things like shiso, mitsuba, shungiku, komatsuna, daikon and gobo (burdock). [See a dozen Japanese herbs and vegetables to grow - maki] I didn’t know anything about gardening, so when my gobo and daikon weren’t nice and straight, but were stubby ugly things with multiple roots, I wrote to my mother (international phone calls were so expensive then) in tears, asking her what to do. She wrote back so many times with detailed instructions - she was an avid gardener with a real green thumb. I still have those letters.

As I gradually adjusted to life away from Japan and my family, I became better at using local ingredients and adapting them to Japanese methods. This very simple summer braised vegetable dish is one recipe that I came up with during those years, that I still make every summer. It doesn’t even use dashi, which is standard in so many Japanese recipes. It uses vegetables that are available in Europe in early summer - new potatoes, green beans, peas, and carrots. The umami comes from the fresh young vegetables. Japanese cuisine is first and foremost about using seasonal ingredients, so to my mind, this is a very Japanese way of cooking.

Recipe: Simply Braised Spring Vegetables

This makes about 4 servings as part of a Japanese meal, to accompany rice, miso soup and one or two other dishes. You can also serve it alone or as a side dish to meat or fish.

To get the best flavor, it’s very important to use the freshest, preferably organic, vegetables you can find.

10-12 small new potatoes
2 small or 1 medium carrot
1 small onion
About 1 cup of shelled green peas
A large handful of green beans
1/2 Tbs. soy sauce (well she said ‘shu-shu’ (drizzle-drizzle), which I’m extrapolating to be about 1/2 tablespoon! - maki)
Salt (good sea salt is preferred)
Extra virgin olive oil, or other good flavorful oil (I use olive oil because you can get such wonderful olive oil here in the Provence, but you can also use sesame oil, walnut oil, and so on.)

Wash the new potatoes, and cut in half if they are big. Scrub and cut up the carrots into chunks. (Don’t peel the carrots - there’s a lot of flavor in the skin!) Dry both well in a kitchen towel.

Cut the onion in half, then slice against the grain (parallel to the root - as you would if you are cutting onion rings). Cutting against the grain ensures that the onions will cook faster.

Cut the tops and tails off the green beans, and cut in half. (If you have old fashioned green beans, take off the strings too.)

Heat up some oil in the bottom of the pan over medium-low heat. Put in the potatoes, and sauté while shaking occasionally until they are turning brown. Add the carrots about halfway through, and continue sautéing. This requires some patience, since it takes about 20 minutes or more.

Drain away any excess oil at this point. Add the sliced onions to the pan, and sauté some more until the onions are transparent and limp.

Add a small amount of water, just to about halfway up the potatoes. Add a tiny pinch of salt. Make an otoshibuta (drop lid) with a piece of aluminum foil, by crinkling it up so it fits on top of the vegetables in the pan, then poking a couple of holes in it with a chopstick. This otoshibuta ensures that the vegetables will cook evenly.

In the meantime, cook the green beans and peas in boiling salted water until crisp-tender. (Put the green beans in first, then add the peas for a couple of minutes.) Drain and set aside.

When the potatoes are tender (test by poking with a chopstick or fork) add the soy sauce, green beans and peas. Simmer for a few minutes longer while shaking the pan so that the flavors are evenly distributed. The water should be almost completely gone.

This is best served warm, but is also good at room temperature.

Optional: Add a little bit of sake or mirin near the end of the cooking process. This gives the vegetables a little added flavor and shine.

Tip: Sautéing vegetables in oil before stewing or braising

You will notice that this recipe calls for sautéeing the potatoes and onions in oil before braising. While most people know about sautéing onions and garlic to bring out the flavor, not many do this to other vegetables. Sautéing vegetables before cooking further brings out the flavor and sweetness in them. To prevent the final dish from becoming too oily, I always drain off any excess oil before proceeding further, as I did here.

Book review: The Enlightened Kitchen, shōjin ryōri (shoujin ryouri) for the home

maki — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 18:20:07 +0200

The Enlightened Kitchen: Fresh Vegetable Dishes from the Temples of Japan by Mari Fujii is a beautifully presented, easy introduction to the world of shojin ryori (or shoujin ryouri 精進料理), the highly refined vegan cuisine developed by Buddhist monks in Japan. I’ve often been asked by readers of this site and other people to recommend a good shojin ryori book: While there are many such books in Japanese, I haven’t really been comfortable recommending a book in English so far. Shojin ryori tends to use a lot of ingredients that are only available in Japan - even more so than ‘regular’ Japanese cooking - and it is a haute cuisine that requires a lot of skill.

