Am vegan, will travel: myth busting in Barcelona and bergamot madness!

I travel without a camera. So, no pictures. But THREE recipes! And how to find vegan hot chocolate in Barcelona! Oooooohhhhh.... be excited. Be very excited.

So there seems to be this interwebs-based myth that if you go to Barcelona/Costa Brava and are vegan, you have to skip the whole iconic hot chocolate thang. This is bullshit. You just have to ask, smile, and learn how to say "Is there already milk in the hot chocolate?", "no milk" and "do you have soymilk?" in hilariously bad Catalan. Not every single place will have or be willing to make vegan hot chocolate, but after a week in Spain, I can safely say that you have have more than one hot chocolate a day quite easily. Too easily, even. I may still be recovering. Churros, however, are a different story. There may be vegan churros in Barcelona, but I just don't like deep-fried anything enough to bother trying to find them, so I either brought my own cookies to dip in the hot chocolate, or had my hot chocolate straight up. I'm wild that way.

There is vegan hot chocolate in a wonderful choclateria smack in the middle of Barcelona at La Pallaresa, Calle Petritxol. They make their chocolate with water. There are also a number of small cafes scattered around the city that have soy milk, and it's usually indicated on the menu. When I say "scattered" I mean "every 3 blocks". Trust me, you're not going to want for hot chocolate, or even a soy latte. If you want tea, however, you're fucked. Sorry. There is tea on the menu, but it's pretty horrific. Stick with coffee or chocolate. Providing the hot chocolate isn't pre-made with milk (which it is in most choclaterias, like Xoco or La Granga which are nearby), any cafe with soy milk seemed quite happy to make me a vegan hot chocolate, though they were surprised at the request. One waiter said "Sure. I guess so. Why not?", looked at me like I was insane, and then returned several minutes later with a delicious hot chocolate. The best hot chocolate I had was actually in St.Feliu (where I was at a workshop) at a little place whose website I can't find where they served Enrico Rovira hot chocolate, with TWO vegan options: either made with water, or with soy milk. Heaven! And there's a little vegetarian (with lots of vegan options) restaurant just around the corner (El Celler de Triton, at c/ Sant Antoni, 5, right on the main beach street) if you need a salt fix after the chocolate sugar rush! The chocolate shop is apparently a stealth cafe, since I can't find it on the interwebs. That's kind of refreshing, actually. Use your choco-dar. That's how I found it.

One of the very best things about travelling is wandering through new and exciting markets and gawking at new and exciting produce. Confession: I don't eat out much when I travel. This isn't because it's hard to eat out and be vegan so long as you have minimal planning and interpersonal skillz. It's because I love cooking. Also because I travel so much that I get my fill of restaurant food, both fancy and plain, without trying. So, given the choice, I cook. On a recent trip to Barcelona, my sweetums brought me bergamots at the market just off La Rambla, which we wandered around for a while before going on a hot chocolate crawl.



Anyway, bergamots are pretty frikin' strong, so here's what happened with just two of them:

Bergamot pilaf:

1 c brown basmati rice, cooked with a tbs of toasted dried coconut

1 tsp olive oil
1 tsp avocado oil
1 tbs black cumin seeds
2 red onions
2 carrots, peeled and chopped in big(ish) chunks
1 tsp sugar
sprinkle of salt
1 cup veg broth or 1/2 cup veg broth and 1/2 cup white wine (I used the broth from making simmered seitan)

2 cups seitan, in thin slices

zest from one bergamot

Heat oil. Add cumin seeds and onion. Drop heat and let onions cook slowly (caramelize them if you have time). When the onions are more or less done, add the carrot, raise the heat to medium, and let it cook for two minutes or so, stirring to keep things from sticking. Add the seitan, sprinkle with sugar and salt and keep going until things begin to stick to the pan, and then add the liquid. Simmer uncovered until the liquid has reduced and the carrots are tender. Add cooked rice and bergamot zest. Mix. Devour.


