Mashroom Magic with Tofu Puffs

Mushrooms are my favourite vegetables, except that they are not vegetables... they are fungi, and I like all fungi (as long as they are edible). For this dish I used a mixture of dried and fresh mushrooms. The dried mushrooms are an Asian mix of different mushrooms, which I soaked in water for an hour or so. The fresh one are oyster mushrooms and common button mushrooms. I cleaned them and then sliced the button ones, while I left the oyster mushrooms whole (a pity to cut them!).

In a large skillet I heated a little vegetable oil with a few drops of sesame oil, then added all the mushrooms (I drained the dried mushrooms, but kept the water) and cooked them turning often until they stopped trowing out water. At this point I added the tofu puffs (fried tofu pieces, available in most tofu shops and Asian stores) the mushrooms water and Japanese soy sauce (not too much). After all the liquid was gone I added a little lemon juice, tasted to see if more soy sauce was needed (for salt) and finished with chopped coriander. Golly they were delicious, and so simple too! Serve with rice.

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Noodle salad with banana blossom and tofu, and Happy New Year!

I love to eat flowers, and if you have a banana plant in the garden you can eat the blossoms!  First you need to remove the pink/mauve petals (and small banana florets under each petal) from the blossom until you get to the pale centre. Keep the petals though, they are good as food containers or decorations. You can find the step by step photos on how to peel and cut a banana blossom here, where there is also a delicious banana flower (blossom) recipe. Then cut the centre and mix immediately with lemon juice. Put into a bowl and add more lemon juice and a couple of tbsp of Japanese soy sauce. Put another bowl on top (inside the first one to press down the content) and fill the second bowl with something heavy (a rock, for example). Keep the cut blossom pressed in this marinade overnight, in the fridge. This is necessary or the banana blossom will taste too astringent.

The day after, cook the noodles and drain. Rinse under cold water, and place into a bowl. Cut the tofu into squares and fry in a mixture of sesame oil and vegetable oil until golden, then add a tbsp of lemon juice and 2 tbsp of Japanese soy sauce, sizzle quickly and toss with the noodles. Squeeze the banana blossom from excess liquid and add to the noodles. Mix well and serve at room temperature, decorated with some Thai mint or coriander. This noodle salad was delicious and I will make it again, in fact so far this has been my favourite recipe with banana blossoms.

Happy Chinese New Year to all!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Oyster mushrooms with lemon soy

When asked what is my favourite vegetable sometimes I reply that it is a fresh porcino mushroom (boletus edulis), and I say this knowing very well that mushrooms do not classify as vegetables... they are fungi, neither fruit nor vegetable. But no one in New Zealand ever asks me what is my favourite fungi (they do in my village in Italy, for sure), only what is my favourite vegetable, and mushrooms are usually defined as a side vegetable (even eaten at breakfast! This thing still puzzles me).  

The fact is that to me mushrooms rarely take the place of a side vegetable, but they tend to be the main player: pasta with mushrooms, risotto with mushrooms, polenta with mushrooms, mushroom fritters, mushroom burgers, mushroom dumplings, stuffed mushrooms...

 For a vegetarian they substitute meat, and in the old days in my mountains in Italy they used to be called carne di bosco 'meat of the woods'.

We never bought mushrooms when I was a child, they grew all around us and we just foraged. We also dried them for winter, or preserved them in olive oil (more rarely, mushrooms may have been abundant, but olive oil was expensive). 

Here in NZ only very occasionally I find field mushrooms, more rarely porcini (it happened in Christchurch once long time ago and I was the only one who ate them, everybody else watching me to see if I was going to die a painful death from poisoning). 

As far as commercial varieties go, I use plenty of dried mushrooms (both porcini and different Asian mushrooms) and the usual button and portabello mushrooms that you find at the supermarket. Fortunately in recent years the interest in more 'exotic' types of mushrooms has increased and now you can find some types of fresh Asian mushrooms too, especially in Asian stores. 

