October 2006 Archives

Its getting cold, well, cold for Los Angeles. And this week all we could think about was seared tofu drenched in a thick sauce. Traditionally, Steak Diane is made with butter, Wooster sauce and...beef. For this recipe, we subbed Wooster for a maple mustard balsamic reduction with a hefty helping of fresh tarragon at the end. Grab your scarves.

Tofu Diane
1 block of extra firm tofu
1 Tsp. sugar
2 Tsp. salt
2 Tsp. ground black pepper
1 Tsp. celery seeds
1 Tsp. dry thyme
2 Tbs. extra virgin olive oil
1⁄4 cup balsamic vinegar
3 Tbs. maple syrup
4 large shallots diced
2 Tbs. mustard
1⁄4 cup vegetable stock
2 Tbs. cornstarch
4 Tbs. fresh tarragon
1 Tbs. salt
1 Tbs. ground pepper

1. Slice your tofu lengthwise down the center, wrap in paper towels and press with a phone book to extract water. Combine the sugar, salt and dry spices in a bowl and mix. Remove the tofu from its soggy encasing, pat dry with a towel, and liberally rub with the spice mix.

2. Heat a medium saucepan on high heat, then add the olive oil and let it heat for two minutes before adding the tofu. Start by searing the sides of the tofu first: Simply hold each block in your hand and press into the pan until caramelized. Sear all sides of the tofu, and then lower the heat to medium, and set the bricks aside.

3. Immediately add the balsamic vinegar, and the maple syrup. As it reduces, scrape the bottom of the pan to loosen any spices left over from the tofu. Wait about 2 minutes and add the shallots and the mustard. Make a slurry by mixing the cornstarch and a little bit to of the vegetable stock. Add the rest of the stock when the balsamic has reduced by half. Now mix in the tarragon, salt and pepper and the slurry. Reduce the heat to low and simmer for five minutes.

4. Slice the tofu diagonally and enrobe with the sauce. Serve with roasted vegetables, or a salad of fresh sprouts and arugala.

Beverage: He'brew's: R.I.P.A
Soundtrack: The Supremes' "Ultimate Collection"

It's rumored that Queen Elizabeth I started every day with a hunk of Stilton and a tankard of strong English ale. For that dear old battleaxe, beer was just for breakfast. With this super simple flapjack recipe, it'll be beer o'clock before noon for you too.

And there's more to come with this recipe, because a dear fellow traveler of ours, stationed in Taipei, tells us that in Taiwan you can buy a pancakes with a fried egg and chili from a truck on just about every corner. Like it's a taco or something. So, look for a non-vegan version of this recipe soon.

Beer Cakes
2 envelopes dry yeast
2 cups flour
1/2 cup, plus 1 tsp white sugar
1.5 teaspoon baking powder
1 tsp. salt
2 cups, plus one splash Stone Levitation Ale
3 Tbs. warm vegan butter
1.5 cups diced scallions
1/2 cup minced parsley

1. Activate the yeast by mixing 1/8 cup warm water, a splash of beer, and one Tsp. of sugar in a small bowl. Stir, cover, and set aside for ten minutes.

2. Combine all dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Gently whisk in the Levitation and the vegan butter.

3. Check your yeast. If it looks like a baby blob out of control, whisk it into the batter. Add Scallions and parsley and cover. Let the batter sit for ten minutes.

4. Heat a large skillet and grease it with vegetable oil. Dump 1/3 cup globs of batter onto your pan, flipping them when they start to bubble on top.

5. Serve with maple syrup, alongside other breakfast treasures.

Beverage: Stone Levitation, and lots of them
Soundtrack: The Velvet Underground's Sunday Morning.

We were recently reminiscing about the time we decided to break veganism hardcore and ordered an extra large pizza and split an eggplant parmigiana. Shit was rough.

If you're looking for a milder break from not eating cheese, here's a gentler Italian hoagie option. However, it ain't called a sub sandwich for nothing: Just like we've substituted mushy delicious barley for meat balls, you can sub rice cheese or equivalent product for the cheese. But be warned, without egg the balls may become mash.

Barley Sub
2 cups water
2 Tbs. Earth Balance margarine
1 cup barley, washed
1 head broccoli
3 cloves garlic
2 shallots
1/2 red onion
1/2 cup ricotta cheese
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup breadcrumbs or wheat germ
1 Tsp. red pepper flakes
1 Tsp. oregano
1 Tsp. basil
1 cup vegetable oil for frying

1. Bring a large saucepan of water and margarine to boil and then add barley. Let go for about half an hour on medium heat, covered. Barley should become slightly overcooked and mushy. Remove from heat.

