Flicking the Vs: October 2013

What do you eat for breakfast? Is the first meal of the day a rollercoaster ride of mind-bending new dishes, or more same old, same old?

You may be able to guess which one it is for me. In the wintertime, it's porridge all the way, and when the sun shines, it's oatcakes with something on top.

I like oatcakes, I really do - we've been together for years. We've been through ups and downs, but you know - sometimes I feel a bit, well, bored. It's got to the stage where I need oatcakes to try something different, y'know dress up a bit, in order to keep me interested.

I mean hummus is fine, but it's a bit vanilla, isn't it? I want something that will set pulses racing, not send me sleep.

My first new oatcake attempt was actually a bit of leftover mole from a batch I made from Veganomicon - mostly a mix of tomatillos, pumpkin seeds and some herbs. It had originally been destined for keeping some tofu and rice and beans company, but it worked really well the next day on oatcakes. Voila:

Next up was a recipe from Green Kitchen Stories, the cookbook by the authors behind the blog of the same name. It's veggie rather than vegan, but all the vegan recipes are marked and there's many more that could easily be veganised.

The spread here is a simple mix of grilled red peppers, sunflower seeds and a bit of cayenne. It was nice, but not powerful enough to reignite my erstwhile love of oatcakes.

This is another Green Kitchen Stories pâté recipe I tried, a really simple mix of sundried tomatoes, walnuts and sage leaves.

It came out a weird pink colour that wasn't altogether appetising:

I loved all the ingredients in there, but I found the end result a bit too sweet from all the tomatoes. It needed a sharper touch so balance the overall flavour - maybe a bit of lemon juice to cut through it a bit?

My last attempt at reinvigorating my oatcakes of a morning was an attempt to make edamame hummus. I remembered buying some rather nice ready made stuff from Trader Joes when I was in San Francisco a million years ago, and decided I'd try and make some at home (what with the nearest Trader Joes being an Atlantic away.)

I blended some edamame, tahini, lime juice and olive oil together and hoped for the best. It was fine, but not a patch on Trader Joes - where did I go wrong people? Hints gratefully accepted.

And that's my four attempts to make breakfast a bit different. Turns out, I liked none of them quite as much as I like baba ganoush, my usual staple, and one which I've been consuming in superhuman quantities as the English aubergine season comes to an end.

Alas, autumn has come, and baba ganoush is off the menu for another year. It looks like it's back to the drawing board - and in the meantime, back to the hummus!

breakfast

New breakfast ideas wanted or, can old oatcakes learn new tricks?

What do you eat for breakfast? Is the first meal of the day a rollercoaster ride of mind-bending new dishes, or more same old, same old? ...

I don't often get over to west London, but after my first trip to Otto pizza this week, I'm already planning a repeat visit.

It's a pizza place over in Notting Hill, and as someone who doesn't like pizza or Notting Hill, it wasn't the obvious place for me to go for lunch.

Otto isn't a vegan place, or even veggie, but it does cater well for all those of a plant-friendly persuasion. It has about four or five veggie pizzas, and two or three vegan ones, and there are sometimes extras on the specials board.

Our server explained the pizzas to us something like this: "you know Italian pizzas with the thing crust? Otto's aren't like that. They're made of cornmeal and they're thick more like the American style. We recommend two or three slices per person. I've never been able to have more than three."

Yep - thanks to that big, thick cornmeal crust, you order Otto's pizza by the slice rather than by the whole pizza. I started out with two, and my other half (a big strapping chap) went for three.

When we went there were three vegan choices: spinach and artichoke, red lentil kofte, and red onion and sweetcorn. I went for a slice each of the first two.

And they were great! The spinach and artichoke came heaped with both of its namesakes, along with cashew cheese, and lots of parsley and garlic. As a rule, I'd suggest coming here with your long-term boyfriend or girlfriend as the garlic levels were so high, you'd not want to be kissing anyone else. I was quite happy though, being something of a garlic fiend, and it was in perfect balance with the greenery.

Here's how the lentil kofte measured up:

All on top were cashew ricotta, red lentil kofte, red onion, red curry sauce, and coriander.

I couldn't pick up any of the red lentilness in there - if you've have asked me, I would have said they were falafels - but they were incredibly tasty nonetheless. The curry sauce wasn't Indian as I expected but more Thai - not a traditional pizza topping, but it really worked, and all the spices made it a much more interesting plate.

I very nearly didn't finish the second slice - to say the cornmeal base was filling is something of an understatement. I really struggled, as did Mr Flicking the Vs. ("A fourth slice would have been insanity," he said) but we both soldiered on as we were enjoying the pizza so much.

I couldn't tell you if Otto does dessert, or sides, or anything like that. I guess no one can ever eat anything else after the pizza without growing another stomach. But with pizza this good, you don't need to.