Green tomato and bergamot chutney

1 pound green tomatoes, chopped
2 small apples, chopped
1/3 cup cheap-ass plain vinegar
1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup dates, chopped
1 tsp brown mustard seeds
2 inches of fresh ginger root, chopped
1 stick cinnamon
juice from one bergamot

Combine everything except the bergamot juice, and simmer for as long as you can stand it, or at least an hour. Let cool a bit. Stir in bergamot juice. Taste. Add more sugar if you want. I didn't. In theory, you can can this properly, but it keeps for quite a while in the fridge if you just put it in a clean glass jar with a lid. It's too yummy to not eat in short order anyways...


Deconstructed London Fog ice cream trio

base:
3 cups cashews, soaked for a few hours and then drained
2 cups silken tofu
2 cups really rich soy milk (or 1 cup soy milk + 1 cup soy cream)
1 cup agave nectar
1 tbs xantham gum
pinch salt
stevia to taste

Put the base ingredients in a blender and blend until very smooth. Divide into 3 equal parts. This base is fairly unsweet. I don't like my ice creams super-sweet, but if you do, go for it.

Part 1:
Add 4 tbs of assam tea to the base + 1/2 tsp vanilla or almond extract (I think almond works better) + 1 tbs vodka. Blend! The vodka is optional- it just keeps it from freezing too solid if you make your ice cream in cute little heart molds. If you skip it, you'll just have slighly more solid ice cream. No biggie.

Part 2:
Add 1 whole vanilla bean (if you have a vitamix or other superpowered blender of doom), or the seeds scraped from one whole vanilla bean (if you don't have a superblender) + 1 tbs vanila (or plain) vodka. Blend!

Part 3:
Add the zest from 1 bergamot and juice from 1/2 bergamot, at least 1/2 cup icing sugar and 1 tbs orange flower water. Blend! (I promise the flavor will mellow after it freezes)

Pour the ice creams into moulds and freeze. Unmold and let thaw for a few minutes before eating. This makes a lot of ice cream. Really lots. And that is not a bad thing.

dancing along to: Tea for two.

smoky eggplant roll ups

Fancy and easy for when you don't have time to cook. Eggplant marinated in lapsang suchong tea and soy sauce, filled with mashed pinto beans (leftover cooked pinto beans, toasted cumin, white miso, lime juice), baked in some of the marinade + a chopped tomato. Served up next to warm fall salad: steamed sweet potatoes and green beans, topped with pomegranite dressing (lemon vinegar, pomegranite molasses, black pepper, garlic) and white pomegranite seeds. Soooo colourful. Sooooo easy. Sooooo yum.

Excuse me. Must run. Have 8 346 932 things to do now.

Music: Manic Monday, by the Bangles. And it's not even Monday.

fun with blowtorches

.... because who could resist buying a little blowtorch?

You see, I was in the hardware store, looking for a replacement knife for reasons that are neither interesting nor any of your business, dammit. Hardware stores are my favorite, because they tend to have both power tools and kitchen stuff, often in the same room. If there is a consumer-whore heaven, this would be it. In this particular hardware store were lovely little blowtorches. Lovely. They called my name, and I couldn't resist thier siren call. "Wield us!" they said. Who could say no? Not me. After all, I'm only human. Anyway, freshly armed with a new blowtorch, I had to make creme brulee, like, right away. And for some reason, I wanted it to be green.

I've had vegan creme brulees based on both cashews and coconut milk, but find both of them a bit much. They just sit there in my stomach, being heavy. I don't like it. I like the tofu ones, even if it is super-fashionable right now to cook all desserts with ungodly amounts of cashews. Oh, and have I mentioned I also don't make cupcakes?

Anyhow, these are yummerific, subtle and just the right amount of sweet and rich without tipping over that edge of making you regret it an hour later. Plus, they're green! Yay! And more importantly than the taste or colour: you get to use a blowtorch.

green tea and almond creme brulee

1 package soft silken tofu
1/2 cup almond milk
1 tsp almond essence
1/4 vanilla bean
3/4 cup sugar
1 tbs matcha
pinch salt
2 tbs cornstarch

mix together and blend! blend! blend!

