Lemon meringue pie, again

I love experiments where you can eat the data.

 

I've almost perfected my meringue recipe from last time.

This is a small batch: it made enough to cover 3 ramekins. I think if you double it it would be enough for a pie.

60 g water
50 g caster sugar
pinch of cream of tartar
vanilla
1 g versawhip 600k
0.5 g xanthan gum
0.6 g agar powder

1. Mix the water, sugar and agar in a small pot and bring to the boil.
2. Put the cream of tartar, versawhip and xanthan in the bowl of a stand mixer. Add the agar mixture and whip with the whisk attachment. Add a little bit of vanilla extract.
3. Whip the mixture until you have a thick foam. When you lift the mixer head, the whisk should have a big blob of meringue in it. It should be thick enough to just stick there, not dripping off.
4. (You could put it on your pie at this point, but here's what I did.) Cover a baking tray with parchment paper, then make meringue circles the right diameter for the ramekins. Put the tray under the grill for a minute or two, watching closely because they brown fast.
5. Put the browned meringues in the fridge or the freezer. If you serve them straight out of the freezer the foam is slightly firmer, and I find the cooler temperature pleasant. Out of the fridge they are perfectly acceptable, just slightly less firm.
6. Place the chilled meringue on top of your lemon pie (or ramekin) to serve.

Note: I bet it would work if you put all of the ingredients into the pot in step 1.

Burgers

I've been really into veggie burgers recently. I combine mashed beans (usually black eyed peas) and rice (Sri Lankan red keeri samba rice, which is short grained and fluffy), various random things for flavour (smoked paprika? soy sauce? vegan worcestershire? finely chopped onion?), chia seeds and or ground flax seed, and vital wheat gluten. Then, fry or bake. I really like the crisp crust that you get with a rice based burger.

Smoked dates

On pizza. Yes!

This is the dough from last time, defrosted. (Incidentally, I won't be doing this again. The dough was terrible: hard to handle and didn't have much oven spring. It might have overproofed.) It's topped with homemade tomato sauce, kalamatas, smoked dates, homemade melting mozz.

There will be more smoked dates on pizza in this house.

Vegan lemon meringue pie

Here's how you make a meringue that doesn't set:

I based it on my pavlova recipe, but used water instead of flax goop. In the pavlova recipe, I think the baking step provides the heat necessary to activate the agar, but I didn't plan to bake this meringue, only run it under the grill to brown, so I whipped half the water with the versawhip and sugar, and heated the other half in a pot with the agar (using twice as much agar as in the pavlova recipe). I then poured the agar mixture into the versawhip mixture and kept whipping. I ended up having to add more versawhip because it was taking forever to whip up properly. The agar left a few little lumps in the meringue, I guess because it solidified when it hit the room temperature versawhip mixture.

 I put the meringue on the pie, ran it under the grill, and it browned charmingly and the surface firmed up. Overall, the meringue layer was way too soft. It was runny rather than marshmallowy. Tasted good though. I guess the agar didn't do much work at all. It might have helped to use warm water in the versawhip mixture, and then leave the meringue to cool down and firm before grilling/serving.

Here's how you make a meringue that sets:

Take the pie you made in the first version. Freeze it. And voila!

The pastry wasn't that good frozen. So in future I might make a meringue disk, brown it, freeze it, and then place on the lemon tart to serve. It was the perfect texture.

Zero zero

I have made lots of pizzas, but this is the first time I've used 00 flour. The verdict: totally worth it. Or maybe the pizza gods were smiling for some other reason. Clearly I will need to do more research, where research means pizza making.

I used this recipe. I replaced some of the flour with vital wheat gluten (12 grams?) because the 00 flour was only 9.5% protein. After 1 day rising in the fridge, half of the recipe made 2 pizzas, the rest sat for a couple more days in the fridge and then went in the freezer for next time.

The first pizza was olive, pesto and homemade melting mozzarella. (I ferment the mozz a lot longer than the book calls for, and add a little bit of nutritional yeast. I think the homemade yogurt I used this time was an 80/20 soy/coconut milk blend.) This was fantastic. The crust was great, and the cheese melted really well.

The second pizza was inspired by this one. I made a bechamel with olive oil and soy milk, and added nutritional yeast, miso and a tiny bit of soy sauce. We had kale from our garden, which I tore up and massaged with oil like you would for a raw kale salad. I added a bit of parsley and spring onion, but I don't think they added much. This was really nice. Here it is, pre- and post- baking.