The Enlightened Kitchen, on the other hand, is filled with nonintimidating recipes, that any amateur cook with decent access to Japanese ingredients could tackle. Some of the vegetables and dried ingredients may trip you up, but it’s easy to think up suitable substitions. The author, Mari Fujii, is married to a Buddhist monk, and has been teaching, speaking and writing about shojin ryori and other types of Buddhist vegetarian cuisines for 2 decades in Japan.

The book is divided into six sections: Soup; Salads; Tofu and Beans; Vegetables; Potato, Rice and Grains; and Desserts. There’s a small but essential Basic Techniques section, and a useful glossary. Most of the recipes are vegan, following shojin ryori teachings, but a few do use dairy products, which are used in Chinese Buddhist temple food for example. It’s a really beautiful book, with gorgeous photos and layout. It’s a pleasure to hold and just flip through.

You may have read my rave reviews of the Japanese vegan cookbooks by Yumiko Kano here before. The recipes in The Enlightened Kitchen are more straightforwardly traditional than those of Yumiko Kano, but are still very accessible and modern. And of course, this one is in well-translated English! I’ve tried a few of the recipes already, and they’ve all turned out very well with minimum fuss, even in my current tiny holiday home kitchen. Some of our favorites so far are the eggplant dishes, since eggplants (aubergines) are abundant here in southern France: Sesame-Flavored Eggplant (miso) Soup is rich and toasty, and Eggplant Salad with Lemon-Flavored Plum Dressing is a great side dish or starter. Even the resident dedicted omnivore approves heartily. (Check out the bento-friendly lentil salad inspired by a recipe in this book over on Just Bento.)

The Enlightened Kitchen: Fresh Vegetable Dishes from the Temples of Japan: Author: Mari Fujii; Translated by: Richard Jeffery; Photography: Tae Hamamura; Published by: Kodansha International; Amazon link (Amazonk UK link; Amazon.de link)

And now the part you’ve been waiting for (or skipped forward to): The Giveaway!

I have one copy of The Enlightened Kitchen to give away, courtesy of the publisher, Kodansha International. Just leave a comment to this article, making sure that you put a valid email in the email box (don’t worry, no one but I will see it). To make it a bit more fun, tell us what your favorite vegan dish is, linking to the recipe if possible. Your comment must be posted before 23:59:59 CET (Central European Time) on Sunday, June 7th. One winner will be selected at random, and announced sometime next week. Good luck!

The giveaway is now closed. The winner will be announced later this week!

Sweet onion and soba salad with fat-free umeboshi dressing

maki — Mon, 25 May 2009 10:48:38 +0200

We still haven’t found a house to buy (though we may getting close), and due to the way things work in France, we are probably going to be nomads for at least 4 more months even if we put in an offer for a place tomorrow. I’ve gotten more used to cooking in tiny holiday home kitchens, but I’m still not up to anything too complicated - or in other words anything that requires the use of more than 2 burners at a time.

Fortunately it’s now summer, which means lighter, less complicated meals anyway. This salad, which can be a meal on its own, a starter or a light side dish, features sweet salad onions (spring is the season for them, at least around these parts), sliced paper-thin and refreshed in ice cold water. The tart dressing features umeboshi (pickled plums) and uses no oil, so this is an almost fat-free, fairly low calorie dish, that’s vegan to boot.

Recipe: Sweet onion and soba salad with umeboshi dressing

For 4 starter sized portions or 2 main dish portions

For the dressing:

7 Tbs. (or 1/2 U.S. cup minus 1 Tbs.) vegan dashi, or the same amount of water with 1/2 tsp. of konbu seaweed based or (for non-vegetarians) bonito-based dashi stock granules
4 Tbs. freshly squeezed lemon juice
About 3-4 umeboshi, or enough to make 1 Tbs. ume paste
2 Tbs. soy sauce

For the salad:

1 200g (about 7oz) pack of soba noodles
1 large or 2 medium sweet onions (see notes)
4-5 green shiso leaves
romaine or cos lettuce leaves

To make the dressing:

Take the pits out of the umeboshi, and chop the pulp up finely. You should have about 1 tablespoon of ume pulp. (If you can find something called ‘ume paste’, which is pureed umeboshi, you can use that to save some time.)