Pour into 4-6 oven-safe containers, and place them in a pan of water. The water should come halfway up the containers. Bake, uncovered at 200C for 45 mins. Cool completely. Sprinkle with sugar and then melt it with a blowtorch! Wooohoooo! Alternately, place under a broiler until the sugar caramelizes (this is not even nearly as much fun as using a blowtorch, but will produce perfectly good creme brulees, if you're into that sort of thing). I think I need to practice a bit to get the top of these perfect, but I'm totally willing to put in as many tries as needed.

I made them in glasses, because I was excited about the colour, but I actually think they'd be prettier in ramekins. I'm sure you can make your own decisions on this front.

I wanna be a chocolate god post 10: tea, kind of.

So, I've been hearing a lot about Brewed Chocolate lately, but we can't get it in the UK. I looked on line and discovered that it's just concentrated chocolate tea. As in, just cocoa beans and water (and of course sugar, which I'm glad to do without in this case, because it is tediously overused in just about everything... I could rant about this for days). I thought, sheesh, how hard can it be to brew chocolate? So I did. And it's yum. It was super easy. Easy, I tell you! And depending how much you pay for your cocoa nibs, it's about 10 times cheaper than buying the stuff. Plus, you don't have to put up with somebody else oversweetening your drink. Win.

1 heaped cup cocoa nibs
1 L water

Place in pot. Simmer until reduced by half. At this point, you can (optionally) add spices. I used about half a cinnamon stick, 2 cloves and 2 green cardamom pods and a few whole black peppercorns. Continue simmering until you have about 150mL of liquid left... in my pot this was just enough to barely cover the nibs. Strain liquid into a glass jar. Keeps in the fridge for, uh, a long time. I used it up before I discovered how long.

To use: use 1-3 tbs of concentrate for 1 cup of hot water. Add sweetener to taste (I don't add any). Sip. Feel sophisticated.

The strength and bitterness of the concentrate depends both on how much you reduce the liquid and the quality/taste of your cocoa nibs. I get my cocoa nibs from here, a source that I highly recommend for anyone in the UK. It's pretty much the best unprocessed chocolate beans/nibs/liquor that I've found anywhere, and very reasonably priced for what you're getting. Plus, it comes packed with little heart confettis. As usual, when buying chocolate/cocoa products, make sure that slaves weren't used to get them to you.

When you're done, don't throw out the cocoa nibs! Nooooooo! You can use them in cookies, brownies, cakes, pancakes, or mole sauce (grind them up for the mole). Or, you can throw them in the blender with 1/2cup of almond or hazelnut (or other nut) butter and some agave, or with 1/2 cup - 1 cup of apple, pear or pumpkin butter (you won't need agave for those, and the pear is divine, especially if you a hint of cardamom, while the pumpkin is nice with cloves and black pepper, and you can actually use it for really decadent pie filling if you want) and make your very own chocolate spread. You can give this to people as presents and they will be very very impressed. Or...you can use them ground up in any of my savory chocolate recipes on this blog. Or you can just eat them with a spoon.

Almond cake with green tea white chocolate ganache-like-stuff-that-isn't-technically-ganache.

Since white chocolate isn't really chocolate (in my books), I think it's okay to make it into something that isn't really ganache. This cake is lovely and fall-coloured, and we had a lovely cozy dinner party where this was a lovely cozy end to it. Summer is definitely over here in Edinburgh (see photos for evidence, taken out of my kitchen window just seconds after I photographed the cake... that's the castle I plan to hide out in when the zombie apocalypse occurs). Ahem. Right. It's fall. It's rainy. The days are getting short at an alarming rate. Let the evenings of long post-dinner conversation in cozy kitchens begin!

Warning: You need to make the cake and the ganache the day before you intend to serve them! Or at least the morning of the night you plan to serve them! The cake is much much better after it's had 24 hours to sit there, and the choc stuff needs to set. Don't try to do this at the last minute and then blame me when it gets all melty.