Carrot hot dogs

I have to say I didn't have a lot of confidence that this would work. I had read about a place in LA that makes carrot hot dogs, and I found a few recipes on the web, like this one. I cooked the carrots, then marinated them for a day in a mixture of vinegar, soy sauce, water, sesame oil, garlic, mustard, paprika, pepper, coriander, nutmeg, cardamom and homemade celery salt, and then the next day cooked them on a hot pan.

And the verdict? It was simultaneously like eating a hot dog and a carrot. When I tasted one of the carrots by itself, it definitely was hot dog-esque, but in the context of the strong-flavoured condiments the carrot flavour was hard to miss. Overall, I can believe that some people have perfected this (insofar as one can perfect the carrot as hot dog). I think I didn't quite cook the carrots soft enough, and I bet the marinade could be improved. Anyway, even though they were okay, I think next time I have a hot dog craving, I'll be buying soy dogs from the supermarket.

Carrot sofrito tacos

Here you see tacos filled with carrot sofrito and cashew goat cheese with cilantro and red onion, which we ate with a tomato/tomatillo/chipotle salsa. (I used this recipe for enchiladas with a carrot sofrito.)

The leftover sofrito made for some excellent tomato soup the next day -- quickly brown chopped fennel, and then some tomato paste, then add a tin of chopped tomato, water and the sofrito. Pressure cook for 5 minutes. Puree. Salt, pepper, done.

Pavlova experiment

The first time I made a vegan pavlova, I was winging it, so I decided to do an experiment and refine my recipe. Here's the best version I have come up with so far:

100g flax seed goop
100g sugar
pinch of cream of tartar
2g versawhip 600k
1g xanthan gum (this was an accidental increase from the first time; I think 0.5g works too)
0.6g agar powder

1. Whip up the flax seed goop in a stand mixer with a whisk attachment. Whip it until it is very frothy.

2. Mix the rest of the ingredients into the sugar.
3. With the mixer running, add the sugar mixture a bit at a time. Keep whipping until you have a very stiff foam.

4. Scoop the foam out onto a parchment paper covered baking sheet. Form it into a circle about 8 centimetres tall, with the centre slightly lower than the edges.
5. Bake at 100 C for 1 hour, then turn the oven off and leave the pavlova in there (with the door closed) to cool completely. I would say at least 4 hours. (I typically leave it overnight.) After it's cool, you can store it in an airtight container -- mine have been fine 2 days later, but I haven't tried leaving them longer than that.
6. Decorate with non-dairy whipped cream (e.g. whipped coconut cream) and fruit.

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Some notes:

• For my first (unsuccessful) attempt at a simple flax seed meringue, I made the flax seed goop by simmering it for 20 minutes. There was a lot more than Miyoko's recipe said there would be, so I assumed that I had undercooked it. For my second attempt, I simmered it for 40 minutes. I ended up with 2/3 of a cup (the recipe said about 1/2 cup). Both versions worked fine. The version with the longer cooking time got a bit brown on the bottom of the saucepan, and this flavour carried over slightly into the finished pavlova. It was tasty, but not really authentic, so I would try to avoid it in future.
• Other people (Miyoko, various people on the PPK) have been able to make fluffy meringue using just flax seed goop, sugar and cream of tartar. I have tried twice now, and haven't got it to work. My best attempt was this very weak foam:

• It's possible that if you can make a good meringue with just flax seed, sugar and cream of tartar, then you might be able to make a pavlova by adding xanthan and/or agar. But I think I am officially giving up on that goal -- I like my results with versawhip.
• I tried a version of the pavlova with 100g water instead of the flax seed goop -- so with versawhip as the only whipping agent. The flaxless pavlova had a nice crisp outer shell, but the inside was quite insubstantial. The one with flax had a more marshmallowy inside.

Flax + versawhip:

Versawhip only:

Pavlova

I can't believe this worked.

It's a vegan meringue topped with coconut whipped cream and berries. The meringue had the texture contrast you want for pavlova: crisp on the outside and marshmallowy on the inside. 

On the PPK, everyone was having lots of success with flaxseed meringue. I gave it a go, but it didn't work out for me. I think I might not have cooked the flax goop down enough. When I whipped it, it did increase in volume somewhat, and got sort of frothy, but not enough. I added the sugar even though I was doubtful it would work, and nothing much happened.