Put all the ingredients into a jar and close the lid tightly. Shake vigorously to combine. Refrigerate until you are ready to use it. (It will keep for about 3 days in the refrigerator.)

To make the salad:

Slice the onion as thinly as you can manage. Put the slices in a bowl of ice water.
Bring a pot of water to the boil, and cook the soba noodles following the detailed instructions here. The rinsing stage is very important here, otherwise the soba noodles will become gummy!
Shred the lettuce leaves - you should have enough for about 1 cup per plate. (Alternatively you can just line the plates with whole leaves, but I prefer to shred it.)
Finely shred the shiso leaves.

To assemble:

Line each plate with the lettuce.
Mount the soba noodles on top.
Drain the onion slices and pat them dry with kitchen towels. Mound on top of the soba noodles. Top with a sprinkling of the shiso leaves.
Pour the dressing over the salad, making sure everyone has an equal amount of the umeboshi bits.
Each diner should then mix the salad thoroughly before eating.

Notes

You can make all the components in advance, and assemble the salad as you’re about to serve it.

While this is a vegan salad, the flavors go very well with grilled meat or sausages. For a lighter version, omit the soba and just make a salad of the onions and lettuce.

To make this a complete one-dish vegan meal, top it with tofu cubes, and optionally increase the soy sauce in the dressing to 3 tablespoons. For a fun and so not vegan variation, top with crispy bacon bits, and/or slices of poached chicken breast.

The onions

Around these parts sweet white onions are sold as ‘oignons doux’. You can see them at the markets in big bunches like these.

In the U.S. look for varieties like Vidalia, Walla Walla and Maui.

By putting them in ice water, you do get rid of much of the ‘oniony-ness’ that makes you somewhat pungent, but you may want to avoid eating this salad just before a job interview or blind date, to be on the safe side.

A followup report on being vegan in Japan

maki — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 20:42:23 +0200

Asha, the reader who sent me the question that inspired me to write Japan: A Survival Guide for Vegans has sent in a great follow-up comment. I’ve posted it here so you won’t miss it. She found it a lot easier to follow her vegan regime in Tokyo than in Nagasaki, where she has been living. That makes sense I thin: any major metropolitan area these days is likely to have many people who are vegan or at least interested in a vegan way of eating, while the same might not hold true for more regional towns (Nagasaki has a long history of being a very international city, but is much smaller than Tokyo of course.)

What follows are Asha’s words.

I recently spent about four days in Tokyo and will admit that was the EASIEST time as a vegan out of the entire six and a half months I’ve been here. There are vegan restaurants EVERYWHERE. I ate with a fork for the first time since leaving America. I drank coffee at a cafe that wasn’t Starbucks. I indulged on things I haven’t had since leaving my home country and thoroughly enjoyed everything. It was incredible.

I am vegan, and though I’ve been pretty much unable to eat out at all here in Nagasaki, I don’t mind cooking my own meals. I spend a little more money than the other students from America but that’s because they are living off of incredibly unhealthy prepackaged foods. I really love experimenting with all the new and exciting vegetables and other things here. I recently found a small store called “vegetarian” [that actually sells meat…hah] and found 玄米もち [genmai mochi - brown rice mochi]！ I was so excited. I can’t wait to try it.

I really like making the Chinese savory version of 粥 kayu [rice porridge] with my own personal twist, usually using some miso, a package of natto.. various veggies.. sometimes tofu.. and of course seaweeds. It’s a great meal for any time of the day. I like to stir fry, make curries out of kabocha squash, cauliflower and red lentils [that my lovely boyo brought me from America- thank goodness for lentils!!!] and pretty much steaming or broiling [i have no oven] any vegetable I can find.

At first I ate the same boring mix of bean sprouts and carrots but thankfully have branched way, way out. Don’t forget to try all the different kinds of mushrooms and greens!! Renkon 蓮根 [lotus root], yamaimo 山芋 [mountain yam], satoimo 里芋 [taro root] and of course satsumaimo 薩摩芋 [sweet potato] are all delicious and usually quite cheap. I could live off kabocha squash- it’s THAT good.

