Green Cuisine Vegetarian Food Goes Beyond Brown Rice To Include Gourmet Preparations
When your mother nagged you to eat your vegetables, chances are she was talking about canned green beans or soggy spinach.
Even 10 years ago, Mom couldn’t have imagined that those limp veggies would one day turn over a new leaf and go gourmet. But that day has dawned.
Vegetarian cuisine is no longer all about sprouts and tofu. At least that’s what diners are discovering at some upscale restaurants around the country, where beets and turnips are treated with a new respect.
A sure sign that vegetables have arrived is a gorgeous new cookbook dedicated to elegant meatless meals written by one of the most respected chefs in the United States.
The recipes in “Charlie Trotter’s Vegetables” (Ten Speed Press) call for some 400 different items, ranging from lima beans and arugula to obscure stuff such as fiddlehead ferns and salsify.
Trotter, the chef/owner of a Chicago restaurant that bears his name, has been taking some heat from critics who call the book too complicated. He says his detractors are missing the point.
“This is not a how-to cookbook,” Trotter said in a telephone interview. “It’s inspirational. It’s designed to get someone thinking about food.”
Some of the thought-provoking dishes from the book include Chilled Yellow Taxi Tomato Soup With Avocado-Coriander Sorbet, Irish Cobbler Potato Torte, White Corn Grits With Turnip Confit and a Celery Root Ravioli.
What might also be instructive to armchair cooks is reading about Trotter’s techniques for wringing flavors out of vegetable stocks by reducing them until the taste is intense. He also uses vegetable purees to add body and texture.
“We use virtually no cream or butter, which results in a healthier dish, but more importantly, the flavors aren’t muted or blocked by cream and butter,” said Trotter.
While his restaurant features a nightly multicourse vegetable feast, Trotter is by no means a vegetarian.
“We’re not really out to cater to vegetarians. Hopefully, we will appeal to people who love food,” Trotter said.
Spokane’s first upscale vegetarian restaurant, which opened last spring, embraces much the same philosophy.
The women who own Mizuna have designed their menu to entice carnivores and vegetarians alike.
“Most of the people who come in here aren’t vegetarians and they’re amazed at the flavors and the presentation,” said Sylvia Wilson, one of Mizuna’s owners.
Wilson and her partner, Tonia Buckmiller, decided to open a place dedicated to fresh, healthy food after years of putting up with fat-laden vegetarian entrees like fettuccine alfredo in restaurants.
“At most restaurants, they add a lot of fat to make up for the lack of meat,” Wilson said.
The pair’s motives were more health-driven than political.
“We’re not out to convert people,” Wilson said. “We just want to give them a good meal.”
The menu changes seasonally to focus on the freshest produce. For fall, the emphasis is on hearty, warming fare. A puff pastry is filled with wild rice and butternut squash, for instance.
Mizuna’s inventive lineup has introduced area diners to a wide variety of unusual legumes (adzuki and butter beans) and grains (quinoa and wheat berries).
“There are so many different varieties of beans and grains with interesting characteristics that make them so versatile,” Buckmiller said.
To add vivid flavor to vegetarian cuisine, Mizuna often turns to fresh herbs.
“In the summer, we were using nine kinds of basil and lots of specialty herbs,” Wilson said. (Lemon thyme cake spiked with lemon verbana, anyone?)
And Buckmiller relies on tofu as a creamy base for many sauces and soups in the restaurant’s mostly vegan offerings. (Vegan dishes are prepared using no animal products, including eggs and dairy.)
She has turned diners on to a nondairy pesto sauce with tofu and brewer’s yeast, and routinely purees tofu to use as a mayonnaise substitute. Tofu is also marinated in soy sauce and fresh ginger and then grilled, giving it a meatlike quality.
“People have a bad attitude about tofu, but after they try it, they’re usually pleasantly surprised,” Buckmiller said.
Tofu has also been a mainstay on the menu at Luna since it first opened several years ago. Soybean curd produced by Small Planet Soyfoods near Newport, Wash., is given star treatment at Luna. It’s offered as an alternative to meat on any of the main course preparations, but it’s also prominently featured in mouthwatering appetizers such as the wood-oven roasted Indian-spiced tofu, served with mixed fruit compote and curry oil.
However, the most startling success the South Hill restaurant has had with tofu was at this year’s Pig Out in the Park restaurant fair, where more than 50 pounds of it were gobbled up as part of a spicy pasta dish.
“We have found there is a market for this type of cuisine,” said William Bond, who owns Luna with his wife, Marcia.
Vegetables are even finding acceptance on more mainstream menus. At Beverly’s in The Coeur d’Alene Resort, chef Curtis Smith has revamped the offerings to include more vegetarian selections after the resort added a spa.
“People used to be happy with a steamed vegetable plate, but they’re now demanding creativity. They want something unique and exciting,” said Smith.
The biggest challenge Smith said he has faced is sticking with a light approach.
