Burger Imposter

Recipe: Dana's "Totally OK" Veggie Burgers

I have an extreme hatred (too strong?) for meat-free products masquerading around as meat dishes. For instance, Upton's Natural's, a Chicago-based company, has made a small fortune packaging things called "Ground Beef-Style Seitan" and taco salads and buffalo chik'n wraps sold with a dapper mustachioed man on the packaging encouraging all the hipster vegans out there to purchase it.... (I used a runon sentance to highlight the extend of my anger.) Perhaps part of my anger is directed at the fact that many of these prodcuts contain soy, which I cannot digest without reacting like that one scene in Bridesmaids--you know the one I'm talking about. (Although a closer look at Upton's products suggests that their products contain hardly any soy, while other brands definitely do.)

Another concern is the hipster doofuses, a term used by my mother and coined by Seinfeld, that purchase the products, as I do not want to be associated with that kind of person. The new hipster is the antihipster after all.

And lastly, if you're a vegetarian you should eat more vegetables not tofu or wheat gluten that's pretending to be something you gave up. Vegetarians should celebrate vegetables, not mourn their losses. Plus most of that food is so proccessed, you hardly recognize where it came from. Take a look at the ingredient list on your soy tacquito or buffalo chik'n wrap and see if you can find all the ingredients in your cupboard. If you can't make it yourself (or with a trained cook in your kitchen) I fundamentally disagree with eating it.

That said, I'm not trying to knock Upton's, they do a pretty good job with their products, and their ingredient list is short and free of perservatives. There are a lot of companys that don't do this kind of cooking well, frozen chik'n cubes and soy mayonaise does not a chicken salad make, and it can ruin the eating experience for the consumer.

On the other hand, the veggie burger is perhaps the one exception to my no meat substitute rule. The veggie burger is, afterall, a staple of vegetarian cooking. Whole Foods makes a couple great ones, that are made from beans and grains, and they can actually be a filling and healthy meal. Plus, beans and grains aren't really meat subsitutes so I can be sure that they are soy-free.

I still perfer to make them myself though. This recipe, while it has a long ingredient list, is actually pretty tasty. I still want to play with the texture (less on the mush, more on the crunch), but the flavors are there. Maybe it isn't the perfect subsitute for that juicy, chargrilled, piece of hamburger that you could be eating, but for a veggie burger it ain't bad.

Dana's "Totally OK" Veggie Burger

1 cup barley
4 cups veg stock
1 cup kidney beans, dried
1 red pepper, small diced
1/2 red onion, small diced
2 carrots, peeled and small diced
1/2 cup shittake mushrooms, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup almond flour toasted
2 TBS hot sauce
1 TBS Worchestshire
1 TBS Smoked Paprika
1 TBS dried Oregano
Salt and Pepper To taste

1. Heat a sauce pot over high heat. Add barley and toast until fragrant, about 2 minutes, stirring the barley around constantly. Add vegetable stock and reduce heat. Cook until barley is tender and most of the stock has been absorbed.
2. Place kidney beans in a pot and add water until the water is 2 inches above the beans. Cook over medium heat until beans are extremely tender, about one hour.
3. Saute onions, peppers, carrots, and garlic in a small pan with a little bit of oil over medium heat until soft, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat.
4. Heat same pan with some oil and cook mushrooms over low heat for about 10 minutes, or until all the liquid has evaporated out. Add to carrots, peppers, and onions.
5. Once beans and barely have finished cooking place in a food processor and blend until smooth. Place in a big bowl and mix with cooked veggies and seasoning. Season with salt and pepper.
6. Preheat oven to 400. Parchment and oil a baking pan. Form burgers into 1/3 pound 3 inches in diameter patties. You should make about 6. If you have a mold use that.
7. Bake in oven for 20 minutes. Remove and enjoy with a toasted bun, some pickles, ketchup, mustard, and a beer.

So I've Been Eating Fish.....

Recipes: Onigiri and Cumber Salad

I'm (slowly) cutting meat out of my diet partly because of the sustainability issues that are clouding the modern meat industry. Seafood too has major sustainability problems. Overfishing is a major concern; while efficiency in industrial fishing improved, the ability of the ocean to replenish itself has declined significantly.  According to the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch, our ocean's are in a state of "silent collapse." The Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch program is a great resource for those who would like to research sustainable seafood options.

I have not always been a huge seafood fan. I've tried Salmon in Alaska at a traditional salmon bake and at no more than a bite. I've had sushi at 6 in the morning in Tokyo freshly caught (and I mean just off the boat) and was unimpressed. I've eaten at fine dining seafood restaurants and tolerated the meal if it was drenched in enough butter. But, I am not opposed to eating seafood the way I am about farm animals. (And I'm not even entirely opposed to eating farm animals.) It boils down to sustainability. If the fish was caught in a "green" way then I'll be more comfortable eating it.

