Veganomicon: The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook (20 page)

Read Veganomicon: The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook Online

Authors: Isa Chandra Moskowitz,Terry Hope Romero

Tags: #food.cookbooks

Preheat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Sauté the onions and the jalapeños in the olive oil for 5 to 7 minutes, until softened. Meanwhile, peel the skin from the squash and cut the squash into ¾-inch chunks.
Add the coriander seeds and garlic to the pan and sauté for a minute more. Add the cumin, salt, and a few splashes of water (about 2 tablespoons). Add the squash and cook for about 5 minutes, stirring often to coat. It’s okay if the squash doesn’t retain its shape perfectly. Add the black beans and heat through. If the mixture looks dry, add a few more splashes of water. Lastly, add the lemon juice and the maple syrup, and stir. Turn off the heat and prepare the empanada dough.
Grease a baking sheet and set it aside. Now grab your dough from the fridge and remove the plastic wrap. Slide the dough off the cutting board, keeping the paper underneath it. Roll out the dough into a 9 × 12-inch rectangle. Trim the edges to make it an even rectangle. Slice the dough into 3-inch squares—four cuts across and two cuts lengthwise.
Take a square and roll it out a bit more, to about 6 inches square (but you don’t have to be precise about it). Arrange it so that a corner is pointing toward you. Place about 2 tablespoons of filling in the lower half of the dough, leaving about ½ inch of space at the bottom point. Fold over the dough so that it is in the shape of a triangle. You may need to pull it a little bit, just do so carefully so as not to rip it. Pinch together the seams with a fork or your fingertips and place on your baking sheet. Continue forming the rest of the empanadas.
Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until golden brown. Serve warm!
PANKO-STUFFED MUSHROOMS
 
MAKES ABOUT 20
TIME:
45 MINUTES
 
 
These little guys are different from your run-of-the-mill Italian-style stuffed mushrooms since they’re flavored with Asian-y stuff: sesame, mirin, and scallions. Panko is a Japanese bread crumb that stays crispier than the kind we usually use. Daikon provides a little crunch but you can sub water chestnuts or maybe celery if you roll that way. We like the way DIY-toasted sesame seeds look on these because they provide some color contrast, but you can buy them toasted if you prefer. Black sesame seeds would look cool as well.
22 big mushrooms (they sometimes are called “stuffing
mushrooms”), washed and patted dry
1 tablespoon peanut oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup finely diced daikon
3 tablespoons mirin
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon ground white pepper
1 ½ cups panko
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil, plus extra for greasing
the pan and garnish
2-4 tablespoons water
½ cup finely chopped scallions, plus extra for
garnish
3 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds
 
 
➣
To toast sesame seeds: Preheat a small pan over medium-low heat. Pour in the sesame seeds and toast them, stirring often, for about 3 minutes. Once they are browned, immediately remove them from the pan to prevent burning.
PREHEAT THE oven to 350°F.
First, remove the stems from the mushrooms. An easy way to do this is to cup one in your writing hand, stem up, and gently but firmly twist and pry the stem out. Then use a small spoon to remove any remaining stem. Do not discard the stems; chop them up small and set them aside. It’s common to break a mushroom or two, which is why the recipe calls for twenty-two mushrooms but stuffs twenty. If one breaks and can’t be used, just chop it up along with the stems. If you have a mushroom stem-removing talent and manage not to break any, then finely chop the two extras anyway.
Preheat a large skillet over medium heat. Pour in the peanut oil and sauté the chopped mushroom for about 3 minutes, until some moisture has released. Add the diced daikon and cook for 5 more minutes, stirring often. Add the garlic and cook for a minute longer.
At this point, lots of moisture should be released from the mushrooms. Add the mirin, salt, and white pepper, and cook for about 2 minutes.
Turn off the heat and add the panko in ½-cup batches and stir, alternately adding the sesame oil and splashes of water (up to 4 tablespoons) until all the bread crumbs are moist. The mixture should be crumbly but, when you press some between your fingers, it should hold together. Mix in the scallions and adjust the salt to taste.
Grease a baking sheet with a little sesame oil. Stuff each mushroom with the filling and place on the baking sheet. To stuff them, place a little of the filling into the mushroom crevice and then add another tablespoon on top of that, pressing firmly to form a mound.
Bake for 20 minutes. To serve, sprinkle the toasted sesame seeds over the mushrooms and drizzle with a little sesame oil, if desired. Garnish with extra chopped scallions. If you are going for a fancy plating, place a few mushrooms on a handful of raw spinach leaves.
BUCKWHEAT BLINI
 
MAKES ABOUT 36 BLINI
TIME:
1 HOUR 30 MINUTES, LOTS OF IT INACTIVE
 
 
Blini are light, savory, yeasted pancakes with a real Eastern European feel to them. They are small and bite-sized, similar to silver dollar pancakes and make a great appetizer. This recipe is a little time consuming because you have to make the pancakes in small batches, so you may only want to serve it for special occasions. But it’s really worth the trouble, we promise. Serve with thick Mushroom Gravy (page 211) and Horseradish-Dill Sour Cream (page 208) and top with fresh chopped parsley.
1½ cups soy milk, at room temperature
2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
½ cup warm water
1 tablespoon sugar
1(¼-ounce) envelope active dry yeast
1 tablespoon ground flaxseeds
½ cup buckwheat flour
½ cup chickpea flour
½ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
Nonstick cooking spray or spray-on olive oil
 
 
➣
Use an ice-cream scoop to efficiently pour the blini batter. Measure a tablespoon and a half of batter into it once to get an idea of how much batter that is, and then just eyeball it for the rest of the blini.
 
➣
Use the thinnest spatula you can to flip the blini. Since you’ll be using a nonstick pan, a very thin, flexible heatproof rubber spatula makes all the difference in the world. Of course, you can still get by using any spatula you’ve got.
MEASURE THE soy milk into a measuring cup and add the vinegar to it; set aside to curdle.
Mix the sugar and water in a large glass or plastic mixing bowl. Add the yeast and stir briefly. Leave the bowl in a warm place and let the yeast foam up; it usually takes about 3 minutes.
Meanwhile, add the ground flaxseeds to the soy milk and stir well.
In a separate large mixing bowl, combine the remaining ingredients. Pour in the soy milk mixture and mix until smooth. Add this batter to the yeast and mix again until smooth. Place a towel over the batter and leave it in a warm, draft-free place for about an hour.
Preheat a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Give the batter a stir—it shouldn’t be bubbling over the bowl, just slightly bubbly. When the pan is hot, spray with nonstick cooking spray. Carefully pour about 1½ tablespoons of batter into the pan to form a blin (pancake); you can usually fit about five at a time, but take care not to overcrowd; if you can only fit four, then so be it.
The tops of the blini should bubble up and set within 90 seconds (if they do not, then either the heat is not high enough or the pan hasn’t had time to heat up properly). Flip each blini and cook for another 90 seconds. Both sides should be a dark, flecked golden brown.
If you are serving them within 30 minutes, you can place them on a plate covered with aluminum foil. If they are for later on, place on a baking pan in a 200°F oven until ready to serve.
EVERYDAY CHIPOTLE-VEGETABLE TAMALES
 
SERVES 6-8

Other books

Unknown by Unknown
Currawalli Street by Christopher Morgan
(1987) The Celestial Bed by Irving Wallace
Rise of the Elgen by Richard Paul Evans
The Rifle Rangers by Reid, Mayne
Until Forever by Johanna Lindsey
The Reaper Virus by Nathan Barnes
How Few Remain by Harry Turtledove