Vegan Recipes: Saffron

Showing posts with label Saffron. Show all posts

Sunday, March 9, 2014

Saffron Quinotto

In Lima I heard a lot about quinotto, quinoa cooked like risotto. Many of my Italian blogger friends also make it, and I though of trying, starting with a classic saffron style 'quinotto'.

I chopped one onion and cooked it with a little olive oil, then I added 450 g of quinoa. Once the quinoa was 'toasted' and 'greasy' with oil, I added one glass of white wine, and then, ladle by ladle, slowly slowly, and stirring often, one litre of vegetable stock. I added the saffron just at the end, when the quinotto was cooked.

How was it? Well, I liked it very much, my son liked it too, but my husband and daughter weren't so sure... they ate it, but are they are not going to beg me to make it again, they prefer risotto with rice :-).

And did you ever try to make quinotto?

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Monday, September 5, 2011

Vegan Heart Biscuits

I found a Vegan frozen sweet short pastry in the supermarket, and I wanted to try it. Actually, I like making short pastry, but making Vegan short pastry is not that easy (for me) so I was really curious.

Because the pastry is already rolled it was easy to cut it with a cookie cutter, and I opted for hearts.

Up to here everything was fine, but then the pastry shrunk in the oven! My pretty fat hearts became long quirky hearts! Did this ever happen to you?

My solution: transform the hearts into pretty-quirky-modern-art hearts with some glossy icing. I did the borders white first, and then I coloured some icing with saffron powder for yellow (this also gave the biscuits a lovely saffron aroma and flavour), cocoa for chocolate, and then I added a drop of red food colouring to the yellow saffron icing for a geranium orange/red. The colour reminded me of lipstick and nail polish, but I liked it! The kids took the biscuits to the Surf Life Saving Club and they were all eaten happily, but next time I think that I will stick to my own pastry :-).

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Making Fregola Sarda step by step

Making Fregola

I dug out these photos for my friend Tiziana, who was here with me making fregola (or fregula), and she is now a vegetarian! Fregola is something between cous cous and pasta, thicker than the former, and smaller than the latter.

Start with a blend of fine and coarse semolina and a little salted water.

You just need to sprinkle some water on you semolina mix.

Mix mix mix

collect the pellets

pass them through a sieve, keep only the big one and let them dry for 24 hours.

Start over with the smaller ones to make them as big as you like.

We cooked the fregola like a risotto. First chop and saute some fresh vegetables,

slowly add vegetable stock and, finally, saffron.

Yum!

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Smoked paprika tofu and eggplants with saffron rice

This main is incredibly easy to make and yet it taste so good that everyone will think that you have spent hours making it!

Cut the tofu into cubes and fry it with olive oil and garlic until golden. Set aside. Cut the eggplants (I used the thin Asian type) into halves and sweat with salt for 30 minutes or so. Rinse. Heat the oil again in the pan, add more garlic, and sauté the eggplants for a few minutes, then cover with a lid and and cook them in their own steam. When they are nearly done add the tofu, 1 tsp of smoked paprika and smoked slat (I used Maldon). Add a glass of white wine and stir. Cover and turn the heat off.

Wash the rice and cook by absorption, when it is ready add the saffron and stir. No need to make a risotto here, or to add salt: the rice will taste of saffron and nothing else, and will go well with the salty, spicy and smoky flavour of the tofu and eggplants.

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