Koreanish jackfruit

One hot day, we needed lunch, I had recently read this article on Bo Ssam, and I had a can of young jackfruit. (I probably bought it intending to make jackfruit carnitas.)

I cooked the jackfruit in the pressure cooker for 20 minutes, with seasonings inspired by the Korean BBQ sauce from Fatfree Vegan. I then shredded it to end up with this:

We ate the jackfruit in lettuce leaves, with a bunch of stuff from the fridge: cold leftover rice vermicelli, pickled shiitakes, sauerkraut (standing in for kimchi), cilantro, leftover butter beans, and a made-up sauce of fermented chili bean paste, miso, sriracha and vinegar. This was an excellent meal. I'm hungry for it again, looking at the photos.

The jackfruit tasted good, but I am not really won over by the texture. I guess it is nice for a change to have a 'meaty' element to a meal that is not seitan or tofu. But I think I am just lukewarm on it because when I was a meat-eater, I never ate meaty foods that have that particular falling-apart texture. (I never tried American-style barbecue or carnitas, for example. I bet people that miss those foods get a bit more out of jackfruit than I do.)

Nasi lemak redux

I haven't been too interested in cooking recently, but when I got Ottolenghi's Plenty for Xmas, I remembered how good his version of nasi lemak was. So here it is again, but with non-traditional chickpeas. The sambal is really tasty: not too hot, and the tamarind and sugar give it a sweet tanginess.

On top, I sprinkled some crispy fried shallots and some vegetarian anchovies (which I brought back from Singapore -- they are seasoned dried mushroom stalks). Unfortunately I left the bag of anchovies on the counter, and while I was out, Mackie ripped open the bag and ate the lot.

Mmm, bacon

Eggplant bacon from Appetite for Reduction:

Magic Shroom Dust from Hot Knives:

Smoked coconut flakes:

Zucchini cornbread

This was goo-ood.

If my usual cornbread recipes have a failing, it's that they can sometimes be a bit dry. But this one solves that problem by including a cup of grated zucchini. This cornbread was luscious!

I combined two recipes: this one from Bryanna, and this one from Herbivoracious. I think I basically followed Bryanna's proportions of wet and dry ingredients, but with white (all purpose) flour. I used Herbivoracious' trick of browning the (vegan) butter, and adding (soy) milk powder, but used much less butter -- more like 3 tablespoons.

Smoking

I got a stovetop smoker for my birthday. Since then we've been eating lots of smoked things. Probably my favourite things so far have been smoked tofu and tempeh. Here's the smoker packed full of veggie protein (marinated pressed tofu, tempeh, and two homemade seitan sausages).

For the tofu, I press it overnight and then marinate it for a day in soy sauce with a bit of maple syrup and sesame oil. Once it has been smoked for 30 minutes, it's ready to be sliced thinly for sandwiches. The tempeh just goes in plain -- once smoked, it's ready to be cooked however you like. I like to slice it thinly and pan fry, adding flavourings (soy sauce plus whatever other things) at the end for a glaze.

Other things I've smoked so far: cherry tomatoes (10 minutes), garlic, potatoes (45 minutes from raw to cooked -- too long; better to parcook them before smoking), young coconut, coconut flakes (20 minutes), lemon. The young coconut was a bit odd -- I ended up pureeing it and making a smoky ice cream which was pretty good. The coconut flakes were great as a bacon-y element in a salad. The smoked lemon I didn't know quite what to do with, so it is sitting in the freezer waiting for inspiration to strike.

Broad beans

As a kid I hated broad beans (fava beans). I was totally surprised when I moved to Massachusetts to find out how excited people got about them in the spring. I was also surprised at the rigmarole involved in preparing them: my parents always served them with the skins on, but it seems that in the USA it's normal to parboil them and remove the outer skin. I have tried them this way but it seemed like a lot of work for not much return.

Anyway, now I am a convert, thanks to my dad giving me some small broad beans from his garden. These pods are very small compared to the ones you find for sale -- they are finger-sized and so tender that you can steam them and eat them whole. They are fantastic. I was surprised especially by the aroma of the pods when I lifted the lid off the steamer -- flowery, almost rose-like.


We ate these with risotto (again, this time it was lemon risotto with tiny cubes of smoked tofu).

White chocolate

Home made vegan white chocolate.

This was my second attempt, and it was better than the first. The first time, I used some gross soy milk powder, and had to add tons of sugar to try to mask the flavour. This time, I used half soy milk powder and half almond meal -- much better flavour, but the texture is not perfect. I think if I had a decent soy milk powder that would solve the problem, but the only one I can find here has a really strong soy taste.

I am basing my experiments on this recipe (without the hours of grinding, though. I just use the stand mixer for 5 minutes or so).