Otto
http://www.ottopizza.co.uk/
6 Chepstow Road
Notting Hill
London
W2 5BH
0207 792 4088

cashew

Otto pizza restaurant review: If only I had another stomach

I don't often get over to west London, but after my first trip to Otto pizza this week, I'm already planning a repeat visit. It...

Sometimes, when you find a recipe you like, you just send up making it over and over and over and then making yourself sick of it.

I only just managed to pull myself bak from the brink of doing that with this recipe, which I liked so much I made about three days on the spin, then got a little bit queasy at the thought of eating it again. Still, I pushed on, and almost made myself really not a fan.

After a few weeks off, I made it again, and discovered to my relief I really liked it (it was the end of the aubergine season, and they were being sold off really cheap - who was I to turn my nose up at a purple-skinned bargain?)

It's a Japanese-themed one-bowl recipe, and it makes a good lunchbox filler for the next day. Just one thing - don't make too much, though. You don't want to put yourself off it!

Ingredients
Marinade
Vegan dashi stock
50mls soy suace
50mls sake
50mls rice vinegar
50mls mirin
50mls tahini

Other stuff
One aubergine, cut into 2cm slices
Two large carrots, peeled and chopped into 1.5cm dice
One tin of chick peas
175g rice

How you do it
Heat your oven to 190C.
Mix up 50mls of the dashi with the rest of the marinade ingredients. Keep back about a quarter.
Put the aubergine, carrot, and chick peas onto a baking sheet with a bit of a lip on it. Pour over the marinade and and mix thoroughly.
Roast for about 45 minutes to an hour, with a quick mix up every 15 minutes to 20 minutes.
By the end, the liquid should have evaporated, the veggies should be cooked, and the chick peas should be roasted. (If the veggies aren't cooked and the liquid has gone, add a splash of water to loosen it up a bit).
While that's cooking, cook the rice in vegan dashi til it's done. (Hey, you can cook rice without any instructions!)
Mix the veggies and rice, then add the reserved marinade and a bit of salt.

aubergine

Japanese rice and baked veggies

Sometimes, when you find a recipe you like, you just send up making it over and over and over and then making yourself sick of it. I on...

As recipes go, the idea of making naan bread has always given me the fear.

Don't get me wrong, I love eating it, but it's very rarely found in its vegan form. So, when I stumbled across a recipe for naan bread that was egg-free, dairy-free and all the rest, I knew I had to get involved and satisfy my naan needs.

Despite the fact that the recipe looked like it would take forever to make, I decide to make it because, well... dudes, just check out the recipe and tell me you don't want to make it too: chec it out - it's Dan Lepard's chickpea naan roll.

It's a glorious dish - a single hand-sized package of naan-y outside and chickpea curry insides. And, handily, it's all vegan to begin with - no egg replacers or any of that malarkey required.

Still, if you're one of those annoying people that says nothing good is ever easy, then this one's for you: it's good, but it's definitely not easy. It's a lot of stirring, kneading, waiting, scraping dough scraps off your hands, worktop, and random areas it's found its way into, and then staring expectantly into the oven while it all cooks. But it's worth it.

Actually, I'm lying a bit there: the dough feels like it's hard work because it take ages to make, but most of the time you spend on it is time spent waiting for it to rise. The waiting time also gives you a bit of a gap to make the filling - a mix of chickpeas, veggies and spices (I added some red lentils in, because, well - most things go better with red lentils. Except Greco-Roman wrestling arenas and red lentil allergy cures.)

What's actually hardest about making naan is trying to roll out the sticky dough without it attaching to other bits of itself, yourself, the rolling pin, passers-by etc etc. and then putting enough filling inside the dough so that it's nicely stuffed, but not too much that it will burst when cooking.

But, let me say it again - it's all worth it. If you can brave it, you'll end up with a dainty little all-in-one parcels of curry and naan that you can stick in your lunchbox and impress your vegan and omni friends alike.

Naan, consider yourself vanquished!

feel the food fear

Naan bread: Feel the fear and cook it anyway, episode 6

As recipes go, the idea of making naan bread has always given me the fear. Don't get me wrong, I love eating it, but it's ver...

After my first successful soujourn in the land of Veggiestan, I decided it was time for a return visit.

Not only had all the recipes I tried previously turned out pretty darn well, the cookbook is filled with all sorts of fun dishes I'd never seen before, and the text that accompanies them is really interesting - local history, cooking tips, and personal reminiscences from the book's author (how Peckham delight got its name made me happy, given I'm a fellow south Londoner). In short, spending time with the book is always a bit of a pleasure - you can read it as well as cook from it.

The first recipe I tried cooking this time around was a salad:

I'm not sure why I cooked this particular salad (spinach, apricot and bulgur wheat salad), given I really don't like dried apricots, nor almonds unless it's in almond milk or sweet dishes. Turns out I was wrong all along - they're pretty nice if you cook them up with bulgur wheat, spinach, red onion carrot and dill.