For the cake:
2 cups soy/almond okara OR 1 c soy yogurt and 1 cup almond meal
3/4-1 c soy milk (3/4 if you use the yogurt, 1 if you use the okara).. basically, you want your wet ingredients to be the consistency of yogurt. act accordingly.
1 tbs almond extract
1 tsp vanilla extract
drop lime oil

1.5 -2 c flour (depends how wet your wet ingredients are)
1 tbs baking powder
dash salt
1/2 c. sugar (that's all the sugar you'll want, given how rich the icing is. up this to 3/4 c. if you're not using an insane icing)

Mix wet ingredients. Mix dry ingredients. Mix wet into dry. Or dry into wet. I don't care. This will make a fairly wet batter. Add 2 tbs vinegar (I used elderflower, but use apple cider or other mild-ish if you don't have elderflower vinegar lying around). Pour into a small oil and floured cake pan. Bake at 190C until done (mine took about 30 mins, but I like to make cakes that are small and thick, as opposed to large and thin). The cake will seem slightly undercooked. Leave in pan, covered with a clean towel, to cool overnight. Don't remove it from the pan or it will dry out too much. The next day, cut cake in half, and put a layer of white choc. green tea stuff in the middle, and a layer on top. A piping bag helps here, or just a leftover plastic bag that you've cut a hole in. If the not-ganache has set *too* much, disrupt it with a fork and then have a quick go at it with the hand blender again. The heat from just moving it around will be enough to make it workably soft and melty. Garnish with pretty white or light fruits.


For the green tea white chocolate ganache-like-stuff-that-isn't-technically-ganache:

chop up 3/4 cup of cocoa butter, and put it in a container that you're going to use a hand blender in.

add 1/2 cup raw cashews to the cocoa butter. Place this container aside and try not to snack on the cashews. Add a pinch of salt. Just a tiny pinch.

Prepare almond cream, made by blancing a big handful of almonds in boiling water, draining them, and then blending them with about 2/3 cup of soy milk and then straining the whole mess through a cheesecloth. You should have just over 1/2 cup of very thick liquid.

bring the almond cream, along with 1/2-3/4c of vanilla sugar (depends how sweet you like your sweets), to a boil on the stove. Take off the heat as soon as it boils.

Dump the very hot almond cream into the cashews and cocoa butter and blend! blend! blend!

Add 1 tsp macha and blend! blend! blend! some more. Test it out by dipping your finger in and licking it off. Test as much as neccesary to convince yourself that this was a good use of so much cocoa butter, but not so much that you don't have enough left to ice the cake.

Let set overnight.

Now, you can either decorate this cake like an adult, as others would do, or make it kind of look like a physalis-topped toadstool, as I have done. Here, where it is already fall and my kitchen is *cold*, I could have rolled out the chocolate into a sheet, but I distrust cakes with rolled icing, so I went with something a little more playful. Personally, I think my way is more fun, but you should suit yourself.

music for people who suit themselves: nanny nanny boo boo (Le Tigre)

smoky tea tofu

Tonight I'm feeling all quiet and homey. I was listening to Leonard Cohen and cooking for someone I love very very much, and I wanted something yummy and warm and kind of exotic, in that way that teahouses can feel exotic when the lighting is just low enough and the furniture doesn't match and just for a moment you can see how it was rare and wonderful to get delicacies from hundreds or thousands of miles away. From worlds away.

It is cold and blowing and wet outside. A reminder that although the days are getting longer, it's not spring yet.

Tofu and leafy broccoli in lapsang suchong tea.

In the morning, make a very very very (very) strong cuppa. I used 4 teabags for 1.5 cups of water, in which I marinate a block of tofu, cut into strips. Marinate your cut up tofu in this all day in the fridge. If you don't do this, don't panic. Just make your tea and pretend like it's been marinating all day. Don't tell anyone you forgot. Shhhhh! It'll be just as good, just a lot less intense. First, get some rice going and try not to forget about it. Now you're free to turn your attention to the tofu and broccoli. Dump the tofu + tea in a nice big pan, add a dash (2-3 tbs) of sake and a dash (ha! still 2-3 tbs) of shoyu (take out and reserve 4 or so tbs of the tea + shoyu + sake marinade) and simmer until the liquid reduces to just enough liquid to saute the broccoli. Your kitchen will now smell like a campfire. Mmmmmm. When the liquid has reduced, add a head of broccoli, chopped (I used flowering broccoli), cover and steam briefly. When the broccoli is done, add a bunch of enoki, turn off the heat, and cover again until enoki are wilted. Now, mix 2 tbs of unsweetened chestnut puree into your reserved tea marinade. Pour this over your tofu/broccoli/enoki mixture and heat if necessary. Sprinkle with black pepper. Garnish with slivers of orange, if you have any around. Serve over rice, or with soba noodles. Or hell, as a filling for baked potatoes. Have a small bowl of green olives alongside this. They go really well with this dinner.

