Learnin’
Know what I never look at in bookstores? Cooking magazines. At best there are maybe two veg-focused magazines on display, and they rarely excite me. The others…the others are full of things I don’t eat, so why bother?
Or so I thought. Um. I’m an idiot. Yes they’re full of things I don’t eat, but I kinda get a kick out of ‘veganizing’ recipes, so why should that prove an obstacle? And besides, they’re not just full of things I don’t eat…they’re also full of information. *swoon*
I like learning. Nah, I love learning, and cooking is one area where I certainly have a lot to learn. Imagine my delight, then, when yesterday for the first time in many ages I wandered into my local bookstore and checked out the cooking mags. I left with two. The one that got me all excited? Cook’s Illustrated. If you haven’t seen it before, it’s kind of a cross between a normal cooking magazine and Consumer Reports. The people who create it run a test kitchen, and they take a methodical, scientific approach to cooking. They tackle culinary questions like “what’s the best way to cook baby spinach” or “what’s the best chocolate cake recipe,” and try every variation imaginable until they find the answers. (It’s almost exhausting to read the descriptions of their labours.) Then they publish the results, complete with recipes. And yes, a lot of those results apply to vegan cookery just as much as to non-vegan cookery.
A five minute read-through of my copy felt like a three-hour cooking lesson, minus dinner at the end. But lunch…lunch I could do. The best way to learn is to apply lessons while they’re still fresh, right? And I can see myself trying and adapting a lot of the things in this issue.
But back to lunch. There was an article on making the best oven fries, and there were a couple of articles involving baked chicken. I went with those, because yum, fries! And also because I’ve tried making crispy faux chicken a few times in the past few months and haven’t been happy with any of the results — the coating always turns out a bit soggy, and I don’t care how tasty it is — soggy just isn’t acceptable.
Here’s the gist of the oven fries article: For the absolute best results, [1] Cut russet potatoes into wedges, [2] soak the wedges in hot water for 10 minutes and then drain and dry them, [3] in a baking pan season 4T of oil with salt and pepper, [4] spread potatoes evenly, [5] bake covered tightly with foil at 475F for 5 minutes, [6] remove the foil and continue baking 20 to 30 minutes, turning once.
Honestly? I burned mine. My bad — I cut my potato into too many wedges, so that they were too thin and cooked super-fast. Also my baking sheet is thin and crappy and doesn’t heat evenly, so that some fries did okay while others burned. C’est la vie. (Besides, I have thirteen more potatoes to play with!) The soaking and steaming did create a noticably better texture than I’ve managed with my usual oven fries recipe though; there were no ‘hollow’ fries. And seasoning the oil rather than the cut potatoes? Sheer genius. I was skeptical, but it worked perfectly.
Now for the chik’n. I used a PC meatless chik’n breast. It occurred to me that maybe past attempts hadn’t done as well because I hadn’t thawed the faux meat fully before prepping the meal, so this time I let the cut thaw overnight and made sure it was dry to the touch before starting. I think fake meats tend to hold more moisture than real meat, which may add to the challenge of creating a crispy coat. Anyway, I sliced mine in half to create two thinner cutlets, and then I breaded them. To do this I prepared one flax egg (1 T ground flax whisked into 1/4 cup hot water), and dipped both sides of each cutlet. Then I pressed these into panko (japanese breadcrumbs) seasoned with 1 T of nutritional yeast, salt, and pepper. The two tricks I picked up from Cook’s Illustrated were these: [1] Cook the chik’n on a rack set over a baking pan, and [2] spray the breaded cutlets lightly with oil before baking.
The results? Best breaded chik’n so far — crispy and lightly browned. The rack made a big difference in ensuring that both sides crisped up. My only excuse for not thinking this up myself is that my normal baking pans don’t have racks. Fortunately my housemate pointed out that my wee toaster oven pan does have such an insert, so I used that and it worked perfectly. I did forget two things while making these — I didn’t dredge the cutlets with flour before breading them, and I didn’t spray the baking rack. Neither proved major issues, and the finished product tasted wonderful topped with a raw tomato sauce (half a tomato, diced; a few basil leaves, minced; one garlic clove and one teaspoon capers, squeezed through a garlic press; salt and pepper to taste).
As lunches go, yum. As learning experiences go, likewise yum. And I still have a bunch more recipes and techniques eyemarked for trying. Is it dinner time yet?