According to my favorite resource, the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch lists Wild-Caught Alaskan Salmon as a Best Choice for seafood. To research other Best Choices click here or download the iphone app (SO HANDY.) As I mentioned before, I am not a huge fan of salmon. There is, however, one way that I love to eat it: with sushi rice and nori.

Onigiri (aka rice balls) are considered the Japanese soul food and are a nostalgic meal for me. When I visited Japan as a high school student, my last meal was homemade salmon onigiri made by my host mother that I ate on the train out of Kyoto.  When I studied in Tokyo almost 6 years later as a Japanese major in college, I would make late night runs to the 7/11 to grab a snack while I studied the night away. Now I make them at home and bring them to work with me for a light lunch. Onigiri is simply made by stuffing a ball of sushi rice with your favorite filling and wrapping the ball in nori (dried seaweed). It's similar to a giant sushi roll, but it's usually filled with cooked seafood, umeboshi (pickled plums), or a variety of other fillings. I prefer to fill the onigiri with canned salmon, which is weird I know, but I find the canned stuff has the flavor that is most true to my memory.

Whole Foods carries canned Wild Caught Alaskan Salmon so if you're feeling like seafood, give this dish a try. If you're on a strict vegetarian diet, you can also fill the onigiri with pickled vegetables, soy glazed bamboo shoots, kimchi, adzuki beans, or whatever else you can imagine. The trick to onigiri is to keep it really simple. My recipe has just six ingredients: Rice, water, nori, salmon, salt, and rice wine vinegar. Can't beat that simplicity.

Salmon Onigiri with Cucumber Salad


For the Onigiri
2 cups sushi rice
4 cups water
2 TBS rice wine vinegar
1 8 oz can of Wild Caught Alaskan Salmon
1 tsp salt
1 sheet of sushi nori

1. Rinse rice in cold water until water runs clear. Place rice in a rice cooker or pot and cover with 4 cups of water. If cooking in pot, cover and cook over medium low heat until rice is soft. Cool on a sheet tray in refrigerator about one hour. Once cool season rice with rice wine vinegar.
2. Drain salmon throughly and season with salt. Fill a small bowl with cold water and use that to wet your hands. Take the rice and form it into a small ball about 2 inches in diameter. Poke a small hole in the middle of the ball and fill with an ounce of salmon. Cover the hole and continue to shape the rice. If rice starts to stick to your hands rewet your hands with water.
3. Cut the nori into thin strips. Some nori come with perforated lines, so use that if applicable. Roll nori strips around the middle of the rice ball. Eat and enjoy.

For the Cucumber Salad:
2 cucmbers, washed and striped
2 carrots, peeled
3 TBS mirin
2 TBS rice wine vinegar
1 TBS sugar
1tsp sesame seeds, white, toasted
1 tsp chili flakes

1. Cut cucumbers and carrots into 2 inch long pieces. Using a mandolin or a slicer slice cucumbers and carrots lengthwise and julienne slices with a knife. Place in a mixing bowl.
2. Mix rice wine vinegar, mirin, sugar, sesame seeds, and chili flakes together and pour over carrot and cucumber mixture. Let sit in the refrigerator for one hour to overnight before serving.

Let's Have Beans at Every Meal! Or, How To Please Your Football Loving Meataholic Friends

Recipe: Go Pack! the Vegetables in the Chili

(editor's note: I was supposed to get this post out before the Super Bowl, but due to various technical issues around the house, and working 8 days in a row prior to the Super Bowl I did not. Now our technical issues have been fixed and I figured I'd still post this. Its still a good recipe and you all can get excited for next year's football season.)

If you haven't already guessed from the picture above, I am a Packers fan. I was raised in Wisconsin and most of my Sundays throughout the fall and the winter were spent settled in front of a TV with my mom or my

grandparents watching the Packers. Granted, as a child I hated football and it wasn't until I went to college that I fully realized what all the fuss was about. Especially now, because I don't live there any more, I find myself defending the great state of Wisconsin and the Great Team of Our Time and explaining the general benefits of being a cheesehead. I, in short, have become extremely (disgustingly?) proud of my state and will indulge in a great debate about it with anyone who asks.

If you are holding sports parties in the next few months, but want to stay true to your vegetarian ways, you might want to consider putting together a vegetarian chili. (Like I said before, this was going to be a Super Bowl post, but seeing as it is no longer "current" the generic "sports parties" will have to suffice.) This is also a good dish to throw in the crock pot before you head off to work. It is delicious, easy, and satiating.