I recently found pure organic soy milk and there’s organic tofu here that is super, super cheap. I like unsweetened ankou [azuki bean paste] on brown rice cakes and soy milk with fruit and brown rice flakes found in the organic section of one of the supermarkets I visit.

I’m rambling now, but I hope you get the gist of this entirely too long comment of me slowly adjusting to what’s available here. I think my visit to Tokyo [and enjoying things like sakura muffins and vegan tempeh sandwiches] will hold me over until August.

Thank you Maki for the awesome sites and post. I love all of your sites- especially Hungry for Words! Keep up the great work [and thanks for the email back about the bread!]

Thank you, Asha, for the very detailed comment! I thin it will be very helpful to other vegans venturing out to Japan.

Inarizushi (sushi in a bean bag) Redux: Cooking your own inarizushi skins

maki — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 07:02:50 +0100

Four years ago I posted a very basic recipe for inarizushi, homely sushi that is stuffed into a fried tofu skin or aburaage. It’s been one of the most popular articles here on Just Hungry ever since. That only gave instructions for stuffing pre-made (canned or vacuum packed) skins, so I thought I’d update it with instructions for making your own inarizushi skins from scratch. These instructions will be particularly useful to vegetarians and vegans, since most if not all premade skins are cooked in a fish-based traditional dashi stock. And, for all of you who have had problems making Eggs in Treasure Bags with those small, thin canned skins: You’ll find that making the eggs from your own, sturdy skins is so much easier.

Preparing aburaage (fried tofu skins)

Aburaage (油揚げ) are made from plain tofu that’s been sliced and then deep fried. When the slices are deep fried, they turn crinkly and form an air pocket inside. You can find aburaage in the refrigerated or freezer section of a Japanese grocery store. They are made in the same way as Chinese ‘tofu puffs’ or ‘bean curd puffs’, except they are large and flat instead of small and puffy.

This is how plain aburaage look.

They usually come packed 2 to 3 to a bag. I always keep aburaage in the freezer until I need them.

In Japan, aburaage are mostly used in stewed dishes, soups, and so on. Before it’s cooked, you must blanch and de-oil it. This process is called aburanuki (油抜き) or yudoushi (湯通し); any Japanese cook knows how and when to do this, but it’s one of those details that can get forgotten in translation so to speak. Anyway, it’s very easy to do. Just put the whole aburaage in boiling water to cover for a couple of minutes.

Then drain the boiling water off. This gets rid of some of the surface oil. Let the aburaage cool down before handling further. You can wipe off even more surface oil by patting the aburaage down with paper towels. (Untreated aburaage is about 80-100 calories each, depending on the size; the de-oiling treatment gets rid of 15-20 calories worth of oil.)

At this point, you can use the aburaage as-is, cut into strips and put into miso soup for example, or just cut into half and simmered for a bit in udon noodle soup for kitsune udon. But do remember: When simmering aburaage, always de-oil it. It makes all the difference.

Recipe: Inarizushi skins

Once you have de-oiled your aburaage, making inarizushi skins from them is easy. I like to cut them in half first so that they are ready to stuff once they’re cooked. I’m finding that the aburaage I can buy these days have nice big air pockets inside, so I don’t have to do anything for them to naturally form bags. But if you find yourself with skinny aburaage where the sides ‘stick’ inside, you can loosen them up by rolling a chopstick over the surface before de-oiling. Then after de-oiling, you can gently pry the sides apart to form the bag.

Once you have your cut-in-half aburaage ‘bags’, it’s time to cook them. This amount of poaching liquid is enough for 12 skins, or 6 (2 packs) of aburaage cut in half.

About 1 1/3 cups (350ml) vegan dashi stock, traditional dashi stock, or plain water with 1 tsp. of dashi granules, OR just plain water
3 to 4 Tbs. sugar (depending on how sweet you want them to be), or an equivalent amount of alternative sweetener
2 Tbs. sake
2 Tbs. mirin
3 to 4 Tbs. dark soy sauce (depending on how salty you want them to be)

Combine all the ingredients in a pan and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to a simmer, and put in your de-oiled and cut in half aburaage skins. Simmer for about 15 minutes, until the liquid has evaporated down to about half the original amount. Turn off the heat and let the skins cool down in the liquid.

You can store them in the cooking liquid, well covered, in the refrigerator for 2-3 days. I haven’t really tried freezing them, but you could try it out.

