Vegan Recipes

 

 

 Photos and recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

I made the rice like regular sushi rice (recipe here) and for the toppings I just used a variety of Japanese pickles, plus nori and bamboo shoots, so this is actually a vegan sushi. It looked super cute!!

Peas are a precious crop for me, I don't like to buy big bags of frozen peas like everyone seems to do in New Zealand (and other countries), it makes them feel 'cheap' and 'common' and an everyday boring side veggie.

I like my fresh peas and I like them to be the main player in a dish, like for risi e bisi, a traditional risotto dish from Veneto, Italy. And the best part of growing them? Is to keep the pods, and as I am a NO-FOOD-WASTE advocate, to use them to make stock, which will be the base of the risotto. So shell the peas and keep the pods, wash them well and place them in a pot with water (I used about 1.2 litres of water for a basket of peas) and rock salt and simmer for at least one hour. You can also add a little parsley or celery leaves to the stock, but not too much as they have very strong flavour. Filter the stock and keep hot. You can also cut the pods into tiny strips and add them to the risotto, but I just gave them to some hungry visiting chickens (big mistake, they are always around my house now!!).



To prepare the risotto chop an onion and saute with margarine or soy butter (olive oil ok but vegetable butter is better for this). Butter should still be bubbling when you add the rice (I used arborio). Stir until the rice is hot then add the peas.





Stir again and then start adding the stock, little by little. If you use a good casserole you can cover the risotto from time to time and let is absorb the liquid, otherwise keep stirring and adding stock until the risotto is ready.

Clockwise from top left: rice with vegetable furikake, nimono of radish leaves, silken tofu with chrysanthemum leaves, rice with spinach, gari (pickled ginger). In the centre pickled radishes. Radishes, ginger, spinach and chrysanthemum all came from my garden

Yes chrysanthemum leaves are also edible (I was given a variety that only seems to make leaves, I like to eat them young). and if you want to know how to grow ginger and make your own gari click here.

I only had two artichokes and needed a meal for 4 people, and risotto was the ideal solution. Clean the artichokes and remove the outer leaves. Peel the stalks and cut into small pieces. Put everything in water with lemon juice while you work or the artichokes will become black. Finely chop a handful of parsley with a couple of garlic cloves and add salt. Stuff the artichokes with the chopped garlic and parsley and add a drizzle of olive oil. Place in a casserole, together with the stalks, and add 5cm of water. Simmer on low with the lid on for one hour or until cooked (the outer leaves will start to detach), adding a little hot
water from time to time. Prepare a litre of boiling vegetable stock (I used Rapunzel vegetable broth cubes). In a separate pot melt a tsp of vegetable margarine or 3 heat 3 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil, add the rice (arborio or carnaroli) 100g per person, then add the artichokes and their juice. Then slowly add the vegetable stock stirring constantly until the risotto is ready. Adjust with salt if needed and serve immediately, if you have two people one artichoke each, if four cut the artichokes into two.

First you have to go back for a moment to the Fried tofu puffs simmered in vegetable broth, I used some light vegetable stock to cook the tofu puffs, and the leftover broth after draining the tofu was the base for my miso soup. Then I cut two long eggplants into six pieces each. I took the stock back to simmering point and I added the eggplants and four small cubes of Japanese freeze dried tofu (available in Japanese shops - but I have Japanese friends who send it to me by post regularly. Thank you Hideko and Atsuko!). I simmered everything for 30 minutes, then I took the miso paste left over from Broccoli and cauliflowers with easy miso sauce (in Japanese Zen cuisine everything is recycled!), and added a bit more miso paste to get the amount I wanted - personal taste here, and mixed it well. With chopstick I picked up the eggplant pieces and tofu and divided them between four bowl (3 pieces of eggplant and 1 small block of tofu for each bowl) then I quickly mixed the miso paste with the broth, and poured it into the bowls. To finish I topped the soups with some chopped onion weed. I love miso soup with eggplants! Did I said that already? :-)