music: Leonard Cohen. Suzanne. And she feeds you tea and oranges that come all the way from China.

red bean swirly buns

Life has been stressful lately. Bordering on insane, really. Consequently, I've been making food that's relatively easy in that it doesn't take much time, but that's really colourful and pretty and comforting. And what could be more comforting than warm homemade bread?

These don't take long to make. Only a few minutes to put them together the night before, assuming you have some red bean paste lying around (which we all should have, really), and the next morning they only take about 20 mins to bake. Mmmmmmmm.

Green tea red bean swirly buns. Apparently I just can't get enough of the Suessian-looking breads lately. A special but not sicky-sweet weekend breakfast. Bread part: whole wheat flour, a little bit of sugar (maybe a tbs for these 6 ginormous buns), yeast, salt, matcha, okara mixed with some water and almond extract. Mix, knead, roll into a giant rectangle. Cover with red bean paste (you can see this in the first picture), which is just aduki beans mashed with sugar and a smidge of salt... I like this not too sweet, so I make my own, but you can buy it ready-made if you want. Roll up like cinnamon buns and let rise overnight (second picture). The next morning, bake 5 mins at 220C, then 15 min at 180C, take 'em out of the oven, top with almond icing (soy or almond milk, icing sugar, almond extract) and devour (third picture, where you can see that I accidentally started devouring before remembering to take a photo).

Note: these aren't cake, or even remotely cinnamon bun like in texture. They're not very sweet (unless you drown them in icing), but they are very filling. They're dense and quite moist and yummy, and (without the icing) would go perfectly well with soup or a salad (I might have had one with miso soup for dinner later in the weekend). In fact, I suspect that these buns are what would happen if german-japanese baking ever happens.

A quick note on my obsessive use of okara in baked goods: I use it because I have it lying around. You can pretty much always sub in soy yogurt, or blended tofu. Or, if you want, soured soy milk (add lemon juice to soy milk until it curdles). You can also use ground almonds in water to make a yogurt-consistency paste, if you're so inclined.Note that these will make your baking slightly denser than the okara will, so you may want to step up the sugar (yeast food) and yeast. In this recipe, I have an okara-free version of the dough here, which just uses soy milk, and which makes a less cakey bread.

A quick note on the quick note: A good trick to make vegan baked goods rise more is to add a bit of baking soda (like half a tsp) to the dry ingredients, and then 2tbs of vinegar to the wet. Don't use this trick with yeasted breads, only with stuff you're putting in the oven soon after you mix wet and dry ingredients

Eat your leftovers.

I hope all the americans out there had a lovely thanksgiving. I'm not american, and I didn't celebrate american thanksgiving, but I do have a lot of fancy dinner parties. I kinda got to thinking about big fancy dinners, and wanted to remind you that almost half of our edible food ends up in the garbage. Please use your leftovers, okay? Being wasteful isn't a sign of celebration, it's a sign of stupidity and entitlement, neither of which is worth celebrating.

Now, on to the food:

The best part about weekends is having time to do stuff like this for breakfast.

Green tea and chestnut swirls: Green tea bread dough (spelt flour, matcha, sugar, salt, yeast, soy milk, little tiny bit of almond extract) with chestnut filling (okara, chestnut flour, maple syrup). I make the buns the night before and let them rise overnight. My kitchen is cold, so I just leave them on the counter, but if you live somewhere warm, or keep your heat on at night (and dammit, you'd better have a good reason for that one), you could let them rise in the fridge. This is a picture of the night before. I fogot to take a photo the next morning. The next morning, I bake them and have hot buns for breakfast. Served with icing (icing sugar, soy milk, almond extract). I like these because it looks like Dr.Suess made my breakfast.