When you’re ready to use the skins, just squeeze them out lightly so they aren’t dripping. These skins are bigger (not to mention sturdier and easier to handle) than the canned kind, so you’ll need more sushi rice per inarizushi, about 1/3 to 1/2 cup. Here is my basic sushi rice recipe; optionally add a teaspoon extra of sugar to the sushi vinegar mix. You can also try the lower calorie mix with hijiki seaweed, or mix in some toasted sesame seeds, shelled edamame, salmon flakes or furikake - whatever strikes your fancy.

You can present the inarizushi with the open end tucked under and down, as I described in the original inarizushi article. Note that the homemade inaruzushi skins are much lighter in color than the sometimes rather virulently reddish-brown canned kind. They are subtler in flavor too - you can really taste the tofu skin itself.

You can also present the inarizushi with the open end up (optionally fold down the edges for neatness). This is especially nice if you have colorful mixed rice as a filling. Here I’ve used some chopped up umeboshi in the rice, as well as as decoration. The umeboshi gives a subtle pink tint and pleasant sourness to the rice. (I used brown rice to make the sushi rice, which is why it’s beige-ish.)

Another inarizushi stuffing technique, not shown here, is to turn the skins completely inside out, and then stuff as normal. This gives the inarizushi a sort of lacy look, which gives a nice contrast if you line when up with regular outside-in brown inarizushi on a plate or in a bento box.

For people who live outside of Japan, the only drawback to making your own inarizushi skins (besides the slight bother of actually cooking them) is that fresh or frozen aburaage can be rather expensive, compared to the long-shelf-life canned skins. (In Japan aburaage is a great budget protein!) Still, the flavor and texture are so much better, so if you can get a hold of aburaage, I hope you give it a try!

Japan: A Survival Guide For Vegans

maki — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 16:12:27 +0100

At the moment I’m sitting in a cottage in France (recovering from a cold, but that’s another story), a land notorious for not being so vegan friendly except in the larger cities. The native cuisine is generally not vegan - even vegetable dishes often use things like dairy products or animal fats or stock in the cooking process, which can make things difficult. But if you are a vegan you probably know about this, and come prepared accordingly. (I think it’s a lot easier for lacto-ovo vegetarians in France; you could live on the delicious bread and cheese.)

If you are going to Japan, you might think that being vegan would be a lot easier. Japanese cuisine has a reputation for using lots of vegetables, seaweed and other vegan-friendly products. There is even a particular kind of cuisine in Japan called sho-jin ryouri (精進料理）, a mostly vegan temple cuisine, with a long and highly regarded tradition.

But as a reader who emailed me recently found out, being vegan in Japan is just as hard as it is in Europe.

There aren’t many vegans or vegetarians in Japan

I don’t have any numbers in front of me, but I am guessing that there are far more vegans or vegetarians in North America and the UK than there are in Japan as a percentage of the general population. According to this article in the Japan Times, most Japanese people, even those that frequent vegan/vegetarian restaurants, do so for health reasons rather than ethical or religious reasons (and most aren’t veggie 100% of the time). Generally speaking, the Japanese diet is based on fish, sometimes poultry and eggs, rice, legumes (pulses, beans) and vegetables, with meat and dairy being a later addition.

Traditional Japanese cuisine and dashi

Traditional Japanese cuisine, or washoku, is very healthy (the only thing you should watch out for really is the high salt content in some dishes). It uses lots of vegetables, seaweed, legumes and so on, with a relatively small amount of protein from fish or meat. However, one thing that makes it almost impossible to be a vegan in a traditional Japanese restaurant is the fact that dashi is used in practically everything. Here is my recipe for basic dashi; as you can see, it contains dried bonito (fish) flakes, or katsuobushi. All regular dashi recipes specify the use of katsuobushi or niboshi (dried fish). Even dashi granules, unless specified otherwise, contain bonito extract. There are dashi granules made from seaweed sources only, but these are not usually used in restaurants.

Dashi is not only used in the obvious places like soups and stews. It’s used in just about every savory dish. It’s used in dressings and sauces for vegetable dishes, as a cooking liquid for sushi rice, in dipping sauces, as a ‘hidden flavor’ (kakushi aji 隠し味) and so on. Just about the only things that are fairly sure to be dashi-free are plain rice and homemade pickles. Even things like umeboshi (pickled plums) often have some dashi added to them.