2. Take your head of broccoli and rub the florets between your fingers in order to loosen the little buds, letting them fall into a large mixing bowl. After entire head has been rubbed clean, discard stems. Finely chop the garlic, shallots, onion and parsley and add to mixing bowl as well.

3. Dump your barley mixture into the bowl along with the ricotta, one egg and breadcrumbs. Add salt and pepper to taste with red pepper flakes, basil and oregano. Squish the mixture with your hands until well mixed and distributed. Then start to form balls about the size of golf balls and set on a greased surface.

4. Preheat oven on broil.

5. Place a deep pan with vegetable on high heat for five minutes. Once hot, fry a couple balls at a time, flipping every couple minutes. Remove and let cool on paper towels to blot.

6. Once all your balls are fried, prepare sandwiches by slicing each hoagie roll in the middle (without cutting into two halves), plopping 3 or 4 balls onto each roll and smothering with marinara and a sprinkling of shredded mozzarella or parmigiana. Broil for about 3minutes or until cheese gets gooey.
Beverage: Bira Moretti
Soundtrack: Goblin's Profondo Rosso

Don't know about you, but we can't stand the "southwestern" black bean burger steeze that some frozen product purveyors have masterminded. It's just so wrong.

If you're going to make a sammich out of beans and grains let's try a little bit harder than just compacting a shitty taco into a round shape, shall we?

Here we used green beans instead (yuk yuk), and added them to a curried barley mix that was perfect for frying up and serving open-face style. We took some liberty with the burger fixin's as well: whole boiled baby potatoes for French fries, a slice of heirloom tomato, sprouts, onion, lettuce and tzatziki instead of mayo.

"Bean" Burger
1 cup barley
2 1/2 cups water
2 cups green beans
1 bunch green onions
1 Tbs. extra virgin olive oil
2 Tbs. red curry paste
8 oz. ricotta cheese
1 egg
1 cup wheat germ, or breadcrumbs
1 cup vegetable oil
additional burger fixin's

1. Wash and strain your barley before adding to a large saucepan with salted water, or broth, and placing on high heat until you get a rolling boil. (If you're making the baby taters, you can just throw them in on top to boil for 10 minutes, then remove and keep warm for later.)

2. Cut the green beans into small, centimeter-sized slivers like you would green onions. Do the same with the green onions in fact. In a sauté pan with 1 Tbs. olive oil, add curry paste. Help it dissolve in the oil by pressing it with a slotted spoon, then add the green beans and green onions. Cook for 8-10 minutes, then remove from heat. Save the pan, with oil, for later use.

3. Once water has boiled off and barley seems slightly over-cooked (about 40 minutes) remove barley, and strain any excess liquid. In a large bowl combine bean mixture and barley. Add ricotta, egg and wheat germ or breadcrumbs with a little salt and pepper to taste. Squish the mixture with your hands forcefully until the barley seems to become a paste without noticeable kernels. Once it seems sticky enough, form burger-sized patties, being sure to make them small enough that they will hold together.

4. Return your pan to high heat with added vegetable oil for frying. After 5 minutes the oil should be smokin' hot. Place two patties in oil at a time and flip every couple minutes to prevent blackening. Then remove and blot patties on a paper towel.

5. Serve open face with your favorite burger fixings.

Beverage: Yetti Ale
Soundtrack: Morphine's Just Like Swimming

As veggie cooks, we've struggled for years with how to best fry up our friend the bean curd without needing our other friend the chicken egg. An egg wash instantly lends a stickiness needed to fully coat the tofu with flour. Without it, attaining a crispy tofu skin is all but impossible. Until now.

For this easy tofu recipe we substituted the egg with honey (of course!) and the result is a perfectly sticky, deliciously golden crispy, fried tofu. Now for those vegans who refuse to participate in the caged life of the honey bee, we're sorry, we can't help you.

Honey Fried Tofu
1/2 block extra firm tofu
2 Tbs. honey
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/3 cup vegetable oil

1. Press your tofu by wrapping paper towels and placing a heavy plate or phone book on top. Turn after 10 minutes and repeat. Dump excess water. Cut your tofu into 4 fat square pieces.

2. Place your flour onto a deep plate and squeeze honey into a large bowl. Rub each piece of tofu into the honey, coating all sides, and pat it with flour until fully coated.

3. Add the frying oil to a deep pan on high heat. After 5 minutes add tofu and watch carefully so as not to burn. Flip every couple of minutes. Once nicely brown, remove from oil and set on paper towels. Let your oil cool before disposing (save 2 Tbs. for the sauce).

