Vegetarian and Meat-Free

Vegetarian and Meat-Free

I've been looking into Vegetarian dishes for quite some time, as my daughter was unable to eat meat after giving birth. She was never one for red meat anyway, but now cannot eat any kind of meat or fish. When I cook a meal for the family, I sometimes cook four completely different meals, but most of the time I cook the same for everyone, which can be challenging when it's something like a Roast Dinner, and there is a veggie in the fray.

There are two types here, there is Vegetarian, where the meal has been designed with vegetarians in mind, and there is Meat-free, where the meat of an established dish has been replaced with non-meat ingredients. But in saying that, it's not wrong to say Vegetarian Lasagne as opposed to saying Meat-free Lasagne. It really doesn't matter, just don't mix up vegetarian with vegan, they are two completely different things.

The basic rule of thumb is to simple depart any meat, so when cooking something like, for instance, a Stroganoff, what are you going to replace the meat with, as it is an integral part of the dish. I have gone down different routes, and have used two types of mushroom, small button and large chestnut mushroom sliced for the meat analogue. I have also used tofu, but I don't really like using it, I feel it works well in some dishes but not in others, I prefer to use Tempeh. I have even used chargrilled aubergine (eggplant) on occasion, which seemed to work OK, but lacked density.

I have also found a lot of the vegetarian recipes on some of the websites to be so involved or complex that it's not worth the bother, or so uninspired that the vegetarian section seems to have been a bit of an after thought.

So what I'm going to do here is give you some of the dishes I've made over the years. There will be some prep involved along the way, but I'm going to try to keep with the 'feed me fast' philosophy so that they are not overly complicated.

Lets start with an easy one.

Full Cooked Breakfast

A Full Cooked Breakfast, also known as a Full English, or if you are in Wales, a Full Welsh breakfast.

It usually consists of the three main parts, Bacon, Sausage and Egg. Then we have the secondary items, which are Grilled Tomato, Mushrooms and Baked Beans, then the additional options of Black Pudding, Fried Bread and Hash Brown (in the welsh breakfast the hash brown might be replace by laver cake). Toast is usually served also, along with a cup, or pot, of Tea.

So if we break down the meal, we have the primary ingredients, which will consist of either a removal or a replacement. So Quorn or Tofu bacon could be used here, and of course, veggie sausage, and then we are left with the Black Pudding, which you can replace with the lavacake, but make it with butter or spread. If you want to have a go at some bacon and sausage, here are a couple of easy options.

Fake Bacon – I had trouble with this one, but a while ago I found a site that had a very adaptable recipe - http://ohmyveggies.com/how-to-make-almost-anything-into-vegan-bacon/

Fake Sausage – This one is a bit easier, and has as many recipes and adaptations as the veggie burger recipe. This one involves beans as the base, pinto or butterbean, anything will do, and add onion, steamed beetroot, steamed potato cubes, bbq sauce, tomato paste, soy sauce, smoked paprika and seasoning. Blitz to a thick paste and make sausage shapes, then wrap them each in tin foil and steam in a steamer or tray of water in the oven for 10-15 mins. These can be shallow fried or grilled like a pork sausage.

An additional thought, there is always the Glamorgan sausage, Caerphilly Cheese and Leeks, made into a short sausage and coated in breadcrumb. They kinda look like potato croquettes.

Veggie Pizza

The reason I'm doing veggie pizza is because some people have trouble with the base on this one, as it needs yeast to make the base, which isn't always readily to hand, and not something you remember to pick up casually from the supermarket. Also, the dough is high in gluten, needed for elasticity. There is a vegan pastry made of cauliflower, but I came up with a simple idea a while ago, simply take two large tortilla wraps, wipe one side of one with a little water or tomato juice, to keep it moist, then sprinkle a very light amount of cheese over it, cover with the second tortilla wrap and then build your pizza on this. Works like a charm, and corn tortilla's are gluten free. I've also done this on a large plain naan bread with sliced tomato and mozarella, garlic butter and applewood smoked cheese.

Fish and Chips

Bit of a challenge, this one. How to get the taste and texture right has proved rather difficult. The one that sort of worked for me was to use either Tofu or Tempeh.

First, the fish is basically a fillet, which breaks into pieces or chunks, so what I did was take a piece of tofu the rough size and shape of a cod fillet, then take a small sharp knife or filleting knife, and cut into the tofu, but only cut halfway, not all the way through. So, you cut lengthways down the centre, then widthways from the centre outwards to the edge. What you are doing here is imitating the way the fillet is made-up, allowing for the chunks to break away when eating, but leaving it still in one piece so it can be lifted, and battered.

Making the batter is simple, you can do easy, or pub style. Easy is flour into cold water, don't mix it too thick, add seasoning. Pub style is put flour into beer, add a dessert spoon of cornflour, a dessert spoon of vinegar, a teaspoon of ketchup, a half teaspoon of tumeric and seasoning. Don't mix it too thick.