Easy recipe: place the oyster mushrooms in a skillet with a little oil or vegan butter and sauté them on both sides. To make mushrooms easy to digest you need to cook them in a way that they 'loose' water, this is important with foraged mushrooms, if there is a toxic one in you mix making it 'loose water' made it edible (or lowered the risks of tommy ache). Button mushrooms and other varieties can be eaten raw, but personally I prefer them cooked. Of course if a mushrooms is deadly this cooking tip is useless, no matter how much you cook it, but this is not a problem we are facing with commercial varieties!

So, but back to cooking edible mushrooms: let them loose water, yes, but remember that generally mushrooms should not be cooked for too long or they will lose flavour too. So as soon as these oyster mushrooms looked ready to me (a few minutes) I added a drizzle of Japanese soy sauce and some lemon juice. Add more vegan butter too if you like, for a bit more fat, juice and taste. Serve piping hot on a bowl of plain short grain rice, drizzling the juices on top. 

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Tomato tofu with vegetables and noodles

I learned to cook tofu with tomatoes from a Taiwanese friend 13 years ago, and I still remember thinking then how odd the pairing was… until I tasted it! Yes it works, and it is great! 

Heat some vegetable oil in a pan then add some fresh chopped tomato.

When the tomato is starting to mush add the tofu (use a firm type), cubed. Sauté on all sides then add two tbs of soy sauce (I use Japanese sou sauce). 

Add some green vegetables for colour (I use some pak choi), and cook for a few more minutes.

Boil the noodles, drain and add them to the pot, stir well with the tofu and vegetables.

Sauté the noodles for a few minutes, then add chopped coriander and chopped onion weed stalks (my Taiwanese friend would not have done that as she was a Buddhist vegetarian and ate no garlic, onion and chives, so I guess no onion weed!). Stir a bit more then serve, decorated with onion weed flowers.

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Tofu and spring onion skewers

My friends Astuko and Hideko often send me this dried tofu which I find super versatile! I just soak it in water (or stock) and then use it in a variety of dishes. This time I just soaked it in water and then cut each blog into four pieces, and put them in a skewer (soak the skewers too!) with some spring onions. 

I sautéed the skewers on both sides with a little rice bran oil to which I added a few drops of sesame oil, then I brushed the tofu and spring onions with a sauce made by simmering a teaspoon of sugar or with two tbsp of water, two of soy sauce (gluten free please use tamari) and a pinch of freshly grated ginger. I turned the skewers over one more time and then I served them, hot and yummy! The scrapings from the pan were delicious on plain rice too!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Vegan pot-sticker dumplings

I love this type of dumplings, for the filling I use what I have at hand really, but generally the base is tofu, Chinese dried mushrooms, soaked and boiled first (keep the broth for later) and fresh coriander. For flavouring I used sesame oil, soy sauce and a little fresh ginger. Blend everything into a smooth paste.

The folding is easy if you are doing it with friends. The fact is that after the first ten I got tired and bored, and I had 50 more to do! So I didn't make some particularly pretty ones to look at! My son loves them, and I wanted to make him fold a few ("so that you can learn darling!"), but he politely declined saying that he was going to take some photos of me making them instead (he is so good at finding explanations!).  One of the things I do when folding the ready bought dumpling disks is to wet the borders with water so that they stick well. And then I dip (lightly) the bottom of each dumpling in a plate lined with vegetable oil. In this way the dumplings don't stick to the tray, and then to the pot (even if they are supposed to be 'pot-stickers'!) 

Easy step by step images (this time by Arantxa, they are from this post)

These can also be simmered in broth (I always make a little broth for a just a few, just simmer them until they come to the surface and then they are ready!) or steamed in dumpling baskets. I learned the  pot-sticker method in Japan, where these are called gyoza (but have meat inside). 