I don't eat a lot of salads at home, but this one is pretty much everything I think about salads but completely the opposite: it's tasty, it's filling, it's nutritious and it keeps well - not like any salad I normally make!

The next thing I cooked up was a plate of a few things, including that old favourite, stuffed peppers.

The peppers were stuffed with mograbieh (or Israeli cous cous), herbs and veggies and my spice kryptonite - cinnamon in savoury dishes. Bleurgh. Why attempt such foolishness? Because the bulgur wheat experiment convinced me that Veggiestan could do no wrong. But it turns out even its crazy magic can't turn around the grimness of cinnamon in savoury foods. (Cinnamon in sweet foods? Yes. But most things in cakes are good by me.)

The peppers' costars were Afghan carrot hotpot again (love that stuff - it kind of makes itself without human intervention. It's like watching culinary evolution happen in a petri dish before your very eyes!) and loubi bi harissa. Bonus points for that one for using up all the harissa and rosewater in my cupboard, and for using them up to make a fragrant, sharp dressing for lovely green veggies.

Not quite such a pretty face is mung bean casserole (hey, wait, don't leave - mung beans are great, they just have bad press!) but it manages the same kind of culinary alchemy as the Afghan carrot hotpot - you just chuck a lot of pulses, veggies and a bit of spice in a pot, wander off to read the paper, come back and dinner is served.

Granted, I'm not doing the mung bean lobby any favours with pictures such as these, but I know you're not the type of person to be swayed by the way they look. Just look past this, and give the recipe - and Veggiestan - a go. They're definitely worth the trouble!

almonds

Cooking from Veggiestan part deux

After my first successful soujourn in the land of Veggiestan , I decided it was time for a return visit. Not only had all the recipes I tr...

I thought after I'd finished MoFo, I'd want to put my feet up and steer well clear of all things blogging related. Turns out, I just can't quit you, MoFo – I'm drawn to taking pictures of my dinner and then posting them on the internet like a moth to a flame.

My last MoFo post was about sandwiches – I got that one into my English dishes theme on a technicality as they're named after the Earl of Sandwich, although I doubt he was the first man in history to think of putting stuff between two slices of bread.

So, while England is putting egg or cucumber in its sandwiches, France is putting all manner of vegetables in its loaves and then squishing the life out of them.

It's a type of sandwich known as pan bagnat, which translates, rather charmlessly, into 'wet bread'. It comes from the city of Nice, in France, and typically involves putting a load of grilled provencal type veggies (courgettes, peppers, that sort of thing) along with some herbs and olive oil into a slightly hollowed out roll and then wrapping it up and putting weights on top to give it extra heft and flavour.

You can either make little roll ones, or one big loaf sized one, but either way you need a not-too-soft –and-squishy bread otherwise the veggie juices will make it all soggy. (it's called wet bread, but you don't want it too wet – that makes sense right?!) Something like a ciabatta or a pain de champagne should do the trick.

I think normally the herbs that get put in pan bagnat are things like basil and parsley, but seeing as I only had sage to hand when I was making it, that's what I used. Cooking hint: don't use sage, use basil or parsley!

Pan bagnat

Makes two rolls

Ingredients
Two peppers
Half a courgette
Two large bread rolls
1tbsp of olive oil
1tbsp of red wine vinegar
Small garlic clove
Two tbsp of chopped green or black olives
Two tsp of chopped capers
6-inch section of celery, finely chopped
One small carrot, grated
Basil leaves, torn (parsley would also work. Sage really doesn't)

How you do it
Deseed two peppers and slice into thick strips. Cut the half a courgette into fat slices, and lay both peppers and courgettes on a baking tray.

Brush the courgettes with a bit of oil and put under a hot grill until the peppers are beginning to char and the courgettes are cooked (you'll need to flip them over half way through cooking.)

One they're cooked, pop a teatowel over the top and leave it to cool. Once they're hot enough to handle, remove the skins from the peppers.

Mix up the capers, celery, carrot and olives and put to one side.

Meanwhile, slice the bread rolls about one third of the way down and pull out some of the bread from the larger bottom piece. Make sure you leave a centimetre and a half of crust all round though - otherwise the roll will get soggy.

Stir together the oil and vinegar, and using a pasty brush, paint it around the hollowed out inside of the roll, then rub the small garlic clove around it.

Then layer the ingredients: add some peppers, then courgette, then a bit of salt and pepper and a basil leaf, then some caper mix, then some more peppers, courgettes, seasoning etc etc until the bread is full. (You could add in some slice tomato too, if you wanted.)

Then wrap in foil, plastic or what have you, and put some weight on it: I used a plate with a can or two on top. Leave alone for a couple of hours while it does its thing. Eat.

france