A Charlie Trotter Christmas

I got a used copy of Charlie Trotter's Vegetables from amazon last week.  Most of the reviews say the recipes are for coffee table use only (there's a beautiful pic of each dish on the facing page), and they're too complicated, with ingredients that are too obscure, for any amateur to undertake.  But I couldn't help it!  I love spending an entire day in the kitchen, and that's what I did on Christmas Day.

 

(Cue some Schroeder piano music... :) )

 

The recipes are arranged by month, so I chose three dishes from the December chapter: "Baby Turnip and Beet Ragout with Scallion Sauce and Beet Oil" and "Roasted Matsutake and Cauliflower Mushrooms with Barley, Water Chestnuts, Sunchokes and Mushroom Broth," and for dessert the "Yam and Pistachio Custard Tart with Turmeric Anglaise Sauce." 

 

I Now, I did make several substitutions and a couple shortcuts, but I feel like that's totally within the philosophy of the book - he recommends experimenting in several recipes, and his wine notes always give a handful of possibilities and often never come up with a "correct" match.  So, since I only could find gold and red beets, I did without the candy-striped beets.  And I've never seen matsutake or cauliflower mushrooms anywhere, so I used shiitake and oyster.  Also in the mushroom dish, I couldn't find fresh water chestnuts so I just left them out.  And I only decided to do the yam tart the day of Christmas, so I had to make do with pecans and walnuts instead of pistachios and half and half instead of cream, and I just left out the turmeric altogether (have you ever seen fresh turmeric anywhere??).

So at about 11 am, I happily dragged out my old juicer for the first component of the beet dish and juiced 6 large beets, which then were reduced by 3/4 and mixed with a little oil.  The reduction took a good 2 hours.  I also started the mushroom broth, which was a pound and a half of button mushrooms simmered in water for 2 1/2 hours, then strained. In the meantime, I put together the scallion oil with blanched scallion tops and oil.

 

 

Then I began roasting things for each dish: the yam for dessert, each type of mushroom separately with a sprig of rosemary, and turnips and carrots for the beet dish. 

 

 

Then the beets were boiled (I would roast them alongside everything else next time), the scallion ends were braised, and the sunchokes sauteed. 

 

The plating doesn't come anywhere near the beautiful pics in the book, but it was fun.  I need something for drizzling the lovely sauces that take so much time - the beet dish looks more like globs of sauce than drizzles.  And this is why people like white plates instead of orange!

 

 

And here's a blurry pic of the Yam and Pecan/Almond Custard Tart with Anglaise Sauce.  They're supposed to be molded in three-inch rings, but all I have for that is a muffin tin!  Worked out fine, with a buttered and floured tin.  The crust is a barely-sweet pate brisee, one of several recipes-within-recipes to follow in this book.

 

 

I had a lot of fun making these dishes, and I plan to do a couple from every month this year.  The two main dishes were both vegan, and with no onion, which is a fun and interesting challenge.  The beets with beet sauce were wonderfully sweet, and the mushroom dish was subtle and earthy.

 

And, bonus, the next day I put together a couple more traditional dishes out of those components I worked so hard on: 

 

 

 

I made a spinach salad with blue cheese topped with the leftover beets and the rest of the nuts from the yam dish.  I used the beet reduction for the basis of an awesome dressing - I added balsamic vinegar, a little good olive oil, and salt and pepper.  I turned most of the components from the mushroom/barley dish into...mushroom barley soup - huge leap of creative energy there...  Started with slightly browned mire poix, which I deglazed with a little sherry.  Then I added the mushroom broth and some water, along with the rest of the roasted mushrooms - chopped, the sunchokes, and about a tablespoon of barley miso.  I simmered that for a half hour or so, then added the barley and warmed it back up. 

 

I did enjoy the leftovers more than the originals, but they were only such spectacular versions of these everyday dishes because of the refined and concentrated elements I started with.  I can't wait to try more Charlie Trotter recipes!

Brussels Sprouts

Picked up a - what would you call it? I stick? A twig? A branch? - of brussels sprouts in Berrien Springs at a little roadside stand last weekend. Beautiful right?  It was sad, the farmer had a flier out at their honor-system stand asking for information about someone who had "taken $55 worth of produce and left $15." They had photos of the guy, too, so take warning, your farmer might be watching you!

 

I made a recipe from Herbivoracious the cookbook for Brussels Sprout and Apple Hash. Pretty good! I didn't get a picture of the final dish, and it doesn't seem to be on his blog, but here are some of the ingredients - sliced sprouts, onions, lots of butter, apples, chopped fresh rosemary, and thyme. 

Banh Mi Redux

Banh mi rearranged into appetizers for holiday party at work!

Banh Mi

So I decided to do a banh mi sandwich with the sourdough baguettes I was planning.  I didn't even realize banh mi are practically a scourge on New York City until I ran across this article...  They review other ethnic sandwiches they find around the city to try to find "the new bahn mi" but notice that they don't like any of them as much as this wild, delicious combination of Vietnam and France.

My favorite banh mi at the strip mall across from UC Irvine - way back in 2001, long before the hippest sandwich eaters in NYC grew tired of them :) - was brie and pate (nope, not vegan!).  I found the cafe on Yelp with 4 3/4 stars (still awesome, I guess!) -  Le Diplomate.  I don't see any banh mi with brie, though, anymore.