Once the cuts have been made, put in a small bowl or on a plate, and squeeze half a lemon over the 'fillet', and some dill if you have it, with a pinch of ground or cracked pepper. You can add salt, but sprinkle with salt just before you batter the fillet, as salt can draw out moisture. There is a little trick that I tried here, I squeezed some samphire over the fillet to enhance the seawater taste. Let it marinade for 10 minutes or so, then simply dip in flour and then batter and deep fry.

Frying should take only about 3 or 4 minutes, but lower the battered fillet slowly, if you drop it, it will stick to the bottom of the fryer. Also, watch your fingers, use tongs if you have them.

As far as the chips go, you can use frozen, but if you make chips from potatoes, your best off blanching first. Easiest way is to boil a pan of salted water, drop thick cut chips in, drop the heat halfway and you want them about half cooked. This will ensure that when they are deep fried, they will be fully cooked and golden, not brown and still a bit raw.

Serve with mushy peas, bread and butter, slice of lemon, and a cup of tea.

Chicken Burger

There are two types of chicken burger. There is a chicken fillet burger and there is the minced chicken pattie style of burger. usually breaded but not always. The main issue here is that the person eating the chicken burger will not eat meat, but may still eat food prepared in chicken stock or use chicken stock cubes. I'm going to write this and use the word stock, but whether you use chicken stock cubes or veggie stock cube is up to you, they both work.

The Chicken fillet burger can be achieved by using large mushrooms, any will do, and all you do is remove the stem, cut the top in half and dredge then fry.

The large mushroom cap halves need to go into a bowl with some oil, and give them a coating, add finely chopped garlic, a clove will do (one piece) and some dried mixed herbs. Give them a good coating and leave to one side.

While the mushrooms soak up the oil, make your dredge, which is simply equal amounts of plain flour and corn flour into a large bowl, crumble a stock cube into the dredge, add seasoning, and you might want to add a few herbs and spices, such as a pinch of the dried mixed herbs, smoked paprika, onion powder, garlic powder and maybe a bit of tumeric for colour.

You will also need a bowl with egg and milk, beaten together, to make the dredge stick. So, all you do now is take a mushroom half, coat it in the flour dredge, then into the egg wash for a good coating and then back into the dredge for a last coating before it goes into the deep fry. These then go on the bun of your choice with the salad and condiment of your choosing

The chicken pattie style is made by blitzing beans (pinto, garbanzo, butter, etc) and mushroom into a paste, with the stock cube and seasoning of your choice, then either dredged or breadcrumbed with the egg wash and cooked. The beans are the base, the mushroom will give it a bit of meatiness and density, and you can bake or deep fry.

Lasagne

Easy peasy this one, layers of pasta and white sauce with a tomato based filling, the filling is traditionally minced beef or you can use mutton, but that can be replaced with quorn mince. However, if you feel a bit more adventurous, swap out the mince for a, sort of, ratatouille based filling instead. Mediterranean veg in a tomato or maranara style sauce. Maranara is tomatoes, garlic, herbs and onions.

So, choose your dish, or individual dishes, and your going to need a base filling. Aubergines (Eggplant), Courgette (Zucchini), Peppers, spring onion and spinach work well together, in a large pan, with a little oil and just soften the veg a little the pour in your tomato or maranara sauce, and cook fast on a high heat until the sauce bubble's, then remove from the heat. Remember, the lasagne is going in the oven, and you want the veg to be firm, not mush.

A white sauce can be easily made, put a large knob of butter in a pan and melt on a low heat, when melted, add flour to make a roux, and cook for a minute, the start adding milk until a sauce is made. It will thick each time you add milk, and eventually stop thickening.

Cover base of dish with veg, cover with layer of pasta sheets, add rest of veg, another layer of pasta sheets, layer the white sauce and top with cheese, cook in the oven for around 30 mins at around 180C.

Fried Chicken

I stumbled across this one a few years ago and I'm told there are a couple of YT vids for this one. The one that I have personally tried is the mushroom method. The key to this is large mushrooms, but you want large stems as opposed to large caps. Penny Bun (Cep, Porcini) or King Oyster are what you want for this. The key is the marinade and dredge coating. Basically you want to do this like the chicken fillet burger. So to start, you need to take the cap off the mushroom, because you want the stem. Your going to cut the stem, this is to get the marinade into the flesh and to bulk out one end of the stem to get the drumstick shape. So take the biggest end of the stem, the cut goes from the middle to the end, then turn ninety degrees and cut again from the middle to the same end, you should now have a stem which is uncut at the thin end and cut into four at the other end. If the stem is large, do two cuts each time so it will be cut into nine pieces at the cut end. Now to marinade, I used a mix of Worcestershire sauce (pronounced Wuster sauce), soy sauce, stock cube, a few drops of poppyseed oil and sesame oil. Let the stems soak up the marinade for about ten minutes, then dredge in flour, then egg, then flour and deep fry. Should be done in a few minutes.