For the leftovers, make bread pudding: cut up the stale bread or buns in chunks and soak overnight in just enough soymilk to cover them, with a tbs or two of flax seeds and some sugar (if you want it). The next morning, add almonds if you want 'em, dump the whole goopy mess into a greased cake pan and bake it up for breakfast. It will take about half an hour at 180C, which is just enough time to have a cup of coffee and/or make out with your weekend guest (brush your teeth first if you go for the second option). Once the pudding is done, sprinkle with matcha and/or sugar. You can do this with any stale bread, and it's especially good with these or old cinnamon buns/raisin bread. You can add chopped up pears and walnuts and a bit of cardamom (to plain white or whole wheat bread), chopped up apples (to cinnamon buns) or slices of bananas (to anything, as far as I'm concerned, but it's strikingly good with any kind of nutty bread), or if you're feeling really decadent, you can add chocolate chips to the puddings before baking them. Go crazy. There are no rules!

fusion gone horribly right

Japanese/Italian dinner party. Weeeeheeeee!

the menu
Green tea polenta with edamame and aduki beans. Pine nut/ume/basil rolls. Caramelized carrots with fancy-pants mustard. Blanched daikon with miso and mirin. Salad. Sliced plums. Green tea tiramisu. Japanse whiskey (Nikka).

For the green tea polenta (serves 8): 3c polenta (not quick cooking). Water, salt. Start cooking as usual for polenta, using about 3c water. While this is going on, make 1 cup strong green tea, preferably genmaicha (green tea with brown rice). When the polenta is about halfway cooked, add 1/2- 1c. sake and let it absorb that. Continue adding water until it's almost done. The trick is that you want the polenta to absorb the tea, but not cook long after you add the tea, or it will get bitter. Then add the tea (strained). Cook until done. Pour into a pan and pop it in the fridge overnight. Have cooked aduki beans on hand, and some shelled edamame. About 30mins before serving, slice up the polenta, schmear it with olive oil and bake. While it's baking, fry up a chopped leek and make another cup of double strong green tea. When that begins to brown, deglaze with sake. Add the edamame and some salt. Turn the heat down and simmer. Let the green tea cool. About 5 mins before serving, stir a tablespoon of cornstarch into the green tea, and then pour that into the leek/edamame mix. Heat until the sauce thickens. Add cooked aduki. Place the polenta on a serving dish and pour the bean/tea mix over it. Sprinkle with a few crushed tea leaves.

For the pine nut/ume/basil rolls, which are kind of like asian pesto sushi: Soak 1c pine nuts in just enough water to cover overnight. Drain. Blend along with a bit of fresh ginger and some salt. Chill. If it's still too liquid to scoop, stir in pulverized almonds until the paste is thick enough to hold it's shape when you scoop it. Spread on soy paper sheets, then add fresh basil leaves and some chopped up ume, using the same technique that you would use if you were making miniature sushi rolls where the pine nut spread is the rice and the basil leaves/ume are the filling. Chop up the rolls into 6-8 pieces per roll. You want to make these small because they're pretty rich and intense. The soy wrappers (used in place of nori sheets) are called soy wrappers, and are from a company called yamamotoyama, and I'd never seen them before, but I'm a fan now. They weren't blurry in real life. I just had to show you the pretty colours.

The carrots are really just caramelized carrots with some fancy mustard added. The green tea tiramisu is from My Sweet Vegan.

beltaine eve

Yup. Tomorrow at sunrise M and I are going to scale Arthur's Seat. Tonight, I thought I'd celebrate the last day of not-spring with this. Tempeh marinated and simmered in lapsang suchong tea, with pepper, salt and sugar added at the end. Spinach, garlic and shiitake mushrooms. Celeriac cutlets (celeriac in rice flour, gomasio, lemon zest, baked) and asparagus, cooked briefly in the tea/maranade. Winter meets spring. I think I will make the tempeh the same way next time, but just sit it on plain rice. It will be simple and perfect.
springtime music: prince by whatever name.