The Difficulties of Risotto

Recipe: Winter Risotto with Butternut Squash and Broccolini

Risotto is one of those dishes that I never seem to get right. There are a few dishes in my repertoire, such as getting homemade bread to rise properly or really anything to do with baking, that no matter how many times I make it something always goes wrong. The procedure behind risotto is a fairly simple concept. Saute some garnish and arborio rice, reduce some wine, and add hot stock bit by bit until the rice is cooked. But you can add too much stock or not enough, cook the rice too fast or too slow, stir the pot too much or too little, and before you know it you wind up with a glutenous (or rock hard) mess without any idea of what you did (or didn't do) wrong (or right).

But Oh! When you get it right, risotto is an amazing dish. Comforting on cold winter days with a bit of braised parsnips and kale, relaxing on a spring afternoon and paired with asparagus and artichokes, refreshing in summer with roasted corn and tomatoes, and hearty for fall when eaten with a bite of squash. Creamy and chewy, aromatic and warm, risotto is that wonderful buttery comfort food that is perfect in every season.

My mother and I had consumed risotto many times at reputable restaurants across the country before we thought to make it at home. This was way before my professional cooking days, but after my "rainbow sprinkles on EVERYTHING" era. My mom and I were adventurous eaters, but needed some practice in the kitchen. Needless to say, our homemade risotto was TERRIBLE. We added way more stock than the recipe called for, but the rice was still terribly undercooked. I think we were so frustrated by the whole experience that we threw the rice in the garbage and ordered pizza.

Risotto is a laborious dish, and can be frustrating to the inexperienced. But don't give up! All it needs is a little gentle love, or as Otis Redding would say: "Try a little tenderness." I got it wrong many times before I got it right.

Seaweed: Taste of the Ocean

Recipe: Udon Noodles in a Mushroom Broth

When I was in college, I spent a year abroad in Japan. I've always been a fan of Japanese food, but the food I experienced in Japan was entirely different than the American versions I was used to. For the most part Americans jumped on the sushi and teryiaki train and ignored all other aspects of Japanese cuisine. But my trip to Japan changed everything and I had a sort of culinary awakening. I discovered so many new flavors, ingredients, dishes, cuisines and I found myself inspired every day by the new foods I was cooking and eating. One of those ingredients was seaweed.

This month's issue of Saveur has a great article on nori, one of my favorite kinds of seaweed, and reading it made my mouth water. Yes I know that something a little bit more delectable like a cupcake or a barbecue would be a more appropriate thought to make my mouth water, but nori is a key ingredient in many of my favorite Japanese dishes. Onigiri, a ball of rice with a filling and wrapped in nori (kind of like a Japanese sandwich), sembe, a flavor of these rice crackers contains nori, and of course sushi.

There are also many other kinds of seaweed used in Japanese cuisine. Kombu is a dried kelp that is the basis for dashi, or Japanese stock. Wakame, is rehydrated and used as a garnish in soba and udon soups. Hijiki is a scrawny black seaweed that is best eaten in salads. All of these seaweeds bring a wonderfully salty and umami quality to the dishes they are part of, that it's almost as it you can taste the ocean. I'm not the biggest fan of fish, but seaweed brings me the flavor of the sea without the fishiness. The first time I ate seaweed, I was brought to an entirely new world (like a reverse Little Mermaid experience!)

And all this talk about seaweed got me thinking about a good Japanese noodle soup. Soba and udon soups use a flavorful dashi as their base and wakame or nori as a garnish. Many traditional ramens have some form of seaweed as a garnish too. And thinking about these noodle soups got my mouth to water once more and I had to make a delicious udon soup and broth.

Recipe: Udon Noodles in a Mushroom Broth

For the Broth:

1 piece Kombu

4 quarts water

1/2 pound mushrooms and stems, sliced

2 oz dried shittake mushrooms or other variety of dried mushrooms

1 onion, medium diced

3-4 stalks celery, medium diced

4 cloves garlic, whole, in husk

1/2 c soy sauce

1/2 cup mirin

1/4 cup rice wine vinegar

3 TBS chili oil

5 cloves garlic, minced

4 TBS ginger, minced

Salt and Pepper, To Taste

Garnishes:

1 pound Udon (or soba) noodles, cooked al dente

1 head bok choy, large pieces - greens steamed, whites sauteed

2 pounds shittake mushrooms, sliced and sauteed

1 pound broccolini, steamed

3-4 carrots, cut into obliques, sauteed and seasoned with 1/4 cup soy sauce 1/4 cup mirin

Soft Boiled Eggs - 1 for every bowl of soup (Boil in Salted water for 5 minutes)

1 sheet nori (can use sushi nori), julienned

For the Soup:

1. Place kombu in water and slowly bring to a boil, about 30 - 45 minutes. Remove kombu once water has just come to a boil and discard. While kombu is coming to a boil, do vegetable and garnish prep work.

2.Add mushrooms, onion, celery, and garlic and simmer for 45 more minutes. Strain and flavor with soy sauce, mirin, rice wine vinegar, chili oil, ginger, garlic, and salt and pepper. Adjust flavors as needed.