Cook the dumpling in a very hot pan, and as soon as the bottom has started to brown turn them and brown both side as well. Then cover with a lid and let the steam finish the cooking for a minute or so. At this stage I do add a spoon or two of water or, even better, the stock left over from cooking the mushrooms.  

Serve them hot! They can be eaten with chopsticks or fingers, dipped in sweet chilli sauce or soy sauce,  Max had about 25!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini and Max and Arantxa Zecchini Dowling©

Fried tofu puffs simmered in vegetable broth

This is the second recipe of my Vegan Japanese dinner. The starter was avocado sashimi, and this is the 'main' (I am using the word main as this is the 'main' protein course). Then there will be two vegetable dishes (one cooked and one raw) to accompany the tofu, and to finish in traditional Japanese style, the rice and the soup.

But now for the recipe:

1 bag of fried tofu puffs (in NZ they are available in Chinese stores)

1.5 l vegetable stock

1 celery stalk

1 carrot

Onion weed (or garlic chives) to finish

Soy or tamari sauce to serve (optional)

If you don't know what onion weed is you can find it here, now that it is spring it grows wild everywhere in Oratia, and I forage heaps of it!.

Wash the onion weeds and chop finely. Keep aside (the flowers too). Chop the celery and peel and cut the carrot into thick irregular pieces, I like to make them look a little 'geometric' to look pretty alongside the tofu puffs. Bring the stock to boil, then add the cut vegetables and tofu puffs. Simmer until the vegetables are cooked, drain (keep the vegetable stock aside as you will need it for a sauce and the soup later on - I will publish those recipes in the next few days). Serve the tofu puffs and vegetables in pretty bowls, and top with chopped onion weeds, finishing with some onion weed flowers to decorate (and eat, as they are edible). Serve with soy or tamari sauce. 

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Avocado sashimi

This is the first course of my Japanese Vegan and gluten free dinner...
 Raw food is better as a starter, apparently it gets the digestion going, and this is easy to make and really delicious.

For each person you will need:

Half avocado, not mushy

Lemon juice

A little wasabi paste

Japanese pickled ginger

Soy or Tamari sauce

Slice the half avocado like in the picture, not to thin and not to thick (diners need to be able to pick up the slices with chopsticks) then spray with lemon juice. Serve with wasabi, pickled ginger and gluten free soy or tamari sauce on the side.   

 Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Daikon and Carrot Salad with Miso and Toasted Sesame Seeds

Peel a carrot and a piece of daikon as big as two carrots with a vegetable peeler. Discard the outer skin, and then continue 'peeling' to obtain long thin orange and white vegetable 'ribbons'. As you work drop the carrot and daikon strips into a bowl filled with water and lemon juice. Let the vegetables soak for about 30 minutes. In the meantime toast a tbsp or so of sesame seeds in a hot frying pan, and then mush them lightly with a mortar and pestle (I have a Japanese one for this, but any mortar and pestle will do). Set aside. In a small bowl thin one tbsp of miso (white or red) with a little hot water, or hot vegetable stock, into the consistency of a salad dressing (i.e.: not too runny, but not as thick as to be impossible to fold into a salad). Add 1 tbsp of soy sauce too, if you like (or gluten free tamari sauce). Drain the vegetables and add the miso dressing. Mix and divide between 4 bowls (if eating immediately, otherwise store in the fridge, covered, it will acquire even more flavour!). Before serving top each bowl with a pinch of crushed toasted sesame seeds. 

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

TTT: Taiwanese Tofu with Tomato

Ok, the TTT name is my invention, but the recipe is really Taiwanese. Several years ago I had a Taiwanese baby-sitter, she was also vegetarian (in Taiwan there is a strong vegetarian Buddhist tradition) and she didn't cook with garlic, onion, chives and leeks (this is the old Buddhist tradition). She taught me a lot of recipes... no, not recipes, maybe I should say 'ways of cooking'.