Soy Honey Glaze
1 handful green beans
2 Tbs. vegetable oil
8-10 crimini mushrooms, quartered
4 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
3 Tbs. soy sauce
3 Tbs. hoisin or Chinese barbecue sauce
1 Tbs. honey

1. Steam your green beans over a rolling boil for 5-10 minues.

2. Place a small saucepan on high heat. Add your leftover vegetable oil with the mushrooms and garlic. Stir thoroughly. Remove your green beans from heat and cut them into 1/2 inch pieces. Add them to the saucepan.

3. Then add soy sauce, hoisin or Chinese barbecue sauce, and a drizzle of honey. Let the sauce bubble for 5 minutes.

4. Serve with a serving of brown rice. Stack the tofu pieces on top of rice and smother it with the glaze sauce.

Beverage: Brown rice tea with splash of bourbon
Soundtrack: Jesus and Mary Chain's "Just Like Honey" on repeat

Cenntenial surf, Amarillo undertow, Simcoe tsunami: Wuhuhuhuiiipout.

Pizza Port, the home of Port Brewing, is where all the dudes who work at Stone Brewing Co. go to drink after work. We know because we were there. Two blocks from the ocean in Carlsbad, California, Port Brewing is holding down the "San Diego" style of craft beer. Carlsbadalicious.

Wipeout IPA, one of three India Pale Ales the company makes, is badical. One large pizza, an order of mozzarella sticks and way too many beers later Wipeout crowned itself King. With a bitter bite and 7% alchol by volume, Wipeout uses no less than five hop varieties: all of them present in the complex finish of this strong willed 'session' IPA. It's less acrid than many of the Imperial IPAs being churned out of west coast craft breweries but harder on the tongue than Stone or Alesmith's standard IPA. Lacking the acidic cat pee notes often present in many American IPAs, this brew finishes like a hearty huff from a sack of strong weed: spicy, piney and totally "SoCal."

Dairy Pairy: Cypress Grove Chevre's Bermuda Triangle
Soundtrack: The Beach Boys' Let's Go Surfing

All the beer talk around here and you'd think that Hot Knives didn't like to get soused once in a while. Wrong. Not only do we like cooking with whiskey, we like to sip, shoot and chug it, sure as you're born.

We thought we had the old American mash down: Jack for long nights; Beam for cheap ones; Maker's Mark for show-off ones; and Knob Creek for those rare instances when we're not broke or already drunk.

When one of us got the other this bottle of Anchor's Old Potrero as a birthday present, we thought we knew what we were getting in to. Let's just put it this way, that birthday was in July and the bottle ain't gone yet.

Old Potrero, an 18th Century Style Spirit, is the strongest tasting stuff we've ever tried to sip--makes Everclear or Absinthe look like Snapple. This burning, herby and malted liquor is made from 100 percent rye malt mash and is aged in un-charred oak barrels. That last bit is important, because whiskey (which it does resemble, but the single malt scotch kind) is colored usually from charred barrels. We have no fucking clue what makes this stuff brown.

The first thing that hits is a stench of flowers soaked in grain alcohol--not bad but strong. In fact, huffing the nose is like putting an ether rag to your face. There is only one note to this beast, no complexity, no surprise aftertaste: Rye and toasted sugar. It's pleasant for one small glass and then starts to kill your tastebuds altogether.

Our recommendation? Drink one tumbler a week. It'll put hair on your chest and virtually allow you to drink anything else like a champion.

Dairy Pairy: Stinking bishop encrusted with candied pecans
Soundtrack: Pirate songs

Quick tip here: We were goofing around this week with some hollowed out zucchini and stumbled upon what we think is a kick-ass appetizer.Take a medium to large sized zuch, wash it and cut into four pieces about the length of a shot glass. Then take a small spoon and carve out the middle starting from one side. Be gentle so you don't compromise the structural integrity of the walls and don't dig all the way to the other side. You'll end up with a cute little cup.

In a pot of boiling and salted water, dunk the zucchini for about 2 minutes to blanch them bright green. Then immediately dunk 'em in ice water to cool.

For fillings we tried a couple things. We stewed some bite-sized potatoes in New Mexican green chile then popped a potato each into a zucchini shooter. We also made a curried barley risotto with finely chopped green beans and used that as a filling. Then we baked 'em for about 10 minutes.

Thing is, you can fill these party-perfect, no-goo-on-the-hands appetizer holders with just about anything.

So, here's a Hot Knives Challenge you veggie freaks: Play with a filling recipe, try it out and post it on our blog as a comment to this Zook Shooters post. Or just drop us an email with it.