This week's recipe was new territory for me. Lots of you - vegans and vegetarians in particular- will be familiar with Seitan. It's basically a dense dumpling which is sliced and used as a meat substitute in a variety of ways. You can buy delicious takeaway seitan dishes from local vegan restaurants, and you can also buy it prepped and ready for you to cook at home.
Or…like so many of our vegan customers, you can make it from scratch! Seitan - or 'wheat meat' - is made almost entirely from vital wheat gluten aka gluten flour, which is simply the protein component of regular wheat flour after the starch is removed. It looks like regular flour, but becomes very sticky and elastic when moisture is added. To make seitan, water and spices are added to vital wheat gluten, and the mixture is kneaded, shaped and simmered in a pot. Then it's sliced and ready to add to whatever recipe your heart desires, as a meat substitute in stir-fries, casseroles, even roasts. Think of seitan like tofu. It doesn't have a lot of flavour on its own, but it's a wonderful carrier for other flavours. Being an omnivore, I haven't attempted to make seitan until now. Recently I discussed all things seitan with one of our regular seitan-cooking customers, Don, and I decided to bite the bullet. Don is vegan and steered me towards his favourite recipe to start me off. His recipe came from the glorious vegan bible of sorts, Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. I used their recipe as a springboard, and played around with it a little. I was really pleased with the result, and found the process fun! So, to any fellow newbies, let's jump in together and go on a seitan adventure.
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It's hard to beat a nut-laden curry.
Whether it's a cashew-rich Korma or a traditional West African Peanut soup, nuts incorporated into a spicy sauce always makes for a sumptuous and satisfying meal. I love this take on a classic Thai Red Curry.The addition of sweet potato and peanuts works so well, it's like it was meant to be. I'm keeping things simple by using a quality, shop-bought red curry paste. Feel free to make a paste from scratch, or just use your favourite brand of pre-made. I used our fresh, made-in-store peanut butter and the flavour and texture of the end result was unbeatable. Growing up, I was the designated cook in our small family from about the age of 14. My dad's New Zealand roots means he can never have enough sweet potato (or kumera) and he'd be very happy eating it with every meal! I learnt to come up with a wide variety of sweet potato recipes. This one remains a firm family favourite. We hope you love it too! A note about fresh coriander: I always use the long green stalks of the coriander, not just the leafy bits towards the top. Finely chopped and fried off with your other aromatics like ginger and garlic, coriander stalks add so much depth of flavour. Remove and discard the very bottom roots, give the coriander a good wash under the tap as dirt gets trapped in the stalks. Reserve the leafy parts for garnish and finely dice the green stalks. While tabbouleh traditionally uses cracked wheat (called bourgal or bulgar), ours calls for millet. This not only makes it gluten free, it really shows off millet's capabilities of absorbing flavours beautifully whilst staying fluffy and light. This is an important factor, because so often Sydney summers mean that our salads don't maintain their vibrancy after half an hour spent on the picnic rug or BBQ buffet. Not so with millet tabbouleh; it maintains that freshly made quality for longer.
You'll also notice this Tabbouleh recipe asks for za'atar. It's by no means a traditional Tabbouleh ingredient, but I find it really lifts the whole thing and delivers depth and interest. So come on a little millet adventure with us. When cooking queries regarding millet were recently brought up by two separate customers on the same day, we thought it might be a sign to serve our customers up a millet recipe. Or maybe even two!
Millet porridge is a common breakfast in several countries. It's also used as a high protein, nutritious alternative to rice, pearl barley and couscous. One of the conversations we had with a customer was about how to properly cook millet porridge. Some people find that the end result is a little firm, even after cooking thoroughly. After some trial and error, I think I've cracked the code. Huddle up: There are two methods that give you a satisfyingly creamy porridge, albeit with differing textures. The first method involves leaving the millet grains whole, but soaking them overnight before then cooking them for about 20 to 30 mins. It's basically the same method I use for steel cut oats, and the result is similar- a robust bowl of goodness. The second method is quicker and gives you a smoother, silkier porridge. You simply put the raw millet grains in a food processor, blender or coffee grinder and whiz it until the grains are much finer - about halfway to being a flour. Then you cook it in milk and water for 15 minutes. This is my preferred method, and the one I use below, but you might find you prefer the whole grain version. We have my 14yo to thank for this recipe. Whilst "Mum, can we try making gazpacho this weekend" is not the usual thing to be uttered by a teenager, it's right on brand for Sam. He's a history and geography buff, and lately he's been delving into Spain and, specifically, the southern region of Andalusia. Gazpacho is a chilled tomato soup which is a popular staple in the southern parts of Spain. It's a thin soup made with tomatoes, capsicum and cucumber. Knowing my kid's passionate aversion to capsicum I suggested we make Salmorejo instead. Like its cousin, Gazpacho, Salmorejo is also Andalusian, tomato based, served chilled & just as refreshing on a hot day. While some Salmorejo recipes call for the use of fresh tomatoes, I was keen to put our new bottled passata to the test. The end result was wildly successful - a bright, vibrant meal that had us scraping our bowls. Try it on a hot day - I think Sydney has quite a few of those up its sleeve before giving way to Autumn. We assure you'll be delighted with the cooling, nourishing eating experience that Salmorejo delivers. |
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