To the 100g flaxseed goop, 100g sugar, and pinch of cream of tartar of the original recipe, I decided to add another more high-tech whipping agent: Versawhip 600K, along with some xanthan gum. (I used 2 grams of versawhip and .5 gram of xanthan.) And, presto, it whipped up beautifully.

I decided to try making pavlova style meringue. I remembered that some people (Mr Nice Guy Cupcakes, I believe) have had success using agar for marshmallow-style meringue (like the topping on lemon meringue pie), so I added some (I think about 1/3 teaspoon of agar powder). If I remember the Mr Nice Guy recipe correctly, the idea was that the agar would activate during the baking step.

I baked the meringue for 30 minutes at 100C, and then as customary for pavlova, left it in the turned off oven to cool. When it was cool, I tried some, and found that at the very centre it was still somewhat liquid. So I baked them again for 30 minutes, and then let them cool down in the oven overnight. Next morning they were perfect.

Banoffee pie

Banoffee/Banoffi pie, veganized:

The crust is the shortbread tart shell from Vegan Pie in the Sky (but with some of the margarine replaced with coconut oil). Then there's a layer of soy 'dulce de leche', then a layer of sliced bananas, and then it's topped with coconut whipped cream (1 cup coconut cream, 0.5 g xanthan gum, whipped in the cream whipper) and there's some chocolate flakes on top. (I decided to skip the coffee from the original because I wasn't sure how it would go with the coconut.)

Dulce de leche?

So, I thought I would try to make vegan dulce de leche. Maybe I did, maybe I didn't, but I ended up making something delicious and learning some things about the Maillard reaction.

I used a recipe from this thread (but with soy milk powder) to make some homemade sweetened condensed milk, then put it in a jar in the pressure cooker for 30 minutes, ala this recipe. And the result, after 30 minutes pressure cooking and a natural cool down? It hadn't changed colour at all.

I remembered that when I caramelized vegan white chocolate in the pressure cooker, it took about twice as long as regular white chocolate. So I stuck the jar back in the pressure cooker for an hour, again letting it cool down naturally. Finally, some results!

Tasty stuff! But after doing some reading, I think it might be more accurate to call it caramelized sweetened condensed milk. The thing is that true dulce de leche involves the Maillard reaction -- a reaction between proteins and sugars. But only certain sugars ('reducing sugars') work -- and regular old table sugar (sucrose), like I used in my sweetened condensed milk, isn't one of the ones that takes part in this reaction. I think in real dulce de leche, it's the sugar in the milk (lactose) that takes part in the Maillard reaction. Apparently glucose is a reducing sugar, so I might try this again with glucose some time.

Whipped cream experiments

This is a variant on Isa Moskowitz's  Rad Whip, whipped in a cream whipper. I'm pretty impressed that it worked so nicely!

I replaced the original recipe's cashews with tofu, mainly to avoid any danger of clogging the cream whipper -- my blender is not the best at pureeing cashews.

The recipe I used:
84 g firm silken tofu
76 g coconut cream (i.e. coconut milk with about 30% fat; I bet regular coconut milk would be fine)
1 cup soy milk
1.5 g agar powder
3 T sugar
2 T plus 2 t coconut oil (liquid)
1 t vanilla

1. Puree the tofu with the coconut cream and half the milk (in a blender).
2. Heat the other half of the milk with the sugar and agar, bring to the boil and simmer for about 5 minutes. Add the coconut oil.
3. Stream the agar mixture into the tofu mixture with the blender running. Add the vanilla.
4. Transfer to a bowl and place it in the fridge to cool.
5. When it is cold and firm, scoop it back into the blender and puree. Now it's ready to put into your cream whipper. (Mine is a 500ml whipper, which means that its capacity is actually 250ml or about one cup, which is about half of this recipe.)
6. At least an hour before you want whipped cream (preferably even longer, like a day before, because it seems to get better the longer it sits), add the mixture to the cream whipper, close it up and add the N2O. Shake it a few times, then put the whipper in the fridge. (Some people suggest laying it on its side, but I don't know if that matters -- I haven't noticed a difference.)
7. When you want whipped cream, turn the whipper upside down and shake downwards firmly (like you would if you were trying to get the last bit out of a shampoo bottle). Then squeeze the trigger. My results haven't always been quite as pretty as in the photo, but I'm not sure why.