Stroganoff

I mentioned Stroganoff earlier, people think this is a slow cook dish, but it really isn't, and can be cooked to order. So to replace the meat, I have used large chestnut mushrooms sliced and flashed off in garlic butter and rapeseed oil, then added the rest of the main ingredients, diced onion, mixed peppers, small button mushrooms, then a good splash of white wine, a good splash of brandy, cook off the alcohol, and add about a teaspoon of paprika, and let it all cook for a couple of minutes. All you really need now is gravy and cream, and let it cook on a mid heat for about ten minutes. Serve with rice.

Veggie Burger

Well it wouldn't be a vegetarian post without a veggie burger. For me, I would like my veggie burger to be tasty, and look like a burger, but also to have texture and definition. There are so many recipes for this, and I have been trying my own ideas out for a while. Most use the traditional sort of mashed potato, carrots and green beans technique, which is somewhat akin to bubble and squeak, which I really enjoy, but don't regard it as a veggie burger. I am going to give you a couple of different ones that I have tried, and give them a go if you fancy.

Veggie burger – Start with beans, doesn't matter which ones, most recipes call for pinto, garbanzo (chickpea), even haricot and butterbeans. I think I used chickpeas and haricot beans, and added red lentils (left on a jug of boiling water, only just cooked). I diced some onion and softened off in a small frying pan, to which I added paprika, a little dijon mustard (about half a teaspoon) worcester sauce, seasoning and a large pinch of the veggie stock cube that I crumbled into a pot for seasoning.

You might want to dry off a couple of slices of beetroot for the mix, just for colour, and you'll need an egg to bind.

All ingredients go into a food processor and get blitzed down. Then just start building your burgers. Using a pastry cutter can give you a perfectly shaped pattie, mold by hand or make a log and slice them off. Some people steam them off before cooking them properly, so they can be cooked on a barbecue without any mess.

Sweet Potato Burger – steam off some sweet potato, dry it off as best you can, and throw it into the food processor, along with blackbeans, rice, coriander, tumeric, a little sage, diced onion (dried off), onion powder, garlic powder, paprika and a half teaspoon of tomato puree or paste. Blitz and build.


just remembered, last time I made this, I oven roasted the sweet potatoe and squash, and added breadcrumbs for body and an egg to bind

Mushroom burger - Food processor again, fill with mushrooms, sweated diced onion, dijon mustard, worcester sauce, soy sauce, seasoning and a pinch of the stock cube powder. Add an egg to bind, and some beetroot for colour. Blitz and build.

Beef Wellington – I came up with this one years ago, my head chef wanted a vegetarian dish for the specials menu, I said wellington, no idea why, and he said, you build it, I'll taste it.

Basically, its a fillet steak, coated in pate de foix gras, topped with duxelle and wrapped in pastry.

So lets break this down to its components.

First we need a steak, and the best to use is beefsteak mushroom, which grows on the side of trees. Only problem is that the only supplier I knew who could get these was a grower, who died years ago. Puffball could be used, but same problem. So I would probably used a whole portobello flat. This needs to be warmed in the oven at a low temperature with garlic butter, pinch of paprika, and Stock cube powder.

Next is the pate. This would be mushroom pate, but it needs to be firm, and smooth. Get a frying pan and on a medium heat, melt some butter, and add to the pan, chopped chestnut mushrooms, chopped tarragon, sliced shallot, splash of brandy. Cook for about a minute, the add a pinch of grated Parmesan and a dessert spoon of cream cheese. Blitz together to make a smooth paste.

Next is the duxelle, which is just mixed wild mushrooms (giving a nice woody taste) sautéed down with onion, shallot and herbs (preferably Thyme). Chop the mushrooms and sauté in butter with drop of white wine. Add rest of the ingedients to the pan, and cook for about ten minutes on a low heat.

All that's left is the pastry, and I'm not going to tell you how to do that here. So, roll out the pastry, and choose if your make individual portions or a big log for slicing. I went with individual, so cut the pastry to size, depending on the size of you large mushroom. Place one of your portobello mushrooms in the middle of the pastry, top with a nice thick coating of mushroom pate, then top that with duxelle, and wrap the pastry. Glaze with egg wash and cook for about 20 minutes at 180C.

The portabello can be swapped for tofu, quorn, tempeh, literall anything you want. Make your own version of the pate, etc,etc.

All you need to remember is that each layer must have a taste of it's own, but each layer must compliment the other layers.

Ok, Bye for now!