Veeegs: November 2006 Archives
For the traditionalists among you, stay tuned for some sort of fucked up seitan turkey concoction later in the week. For you free thinkers, here's a ridiculous take on the pork loin thanks to Gimme Lean, our favorite sausage prada on the market. Breaded, herbed and sauced, this shit is tart and savory, perfect as a holiday entrée.
Leek and Apple Loin
1 Gimme Lean sausage log
2 Tbs. honey
6-8 stoned wheat crackers
fennel seeds
garlic powder
black pepper
2 large leeks
1 Fugi apple
2 Tbs. olive oil
1 tsp. cardamom
1. Remove fake sausage log from wrapping, gently as to retain shape. Smother with honey and rub vigorously to cover entire surface. Using a mortar and pestel or food processor, crush the crackers into breadcrumbs. Add fennel seeds and continue to powderize. On a plate, combine the spices and roll honeyed sausage log until fully covered. Oil a large sautee pan and place on medium heat. Sear the sausage log until entire surface is browned. Remove from heat and set aside.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
3. Quarter apple and then slice thinly. Wash the leek, slice in half and wash again to remove any dirt. Then separate into long stems. Grease a deep bread pan with extra virgin olive oil and then cover the bottom with apple slices. Sprinkle apple with cardamom. Then spread leek stems and place sausage log on top.
4. Bake for 10-15 minutes.
Hot Pickled Garlic Pomegranate Glaze
1 cup white balsamic
1/2 cup dry sherry
2 Tbs. honey
10 cloves garlic, peeled
1/4 cup pomegranate glaze
4 Tbs. whole grain mustatd
1. Combine in small saucepan, bring to boil and let simmer for 30 minutes. Once garlic is cooked through, remove from heat and separate cloves from the remaining liquid. Set aside.
2. In a bowl, combine 1/4 cup leftover pickle vinegar goo, 1/4 cup pomagrenite molasses, 4 Tbs. whole grain mustard. Baste your log as needed during the cooking process and save the pickled garlic for garnish.
Beverage: Alaskan Winter Ale
Soundtrack: Jacob Smigel's Thanksgiving Album
Aiiight nerds, we have our first self-produced kitchen video up. It's footage of our own Thanksgiving '06 adventures where we took on seitan and sage turkey breasts, golden oyster gravy, apple and shallot stuffing, and homemade sourdough bread. Keep reading for the gravy recipe and click on the hot pan above to watch the video.
Golden Oyster Gravy
Don't freak, we're talking oyster mushrooms not mollusks. A bag of these twisted little beauties runs about $5 a pound, so it's no pricier than shitakes but packs a more interesting punch. We used a pretty standard vegan gravy recipe and punched some holes in it, added some things and were left with sticky salvation. We doused everything with it, a seitan turkey (recipe forthcoming), homemade sourdough, stuffing and brussell sprouts.
1 1/2 cups mushroom or veggie stock
1 Tbs. extra virgin oilive oil
1 basket crimini mushrooms
1 lbs. oyster mushrooms
2 white onions, chopped
1 head garlic, peeled and minced
1/3 cup cream sherry
4 cups unsweetened soy milk
1/2 soy sauce or tamari
1/2 cup wheat flour
1 Tbs. smoked paprika
1 Tbs. sage
1 tsp. cayenne pepper
salt and pepper to taste
1. In a large saucepan, bring your stock to a rolling boil and let it reduce by about an inch. Meanwhile, cut your crimini and oyster mushrooms into thin slivers. Instead of discarding the stems, toss 'em into the boiling stock for added flavez. Then sautee the mushies in a large skillet with extra virgin olive oil, on high heat. Let mushrooms wilt before adding the onion and garlic. Then let go for another 10 minutes. Finally add the sherry and let cook on medium.
2. Strain the stock, to remove any chunks, into a large bowl. Then slowly whisk in the flour and set aside.
3. Once the sherry has cooked off, start adding the soy milk and soy sauce. Stir and add spices as well. Once you get the mixture back up a rolling boil on ghigh heat, add your wheat-mixed stock and whisk. This will act like a thickener and after cooking for another ten minutes should be thoroughly goopy.