This recipe is so basic that I almost thought of not putting it on the blog, but the fact is that it is quite amazing!! In my Italian brain I never thought of combining tomatoes with tofu and soy sauce this way, it didn't feel right, and I was quite skeptical when she showed it to me. And then I tasted it: WOWOWOW, it works!

And not only it works, the kids love it, and it is so easy and quick... and in a way it feels so ... ethical!

Yes, just a few low cost ingredients, not much time or energy needed, and lots of proteins.

I usually used some red ripe tomatoes, but I had some ripe little orange tomatoes to finish, and so they went: cut and placed into the frying pan/wok/pot with a little vegetable oil (olive oil works well) and a small pinch of salt. Of course you could also add garlic, but the original recipe, as I said before, doesn't allow for allium of any type. Cook on high, stirring constantly, when the tomatoes start to mush into a sauce add the cubed tofu, stir and then add one or two tbs of soy sauce (I use only Japanese soy sauce, Kikkoman or Yamasa) or gluten free tamari sauce if you are gluten free, and stir until the tofu is really hot (a couple of minutes only). Top with fresh chopped coriander if you like, and serve immediately with rice or noodles.

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

I enter this recipe in Cooking to Combat Cancer

Two Japanese inspired Vegan recipes: Onigiri and Soba with Furikake

When times are busy it is good to take out same ready make furikake. Furikake is a Japanese style seasoning, usually used to top rice, but useful for other dishes as well. I found one that I really like: Citrus Furikake from Pacific Harvest, (FYI, I have not been endorsed, payed or given free products by the company, but hey, if you have any free samples - vegetarian of course, do send them this way! :-). I love seaweed and this furikake is a mixture of 5 seaweeds: naturally flavoured kelp, karengo, sea lettuce, ao-nori, wakame, plus sesame seeds and a nice citrus touch. At home usually we sprinkle it directly on rice, or make onigiri (rice balls), or use it on noodles, vegetables, and a variety of dishes. Here are two examples.

Onigiri with furikake

To make the onigiri cook some Japanese (or sushi) rice (rinse it first until the water runs clear). When the rice is still warm wet your hands with water, rub them with just a little salt, and shape the rice balls with your palms. Sprinkle some furikake on top of each onigiri, or roll part of the onigiri onto the furikake for an even covering (but do not cover the whole rice ball with it, furikake is salty, and you just need a little bit).

Soba with Furikake

Super quick lunch: I cooked some bok choy like in here, and some soba like in here, but I didn't rinse the soba under cold water at the end: as soon as I drained the soba I mixed it with the hot bok choy, and then each diner sprinkled a bit of furikake on top. Simple, fast and the kids loved it!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Chinese Vegetables with Cashew Nuts

Vegan MoFo Day 9

Any vegetable is good, but I used a few dried shitake mushrooms (2 or 3 per person), bok choy, and carrots. Soak the mushrooms, cut the bok choy in big chunks, and the carrots into fat strips. In a pan or wok heat 1 tbsp of vegetable oil with 1 tsp of sesame oil. Add the mushrooms (keep the water aside for later), sizzle for a few minutes, then add the carrots, and after 2 minutes the bok choy (first the white stalks, then the green leaves). Add the cashews (about 2-3- tbsp) and stir. Mix the mushroom's soaking water with 2 tbsp of soy sauce (gluten free soy sauce if following a gluten free diet), 1 tsp of corn flour and half tsp of grated ginger. Add to the vegetables and stir until the sauce thickens. Serve immediately with rice.

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Zaru Soba

Day 7 of Vegan MoFo

Zaru Soba

Kazuyo brought back some soba from Japan, three packs for me :-)! I love soba, the Japanese buckwheat noodles that can be eaten cold or hot.

When we were living in Japan my husband did a lot of editorial work for KodanshaInternational, and among the books he worked on there was this one: The Book of Soba by James Udesky. The book tells you how to make your fresh soba, but also how to cook the dry one, plus it has some recipes, some history and nutritional info. I like it.