For a simpler, straight coconut whipped cream, my current best recipe is:
1 cup coconut cream
0.35 g xanthan gum

Disperse the xanthan in the coconut cream with a stick blender, or by pouring the xanthan into the vortex while running the regular blender. The mixture is now ready to put into the cream whipper. As mentioned above, this needs to be at least an hour before you want the whipped cream, and preferably a day or more before.

Parsnip ice cream

I have to admit that I am always more drawn to the weirder ice cream flavours than the classics. And so it came to pass that I made parsnip ice cream, based on this recipe by Barbara Kafka. (I replaced the cream with coconut milk/cream*).

Anyway, this was really good. I loved that I got to taste it: it's really sweet and nutty, in a sort of chestnut/sweet potatoey sort of way. I think that with the right accompaniments, it could be really amazing, but as a flavour on its own I had my fill after a few bites. And now I am regretting that I didn't make something more boring (I mean, 'classic').

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 * I used some mysterious coconut product I had in a container in the fridge. Usually that would be coconut milk, but recently I have been playing around with coconut whipped cream, and have been buying something called coconut cream which is coconut milk with about 30% fat. Most likely it was a mix of coconut milk and cream.

Padron peppers

Homegrown Padron peppers, stuffed with cashew goat cheese (from Artisan Vegan Cheese) and fried:

I only wish the snails hadn't eaten so many of my seedlings -- these were so good that the three pepper plants that survived are not enough for us. Definitely planting more (and defending them from the snails more carefully) next year.

Padron peppers are supposed to be mild, with only the occasional hot one, but so far all of the ones I have harvested have been hot. I think this probably has to do with the climate in Perth. Still, they are delicious, and not unbearably hot.

Burma

This week has been all about Burmese food, ever since I picked up Naomi Duguid's Burma: Rivers of Flavor from the library. We have suffered through quite a heatwave, so we've mostly tried the salads. 

Here you see Mandalay Grated Carrot Salad, and Peas for Many Occasions. This might've been my favourite meal so far. It seemed like every bite of the carrot salad was a little different -- it has all the typical Burmese salad flavourings of lime juice, fresh herbs (coriander, mint), peanuts, fried shallots, 'fish sauce', toasted chickpea flour, and green chile. I used my homemade fish sauce, based on a recipe from Chowhound but with some added stinky tofu. Duguid advises that vegetarians should replace the recipe's dried shrimp powder with extra toasted chickpea flour plus some soy sauce or miso, so I added some soy sauce. The recipe for Peas (in this case chickpeas) is simple and quick if you start with canned beans, and tastes like much more than the sum of its parts (turmeric, shallots, 'fish sauce', herbs, lime juice). Together, they made a really quick and satisfying lunch.

And here, clockwise from left there's Punchy-Crunchy Ginger Salad, Shan Tofu Salad, and Succulent Pomelo Salad. The ginger salad was great. Along with the ginger, napa cabbage and tomatoes, you have all the usual suspects (fish sauce, lime, peanuts etc) plus pumpkin seeds and sesame seeds. I left out the fried garlic and garlic oil because I didn't have any on hand. Still, it was marvelous. And the Shan tofu salad was pretty great too. I had just made the tofu, and it had only been in the fridge for 1 hour rather than the recommended 4, but it was already sliceable. The silky texture of the cold tofu was really nice with the dressing of garlic/soy sauce/lime leaves/rice vinegar. I didn't have any shallot oil on hand, so sprinkled on some fried shallots.

We've also tried the Intensely Green Spinach and Tomato Salad with Peanuts, the Okra-Shallot Stir-Fry, and the Tamarind-Pumpkin Curry. These three didn't wow me as much, but they were all pleasant.

When these recipes work, they really work. I don't know if it's just because I am not familiar with Burmese food, but I find something really mysterious and fascinating about the flavour combinations.

Overall, from a vegan perspective, this is a book worth looking at. There are lots of interesting salads and vegetable curries, some soups and snacks (I'm looking forward to trying the (inherently vegan) rice crepes) as well as quite a few condiments (chutneys, chile sauces etc) and desserts. Most of the recipes require substitutions (there's fish sauce and or shrimp powder in just about all the vegetable recipes, it seems) but I really appreciated the fact that Duguid gives some suggestions for how to make these replacements (p. 31).