Making a vegetarian pate is almost a cliché. But this shit is too good to not share. It started as so many things do in our kitchen: with a lot of shallots. This was a bit of experiment for us, as we've not worked much with chestnuts, so it might evolve. But have at it turkeys.
Shallot and Chestnut Pate
12 chestnuts
10 shallots
1 1/2 cup red wine
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 cup vegetable broth
1 cup brown sugar
1 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 Tbs. aged balsamic vinegar
1. Bring a medium pot to boil and toss in chestnuts with shell. Boiling them will loosen the shell. Remove and drain after about 10 minutes.
2. While the chestnuts boil, peel your shallots. Keep them whole, throw them in a large, deep skillet. Bring them up to high heat and toast them until aromatic and starting to brown. Then add red wine and red wine vinegar and bring back to a boil.
3. Peel your chestnuts using a sharp pairing knife. Make sure you remove both layers of membrane so that the chestnuts look like grayish yellow brains. Throw them in the boiling red wine pan. Season with alt and pepper to taste and let cook another 10 minutes.
4. Once wine is reduced by almost half, add brown sugar. Stir well, then add the broth. Let cook another 10 minutes. Once goopy and shallots are falling apart, remove from heat.
5. Then pour the contents into a food processor or blender and pulse vigorously. Add a pinch of cayenne pepper and the balsamic vinegar. Spread mixture on crackers or crostini and serve.
Sometimes we like to get a little conceptual with our dishes. Instead of buying super expensive, super delicate squash blossums and stuffing them with all manner of frou frou, we made baby squash cups bloom on top of a soy balsamic glazed baby shitake. Endeavor to this funky hors d'ouevre and your dinner guests will think you are crazy...and awesome.
6 baby shitake mushrooms
6 yellow baby squash
6 cloves of garlic, sliced lengthwise
2 Tbs. vegan butter
1 Tbs. maple syrup
2 Tbs. balsamic vinegar
1 Cup swiss chard
Start a medium sized pot of salted water boiling over high heat.
Melt the faux butter in a medium sized saucepan over a medium sized flame and sauté the sliced garlic for four minutes. Add the maple syrup and sauté for an additional minute. Remove the pan from the flame and separate the garlic and the maple butter goo into two small bowls.
Blanch the squash in the boiling salted water for three to five minutes. They should be firm enough to provide a little bit of resistance to the prodding fork, and cooked enough to be very yielding when said instrument pierces the skin. Set the squash aside, heat the water to a rolling boil and throw in the chard. After one minute, strain the chard and cool under running water.
Now, reheat the pan you used to saute the garlic on medium heat. There should be some maple butter residue remaining in the pan. When the leftovers begin to sizzle, press the destemed shitakies into the pan, rubbing them into the heat in a circular motion. After grinding all the mushrooms into the pan, flip them and add the soy sauce. When the soy sauce has completely cooked off, add the balsamic. When the vinegar has been cooked into oblivion, turn off the heat and cover your pan.
Slice the top and bottom off of each baby squash. Now make a 45 degree incision at the edge of the top of each squash, and carve out conical cavities in each baby and place a pinch of salt at the bottom of each hole. Stuff each squash with sliced garlic, place a few leaves of chard on top of each mushroom, and combine by stacking the squash cup on top of its mushroom base. Drizzle the garlic with the leftover maple butter and serve.
Makes six psyched out starters.
Beverage: La Chouffe Golden Ale
Soundtrack: The Make Up, In Mass Mind
If you eat cranberry sauce from a can on Thanksgiving you might as well be stranded on Plymouth Rock with an 'India or Bust' T-shirt. Meaning, we think, that the stuff blows.
More importantly, here's a rad recipe that doesn't. This is a spicy, zestfully cranberry goo that can be slathered on everything and anything Thanksgiving day and beyond. Including, of course, fake turkey sammiches.