But that was when it was all I could do to keep weight on!  No longer....so I skipped the brie this time.  I used this vegan pate from Dr. Weil because I had an eggplant I needed to use up, and this recipe for the pickled daikon and carrot from a site called "Banh Mi Battle." So you know they have the best version...

Turned out really well, I think, though the bread was way too heavy for this.  It needs a more traditional baguette, with less whole wheat flour.  I'll write about my adventures with homemade bread one of these days, maybe (I'm trying to learn never to make promises on a blog...!)

Clockwise from sandwich: one finished sandwich, eggplant & walnut pate, pickled daikon & carrot, cilantro, sriracha hot sauce, and Vegenaise. 

Korean Pancakes from one of my favorite internet doctors

....Dr. Ben Kim.  I made these pancakes for brunch this morning, along with Dr. Kim's Pomegranate and Almond Salad.  Sadly, I didn't get a pic of the salad, it was beautiful, simple, and healthy, of course, as all of Dr. Kim's recipes are.

I did grab one shot of the lovely pancakes:

The sauce - with a few drops of fire oil - really made the dish.  My friend thought they were delicious, and they were, but I'd do them a little differently next time.  I found the flavor very delicate, which apparently isn't really my thing, though I do want to do them again.  I looked up Korean pancakes in my copy of Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian, and she adds egg, sesame oil, and sauteed mushrooms and chiles - those are certainly great ideas.  She also starts with wheat flour and rice flour instead of mung beans and a little rice, but I think starting with the more whole grains is the way I prefer.  I would probably cut back on the mung bean mixture by about half - or double everything else - and add some sesame oil, mushrooms, and maybe a little more salt to the batter.

Just after the Korean pancake recipe in World Vegetarian is a one for Vietnamese pancakes, or Banh Xeo.  The pancake recipe itself is extremely similar, but the sauce has lime juice, crushed garlic, chile, and roasted peanuts in addition to soy sauce, and it calls for bean sprouts and fresh mint and basil as garnishes.  So maybe I'll try that next time instead...

Stuffed Acorn Squash

Two years??  Wow.  It's been a while since I posted here!  Funny that I've recently decided to try vegan again, if just for a cleanse - I've only been ovo-lacto vegetarian since around early 2011.  But here's something I made tonight that thrilled me, and my guest loved it too, so I wanted to put it somewhere, if just so I could repeat it myself.

I started from this post from We Are Not Martha, but I changed it up quite a bit.  It's pretty healthy, and vegan, but it has a lot of flavor.  I've been loving ancho chile pepper powder, and I used it here.  I suppose chili powder would work, if you like it (I've never found one that didn't have a stale, cardboard-y flavor), but I guess I would favor a slightly spicy paprika over that.

Vegan Stuffed Acorn Squash
2-4 servings

1 acorn squash
2 tbl olive oil (divided)
1/2 cup brown rice
1 1/4 cup vegetable stock
1 small onion, diced
4 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 green bell pepper, diced
4 oz mushrooms, diced
1/4 cup dry sherry
3 oz frozen vegan ground crumbles (or so, about a quarter package)
1/4 crunchy apple, diced (I used honey crisp)
1/2 tsp ancho chile pepper powder  (see note above)
1/4 cup walnuts, toasted and chopped
1/4 cup flat leaf parsley, chopped

salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 375F.  Split the squash and remove the seeds.  Place the halves cut side up in a baking dish, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with plenty of salt and pepper.  Place in oven and roast about 45 minutes, or until fork tender.

Combine the rice and stock in a pot, bring to a boil, and simmer, covered, for about 25 minutes, or until the liquid is absorbed.

In the meantime, heat the rest of the olive oil in a large saute pan over medium heat.  Add the onions and saute until translucent.  Add the garlic, bell pepper, and mushrooms and saute until all the vegetables are tender.  Add the sherry and cook for a minute or so, then add the cooked rice, ground crumbles, apple, and ancho chile powder.  Cook another three minutes or so until the ground crumbles are thawed.

Remove the squash from the oven.  Stir the walnuts and parsley into the rice mixture, add salt and pepper to taste, then spoon it, divided in two, into the hollows of the squash.  Return the squash to the oven for five minutes and heat until the stuffing begins to brown.  Serve with a little more chopped parsley as garnish.

Chickpea Salad Sandwiches

Are you one of those people who says, "Oh, I would like to be vegan, but I don't think I could do it" or "I don't think I could give up [this or that]"?  Well, if you haven't tried chickpea salad sandwiches, then you haven't even given yourself a fighting chance.

This is the Chickpea of the Sea sandwich from The Kitchn, with a couple changes.  I use Vegenaise (a mayo replacement so awesome I can eat it by the spoonful), of course, and I use red wine vinegar instead of the umeboshi with no problem (no umeboshi vinegar to be had around here right now, though I hope to try it one of these days).  I have also never added the cayenne, and I always throw in about a teaspoon of Kala Namak, or Indian black salt, which smells like you would never want to put it on food, but it tastes so much like egg, it's unbelievable.  I love that stuff in this sandwich, and in tofu scrambles.

I put onion sprouts and lettuce on this version of the sandwich.  And, for some reason, I made a handful of potato chips instead of the sandwich the focal point of the photo...

This sandwich is awesome.  I make it at least a couple times a month.  It's particularly easy with canned chickpeas, but if you make them from dried in the crockpot, you can get them plenty soft enough to mash easily.  TRY IT!