“You have to train cooks not to add more butter and cheese because they think it’s going to make it taste better with more fat,” he said.
Some of the dishes he has created include an eye-pleasing vegetable sushi, an eggplant tamale pie and black bean chili with roasted corn salsa. For future menus, he’s working on a vegetable-based hot pot - a noodle soup with bok choy, shiitake mushrooms and tofu.
Tofu at Beverly’s? The place where prime rib reigns supreme?
“It’s amazing how often we now use tofu,” Smith said.
Macaroni Timbale With Boniato, Sweet Corn and Chantrelle Mushrooms
This dish from “Charlie Trotter’s Vegetables” (Ten Speed Press) is a harmonious blend of sweet and earthy flavors. The cookbook suggests serving it with a big sauvignon blanc.
8 ounces boniato (white sweet potato) or other sweet potato
6 tablespoons butter
Salt and pepper to taste
6 ears of sweet corn, kernels removed and cobs reserved
1/2 teaspoon saffron
1 tablespoon chopped parsley (preferably flat-leaf)
1 tablespoon chopped basil (preferably opal)
4 teaspoons marjoram leaves
2 tablespoons chopped Spanish onion
1/4 cup water
2 cups chantrelle mushrooms, or other exotic mushrooms
2 teaspoons chopped shallots
6 ounces ziti pasta
2 tablespoons olive oil
Place boniato in a medium saucepan and cover with cold salted water. Heat to a boil and simmer for 12 to 15 minutes or until tender. Drain, peel and place in a medium bowl with 3 tablespoons butter. Coarsely mash with a fork and season to taste with salt and pepper.
Place the corn cobs and half of the kernels in a medium saucepan and cover with water. Simmer for 1 hour. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve and discard the cobs and corn.
Place the strained corn stock in a small pan with 2/3 of the saffron. Bring to a simmer and cook for 10 to 12 minutes, until reduced to 1-1/2 cups. Add the parsley, basil and 1/2 of the marjoram and season to taste with salt and pepper.
In a small saucepan, lightly saute the onion with 2 tablespoons butter until translucent. Add the remaining corn kernels and the water. Continue to cook with remaining saffron for 10 to 15 minutes, or until tender, and season to taste with salt and pepper.
Saute the mushrooms and shallots quickly over medium-high heat with remaining 1 tablespoon butter and season with salt and pepper.
Cook ziti according to package directions and toss with olive oil.
To assemble, place 4 (2-inch high) ring molds on a sheet pan and arrange the ziti tubes standing upright, side-by-side, around the inside of the mold to form the timbales. Place about 1/4 cup of the boniato in the bottom of the mold and press down to secure the pasta. Spoon in some of the corn and top with sauteed mushrooms. Bake in a preheated 375-degree oven for 5 to 10 minutes, until hot.
To serve, place the timbale in the center of a plate and carefully remove the mold. Spoon the remaining corn and herb-infused corn broth around the plate. Sprinkle the remaining marjoram on top of the mushrooms and top with freshly grated pepper.
Yield: 4 servings.
Fruit Mousse
Tonia Buckmiller, the chef at Mizuna, says diners appreciate this flavorful dessert’s light touch.
1 cup apple juice
2 tablespoon agar flakes (available at health food stores)
2 (10.5-ounce) packages silken tofu
6 tablespoons honey
4 cups of fruit (such as peaches or mangoes), or fresh or frozen berries
1 teaspoon vanilla
Dissolve the agar flakes in apple juice over low heat (do not boil). Place the apple juice mixture and the rest of the ingredients in a blender and mix until creamy. Chill for at least 1 hour and garnish with additional fresh fruit or berries.
Yield: 6 servings.
Luna Burger
William Bond was trying to re-create the texture and flavors of a backyard barbecued burger with this flavorful patty.
2 cups textured vegetable protein (available at health food stores)
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup rice wine vinegar
1/3 cup red wine
1/3 cup Marsala wine
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 pound onion, grated
1/2 pound carrot, grated
1/4 pound celery root, scrubbed and chopped into lentil-sized pieces
1/8 pound bell pepper, chopped into navy bean-sized pieces
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1-1/2 tablespoons barley malt (available at health food stores)
2 tablespoons gluten flour
2 tablespoons guar gum (available at health food stores)
Marinate the textured vegetable protein (TVP) with soy sauce, vinegar, wine, Marsala and brown sugar for 1 hour. Blend with a fork until the mixture is roughly the size of green peas.
Toast oats in a dry saute pan until dark brown; add to the marinated TVP. Stir in the remaining ingredients except the gluten flour and guar gum. Slowly add the flour and gum and mix well.
On an oiled cookie sheet, pack some of the mixture into a 3-1/2-inch burger ring, filling halfway, to form a patty. Repeat until all of the mixture is used.
Bake in a preheated 350-degree oven for 35 minutes, turning patties after 20 minutes. Cool on wire rack. Burgers may then be grilled, broiled or sauteed.
Yield: 12 servings.
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Color Photos