Substitutions
I keep meaning to start a table listing easy substitutions for when you’re trying to ‘veganize’ a recipe. I’ve made notes in a half dozen places, but can I ever find them when I want them? Nooooo. Anyway, here’s a first take, and I’ll keep revisiting this as I think of new things to add.
| Ingredient: | Substitute: |
| Milk | Easy — try an equal amount of soy milk, almond milk, rice milk, oat milk, potato milk, coconut milk, raw mylk, etc.Bear in mind that different milks have different qualities. For example, rice and almond milk tend to be quite sweet, so might not do the trick in a savoury dish. Soy milk is roughly the same ‘thickness’ as regular milk, but rice milk is very thin — more like a skim milk. Most soy milks are sweetened — you may want to hunt for an unsweetened version (particularly if you have something like mashed potatoes on the menu). All versions have their own benefits, and you can even make some of them yourself, from scratch. |
| Cream | There are commercial soy-based ‘creams,’ but I haven’t tried any yet. When I need to replace cream, I tend to use:
|
| Buttermilk | Add 1T lemon juice or white/cider vinegar to a cup of soy milk. I find this does wonders in many baked treats. |
| Eggs | Pureed or mashed fruit. Apples, prunes, and banana all work. To replace one egg, try half a banana, or a quarter cup of apple or prune sauce. Best for baked goods, or anywhere the added sweetness and fruit flavour will prove tasty. I use pureed prunes in baked chocolate goods, though generally to replace oil rather than eggs. The flavour compliments the chocolate taste very nicely.
Tofu. (1/4 cup silken tofu = 1 egg.) This is fairly neutral, taste-wise. Puree it with other wet ingredients before adding to the rest of the dish. Egg replacer. This is a commercial product — a cornstarch-like powder. There are a few varieties; the one I use is Kingsway, and calls for 1 tsp mixed with 2 T liquid to replace one egg. Others may vary. I’ve had excellent luck with the stuff in baking — it’s very convenient. I do tend to add a bit extra. This is also a neutral taste addition. Cornstarch. Another neutral taste. To replace one egg, mix 2 T of cornstarch with an equal amount of water. Flax. “Flax eggs” seem to be one of the most common egg replacers out there. To replace one egg, grind some flax seed (coffee grinders are great for this, but clean them well before and after!). Beat 1 T into 1/4 cup of water, until the mixture thickens a bit. Flax eggs add a slight nutty flavour to dishes. |
| Butter | I find I can use oil in place of butter in many cases; my oil of choice is grapeseed, because it’s fairly neutral taste-wise and handles high heat very well.If you really want a buttery flavour, try Earth Balance — a very tasty vegan margarine. (And no, most margarines aren’t vegan — the majority contain whey powder or casein, which are milk products.) I’ve found that in baked recipes I can cut back a bit on the amount of fat required when using Earth Balance; substituting 1:1 makes things a bit oily. |
| Lard | Use vegetable shortening. |
| Yogurt | Try soy yogurt — there are at least two varieties available out there. If you don’t have soy yogurt, you still have a couple options:
|
| Cream cheese | Definitely try Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese, which I’ve found in most health food stores and seen in some grocery stores. I always loved bagels and cream cheese, and no longer miss them. The stuff really is as good as they claim…and it makes heavenly cheesecake. |
| Sour cream | There are a couple commercial faux sour creams. I’ve tried the Tofutti one, but remain fairly unenthusiastic about it.
Personally I prefer the raw sour cream I learned to make last month:Soak 1 ½ cups cashews for a few hours or overnight. In a blender, combine the cashews with ½ teaspoon salt, 2+ T lemon juice, and ¾ cup water. Blend until smooth, then taste. Adjust the seasonings as necessary (you will probably need more lemon juice), and then add water a bit at a time until you reach the right consistency. |
Rosemary thyme oil
Yesterday I finally got around to making the herbed oil I’ve been planning for over a week. I used AB’s basic technique , but with my own ingredients. (Summary: Fill mason jar with ingredients, heat oil to 200F, then pour into jar. Cover with cloth, let cool overnight, then strain into new, clean jar.) Last week I found some wonderful fresh rosemary and thyme at the market, so I filled the jar with those, a couple palmfuls of dried savoury, zest from one lemon, probably a half tablespoon of peppercorns, and a single dried red chili pepper. For oil I used grapeseed. It made more than I’d anticipated, but both smells and tastes wonderful. Can’t wait to try it with some fresh bread.
The Lustful Vegan 