Ginger Beer & Scallion C-Sauce
1 bulb ginger, peeled
6 scallions, chopped
1 Tbs. cardamom
1 bottle winter beer (New Belgium's 2 Below)
1 bag cranberries
3/4 cup brown sugar
1. In a large saucepan, toast your ginger and scallions for 1-2 minutes until aromatic. Sprinkle cardamom, not too much the stuff is strong. Then dump in beer and cranberries. The brew will foam so watch it carefully. Once boilingl, bring it down to simmer and add the brown sugar. Let cook for about 30 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes.
The tuber we've come to call the Jerusalem Artichoke may be the
perfect Thanksgiving food stuff, (its more poetic name, of course, is
sunchoke), because the gnarly little, root-like guy was a native of
North America long before any pale face chefs showed up. And when
colonial explorers brought sunchokes back to Europe they were a hit.
In fact the French wouldn't deign to eat potatoes, but they loved
sunchokes.
They bear no relation to the real artichoke but the resemblance in
taste in rad. The bulbs have everything: a hint of dirt, a mealy,
mushy texture akin to yucca and that undeniable meat yartichoke
flavor. November is also the tale end of the sunchoke season, so don't
wait 'till X-mas.
Here we mixed them half and half with Yukon taters for something close
to mashed potatoes, but whipped to a gooey cream with tumeric-infused
oil.
Sunchoke Mash
10 sunchokes, peeled (about 1 pound)
3 Yukon potatoes, peeled
2 Tbs. sea salt
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 Tbs. red chili flakes
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbs. tumeric
1/4 cup soy milk, unflavored
1. Bring 2 large pots to boil and salt the water.
2. In a pan, add the oil and saute the chili flakes, garlic and
tumeric over high heat. After a couple minutes bring it down to a
simmer and let sit.
3. Add potatoes to one and the sunchokes to the other as they cook at
different speeds. Let boil for 10-12 minutes and test sunchokes with a
for--it should slide right through. Remove, drain and set aside. Give
thge potatoes a couple extra minutes and drain, remove, set aside.
4. In a large blender or food processor blend the potatoes, sunchokes,
oil mixture and soy milk. Poke it with a spoon and use the highest
setting to achieve a thorough whipping, not just a mash texture.
5. Serve like ice cream as a side dish.
Beverage: New Belgium's 2 Degrees Below
Soundtrack: Depeche Mode's Violator
In order to properly construct this dish of leftovers we drove the three hours northwest to Ojai, deep into the Los Padres National Forest. We set up camp 6,000 miles up at a place called Pine Mountain and went to sleep in below freezing weather. Then, we woke up and embarked on a 13-mile hike to the summit.
The following recipe for seitan and gravy sandwiches, accompanied here by a simple sprouted salad, was reason enough to go camping. Everything you see was prepared on a Butane stove the size of your fist, in paper thin pots of dubious quality. File this under "Hobo Knives."
Seitan Sammy
2 Tbs. extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp. Hot Knives Campfire Spice*
1 slice leftover seitan
2 slices sourdough bread
1/3 cup golden oyster gravy
2 tsp. ginger cranberry sauce
handful of sprouts
1. Turn on your butane or propane burner and light it carefully. Set your hobo pan on top, let it warm for less than 30 seconds before adding oil and spice mixture. Stir briefly and then add your slice of seitan. Flip every minute and toss your bread in too, to toast.
2. After cooking seitan for a good 3 minutes on each side, having flipped it numerous times, douse in cold gravy. Let it come up to temperature and make sure bread is nice and toasted. Then slather toast with cranberry sauce, top with gravied seitan and sprinkle sprouts on top.
* This is not some trademarked shit, this is our recommendation for a good all-purpose camping spice. Before packing to leave, fill an empty spice jar with the following, in equal amounts of your choosing: Ground cumin, fennel seeds, coriander, paprika, chile powder, garlic powder, onion powder and smoked salt.
Soundtrack: Nature
Beverage: Bullet Bourbon