This is my soba set: plates with fitting straw mats (zaru soba is served in baskets or on mats, to keep it fresh and drained), plus some matching soba dipping bowls. I also have some tea cups with the same pattern: dragonflies!

Zaru soba is cold soba topped with nori (I cut a sheet of nori in small pieces with a pair of scissor) and served with a simple dipping sauce and garnish. One thing that I learned form The Book of Soba is that soba is not cooked like pasta. The only thing in common with pasta is that you should use the biggest pot you have and have enough water as if you were to cook spaghetti. But don't add salt!

Bring the water to boil: add the soba, stir gently. When the water starts to froth add half a cup of cold water and lower the heat. Do this three times. After the third time your soba should be ready. Drain and collect the cooking water to make soup, if you like (full of starch and vitamins and minerals) and place the soba in a bowl with ice water. Or just rinse under cold water (I prefer this way, the soba may not be perfect but I cannot bear to loose anymore starch!

Place your cold and rinsed soba in a soba basket or on your soba plate (lined with the soba mat). If you don't have a soba mat use your sushi rolling mat. Top with nori. Garnish with other vegetables if you like.

For the dipping sauce I prepare a base broth by simmering a piece of kombu for 30 minutes in water, then I add a little soy sauce (most would use bonito flakes). Let the broth cool down: this is a cold dipping sauce. Before serving put a tiny bit of wasabi in each dipping bowls, and a little grated daikon or radish, and then some chopped spring onions or chives. Pour the broth over and stir. For a fancy dinner place all the garnishes in small plates and let your guests mix their own sauce. To eat pick up the soba with your chopsticks and dip into your dipping sauce, then slurp everything up. You can make a slurping noise too, but I am not good at that!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Ginger Bok Choy

Third day of posting for Vegan MoFo

The bok choy comes from my garden, I believe that it is one of the easiest brassica to grow. It looks great if you cook it whole, but for a family meal it is easier to cut it into pieces first. Wash well and cut into big chunks. In the meantime in a bowl mix 1 tsp of cornflour with 50 ml of water, 2 tbsp of soy sauce (gluten free, if you need to), and half a tsp of freshly grated ginger. Heat 1 tbsp of vegetable oil (I used rice bran oil) in the pan and add the white stalks of the bok choy first. Sizzle for a couple of minutes, then add the green leaves. Cover for a couple of minutes and let the greens wilt in their own steam. Add the sauce and mix until the sauce thickens. Serve immediately with rice or as a side vegetable.

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Ginger and Chili Tofu

 I like cooking with ginger, especially when the weather is colder. Most of my Chinese style dishes are very simple, I usually make a tofu or a gluten (seitan) dish, and a side vegetable dish, to serve either with plain rice, or noodles.

 To use fresh ginger I cut a piece from the root, peel it, and then grate it using the ginger grater that I got in Japan (Italian bloggers, you can use the apple grater designed to grate apples for baby food).

Ginger and Chili Tofu

Cut a piece of firm tofu into cubes, top with a chili, sliced, and some grated ginger. Add a couple of tbsp of gluten free soy sauce (or regular light soy sauce) and let the tofu marinate for a few hours, stirring it from time to time so that it gets all coated with the sauce.

 Drain the tofu but keep the sauce and all the chili pieces aside: they will be used later. Heat 1 tbsp of vegetable oil (I use rice bran) and lightly fry the tofu on all sides. Lift the tofu from the pan and set aside. Add one tsp of cornflour to the marinade, and a couple of tbsp of water (if it looks too thick), mix well and then put into the same frying pan (or wok) where you fried the tofu. Do not rinse the pan, usually some pieces of tofu get stuck there (they are the best!), but scrape them all up while stirring the sauce. The sauce will thicken immediately, add 1 tbsp of tomato ketchup, and then the tofu. Stir and serve immediately.

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©