3. Place about a quarter to a half pound of noodles in a bowl. Arrange garnishes on top and pour hot broth over the soup. Slurp happily.

Umami: The Fifth Taste

Recipe: Exotic Mushroom Tart

There are only five definable tastes that humans are able to recognize. Taste is different from flavor. While flavor is the inherent and distinctive quality of food that is perceived with our other senses, taste is defined as the sensation recognized in our brain as food comes into contact with our taste buds. While flavors are diverse and multiple, tastes are boiled down to a distinct five: sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and umami. It’s easy to recognize the first four tastes. Sweet is recognized as you bite into a pillowy cupcake or soft piece of dark chocolate. Salty is most apparent in a bag of potato chips, popcorn, or pretzels. Bitter is prominent in dark peppery greens and Sour is the taste you experience as you bite into a fresh lemon.

The previous four tastes are easily defined. Umami on the other-hand is unfamiliar. It comes from the Japanese word umai, meaning delicious, and is not easily translated into the English language. For me, it is the savory feeling of richness and fullness found in food.

In order to feel satiated after a meal, all of the tastes should be balanced in the dish. You can leave a meal hungry, if your tastebuds weren’t satisfied. Since umami is most commonly found in meat, that is why it’s hard to feel full after a vegetarian meal. But don’t fear my readers! Umami is found in vegetables and non-meat items too:

Tomatoes

Mushrooms

Soy Sauce

Wine

Cheeses

Aged and Fermented foods

I found the following recipe in Professional Vegetarian Cooking by Ken Bergeron. I’ve edited it significantly though so don’t go searching there if you’ve forgotten my website. It is the perfect umami meal. The meatiness of the mushrooms, mixed with the wine and the soy sauce, will make your forget the absence of meat in this meal. Enjoy it with some sautéed dandelion greens with caramelized onions and tomatoes. Dandelion greens are deliciously bitter, but the sweetness of the tomato helps your taste buds deal with the bitterness. Finish it up with a squeeze of lemon and some salt and pepper, and you’ve got a balance of tastes that will satisfy your palate and your stomach.

Exotic Mushroom Tart

Ingredients:

For the pie dough:

AP Flour 12 oz

Salt 1 ½ tsp

Butter, chilled 6 oz

2 eggs

4 tsp water

½ cup mixed fresh herbs (I used thyme and parsley from my garden, but use whatever you want. Have fun!)

2 cups Parmesan

Egg Wash

Vegan option: Omit the eggs and the parmesan and substitute ½ cup Vegetable Shortening for the butter

For the Filling:

Onions, small diced 1 ½ cup

Carrots, small diced 1 ½ cups

Parsnips, small diced 1 ½ cups

Shallots, minced ¼ cup

Olive oil 2 TBS

White Wine, dry ½ cup

Exotic Mushrooms, such as shitake, oyster, enoki, lobster 10 cups

Fresh Thyme 2 TBS

Fresh Rosemary 2 TBS

Soy Sauce 2 TBS

Salt, Pepper To Taste

Note: To save on money, you can buy more of a cheaper variety of mushrooms (such as baby bella or button) to mix with the exotic mushrooms. The flavor won’t change much, but you’ll still get to enjoy the expensive ones!

Procedure:

For the pie dough

1. Mix the flour and salt together.

2. Cut the butter into small cubes. Mix it in with the flour salt mixture, using your fingertips, until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs. Add the herbs.

3. Making a well in the center, mix in the water and eggs until the dough just comes together. Add more water if too dry. The dough should not be too sticky, so be careful.

4. Kneed out on a floured surface until the dough is smooth, about 1 minute.

5. Wrap in plastic and chill at least 30 minutes until use. Meanwhile, prepare the filling.

For the filling:

6. Sauté the onions, carrots, parsnips and shallots with the olive oil for about 2 minutes. Add the mushrooms and sauté another two minutes. Add the white wine and let it reduce to au sec (or almost dry.)

7. Add the remaining ingredients and sauté another 5 minutes, or until almost all the juices have evaporated. If the filling is too wet it will make the tarts soggy.

To assemble:

8. Preheat oven to 400°F. Roll out dough on a floured surface until it is between ¼ - ^1/8 inch thick. Using a 6-inch cookie cutter or other circular object with a 6-inch diameter (I used a cup), cut out circles and place them on a parchment-lined baking sheet. You can continue to roll out the dough as much as you need to until most of it is used up. If the dough gets too warm, place it back in the fridge to chill it down again.

9. Fill the circles with ¼ to a ½ cup of the mushroom mixture. Crimp the edges of the circle up, until it looks like a cute little coin purse. Brush the circles with the egg wash (Vegan substitute: use oil), and sprinkle with the parmesan.

10. Bake until the crust is a deep golden brown. Eat and enjoy!