Vegan Recipes: Stews

Showing posts with label Stews. Show all posts

Monday, October 26, 2015

Vegan Goulash with tofu

Ingredients:

2 blocks of tofu, frozen for one day and then defrosted

3 tbsp olive oil

1 large onion

1 tsp sweet paprika

1/2 tsp hot paprika (or to taste)

2 carrots

4 large potatoes

1 green capsicum (bell pepper)

1 red capsicum (bell pepper)

2l l vegetable broth

Salt to taste

If you freeze the tofu and then defrost it it becomes porous and easy to cook in stew without breaking up. Also it will absorb flavors really well! Once the tofu is defrosted cut it in big cubes. Chop the onion and sauté with the olive oil. When the onion is translucent add the paprika, the sweet paprika will give flavour, and the hot one… heat, so use this according to taste. Then add the tofu cubes and stir well. Add the vegetables and the hot vegetable broth. Simmer until the carrots and potatoes are ready, but before the potatoes start to break up. Goulash is more like a soup than a stew. If you prefer a thicker stew just cook it for longer, stirring often and breaking up the potatoes. Add salt to taste (no necessary if the broth is salty enough).

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Thursday, November 22, 2012

Stuffed white cabbage leaves with lentils

This is a first. I like stuffed cabbage leaves but I always use this dark green curly cabbages (like Savoy) to make them, and I never used the round and firm white cabbages that are used to make coleslaw. But I happened to have a big white cabbage and the outer leaves were sort of green... I managed to remove 7 leaves before the cabbage become to compact to pull apart. Then I washed them and boiled them in salted water (which I later used to make vegetable broth for an Asian noodle soup - never waste!). I also boiled a few more cabbage leaves that got broken while I was trying to pull them away: they were going to be used in the filling.

For the filling I used some cooked cabbage leaves, a couple of slices of vegetarian bacon, chopped parsley, breadcrumbs, smoked salt, chili flakes, coriander seeds and smoked garlic. I mushed everything with my hands and divided the filling between the 7 leaves, and then I rolled them up.

I prepared a soffritto with a shallot, half a carrot, a celery stick, and some chopped parsley, all sautéed with a little olive oil.

I added the cabbage leaves and let them sauté on one side only for a few minutes.

Then I added one cup of tomato passata (Italian tomato sauce) and one cup of vegetable broth. I covered the pot with a lid and let the cabbage rolls simmer for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes I added the content of a can of Italian brown lentils (their water included) and simmered everything for another 30 minutes.

Well, I just managed to taste one, the other six were two each for the kids and the babysitter (I was teaching that night), to be eaten with bruschetta (actually, just a baguette cut into slices and the brushed with olive oil, sprinkled with salt and baked until golden and crispy, the kids just love it!!). The result? I was pleasantly surprised: I am not a fan of white cabbage, but in this way it tasted great! Pity that I could not get more leaves out of it, maybe I need to boil the whole cabbage and then try to pull off the leaves... next time I will try. Or maybe I will just go back to use my usual Savoy cabbages! :-)

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Two Vegan and Gluten Free recipes with onion weed: Yudofu, and Chickpea Fritters

I have been telling friends about onion weed these days, everybody seems surprised (and happy) that you can eat it, especially those who gave up growing spring onions because they seem to take so long for what you get. And onion weed is free and plentiful! I kept telling everyone to use it as a spring onion without realizing that most people here use spring onions just chopped in salad, and that'a about all!

On the top left my nabe (pot) with simmering Yudofu, one of my favourite tofu meals for chilly evenings:

In a capable pot I put water with some dried kombu (about a large sheet broken into 3-4 pieces), and a few dried shitake mushrooms to simmer, and after 20 minutes I added some soft tofu cut into squares, salt (I have a nice Japanese unrefined salt for it) carrot sliced to look like flowers, and onion weed (bulbs, stalks and leaves cut into 'longish' pieces). I added the flower just before serving. To tell the true the tofu should be then taken out of the broth and eaten with a sauce and relishes, but as a family meal we eat the lot in bowl, broth and veggies too, except for the kombu seaweed, which I discard.

The other three photos are of chickpea flour fritters: I chopped the onion weed (the whole plant, but kept a few flowers for decoration) plus I added some finely chopped spinach, chickpea flour, salt, water and a drizzle of olive oil. When the batter was ready I remember that I have lots of pitted black olives to use, so I chopped up a few and added those too. I fried the lot and the fritters were incredibly tasty! I will make them again, in the next few days, they are incredibly easy and the kids loved them.

These meals are vegan and gluten free.

Monday, February 21, 2011

Kamo Kamo Maori Squash and Italian Borlotti Beans

From my garden, and my friends' gardens

A crop that gives me great pleasure is borlotti beans, not only for their flavour but also because I love the idea of growing protein food! I eat fresh borlotti, or I dry them and then use them to make nice soups and stews.

A Maori friend gave me some kamo kamo, the traditional Maori squash, and told me that the way to eat it is to boil it (skin on) and then cut it and spread it with butter (or olive oil... for me!) salt and pepper, and scoop the flesh out with a fork.

I had two kamo kamo so I boiled one (as a was told) and cut the other and sauted with a drop of olive oil and other vegetables from my garden: red onion, and celery.

Then I added the beans and some water, salt and pepper, and cooked everything until the beans were soft.

I added water little by little, when necessary, and I thought that this would be good with more vegetables (maybe a little carrot and some parsley leaves) but I didn't add anything else as these have quite strong flavours and I really wanted to taste the kamo kamo as much as possible. The resulting stew (or soup, if you use more water) was nice although the kamo kamo doesn't have a distinctive flavour like pumpkin.

For the second experiment: well, nice to have the kamo kamo as a side vegetables with olive oil, but once agin I think that my husband liked it more than I did. Next time I will need to put something 'stronger" on, like pesto, or a sesame seed and miso dressing :-)

Vegan Recipes

Pages