Ironically the only vegan umami flavor additive is probably pure MSG (the most common Japanese product name is Ajinomoto), which is made from soy beans. But the better a restaurant is, the less likely they are to be using straight MSG in their cooking. A better establishment would make their own dashi, and a cheaper one would most likely use dashi granules.

The use of dashi takes nothing away from the fact that traditional washoku is very healthy. For omnivores, I can’t think of many other cuisines that are better for you. But of course if you can’t eat fish in any form for whatever reason, the omnipresence of dashi can pose a problem.

Some regional cuisines like Okinawan cuisine use a dashi made of fish and pork or chicken. (Okinawan cuisine relies a lot on pork.)

So can’t I just dine on sho-jin ryouri all the time?

Sure, you could. You would need a very generous budget though. Sho-jin ryouri is Japanese haute cuisine, and a typical meal at a sho-jin ryouri restaurant can set you back 10,000-20,000 yen per person or more. (You might have luck finding less expensive places in the Kyoto/Nara area or from some temples open to the public.)

Non-traditional Japanese cuisine

So what if you were to avoid washoku altogether in Japan, and stick to ‘western’ style food? That can be a problem too. The reader who sent in the question was having a very hard time finding any vegan bread. In Japan, mainstream bread usually uses white flour, butter, and/or eggs. You can find things like baguettes and hard rolls that are probably butter-free, but you would have to ask. Whole grain breads are slowly gaining in popularity, but usually a ‘whole wheat’ bread in Japan means something with 10% or so of whole wheat flour, with the rest being white flour.

Japanese-style western cuisine or yohshoku is largely based on traditional French cooking techniques. So, the better yohshoku restaurants rely heavily on the use of properly made beef stock and demi-glace. (A pot of carefully prepared demi-glace is a badge of honor for a good yohshoku restaurant or cafe.) Besides the fact that most yohshoku dishes are meat or egg based anyway (beef stews, curries, omurice, etc.) this is not a good choice for a vegan or even a vegetarian.

So what’s a vegan to do in Japan?

For eating out, there is the Japan Vegan Restaurant Pocketguide in English - they say the new issue is due out in March. You can also try looking for macrobiotic restaurants (マクロビ　or マクロビオティック). The aforementioned page on The Japan Times site also has a small list (though it’s from 2007, so check before you go.) And treat yourself to an authentic sho-jin ryouri restaurant at least once!

But if your stay in Japan is more long term, as in many countries your best bet is to cook for yourself. You can even cook washoku for yourself, using vegan dashi. Use my vegan dashi recipe, or find konbu seaweed based dashi granules. There are all kinds of interesting vegetables in Japan for you to try, as well as different kinds of beans an legumes (dry or canned). And of course, there are the many varieties of tofu. If you can, get tofu from a tofu-ya (tofu store) that makes their own. Freshly made tofu is just amazing.

Try to eat brown rice instead of white rice. You can find all kinds of brown rice in Japan, some of which can be cooked exactly like white rice with no extra soaking time and so on. In fact, as a vegan in Japan you’ll want to base your diet around brown rice and zakkokumai rather than whole grain baked products, if only for the fact that rice is much easier to find. You can even buy things like microwaveable brown rice or brown rice porridge; even a tourist can take advantage of these handy products.

If you can’t find things like whole wheat bread at your local supermarket or konbini (convenience store), try the food halls of department stores, or look for natural food stores.

Lawson, the konbini chain, has a new ‘concept’ store chain called Natural Lawson. While they are not necessarily vegan or vegetarian, they purport to carry things like organic, low calorie and ‘natural’ products. List of stores (in Japanese); so far only in the Tokyo/Kanto area.

If you are in Japan long term, investigate joining a farming coop (農協）in your area, or just signing up for a national one that ships their products. Ask your neighbors, or look in magazines like Kurowassan (クロワッサン (Croissant)) which often has special issues on macrobiotic or vegetarian/vegan cooking, natural healing and such. There’s also a quarterly magazine called Veggy STEADY GO! that you can look for.

Incidentally, you can rest assured that any Japanese or not-Japanese recipe categorized as vegan on Just Hungry or Just Bento will really be vegan! For Japanese recipes, I always make sure to use vegan dashi.