Roasted Maitake Mushrooms in Sesame-Miso Broth

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When I saw this in the store I was fascinated. I don't think I'd ever had maitake before, and I'd definitely never cooked with it. Was it one thing or many? I ended up treating it more as a one-thing kind of thing, cut into filets and roasted as in this recipe.

I also want to try: maitake fettucine in cream sauce and black lentil soup with crispy maitakes and smoked sea salt. But for a first try, roasting seemed like the way to really focus on the vegetable itself as the star of the show.

Roasted Maitake Mushrooms in Sesame-Miso Broth
(from olives for dinner)

Ingredients

16 oz maitake mushrooms

2 TB olive oil

*

1 tsp Earth Balance

1 TB toasted sesame oil

1 shallot, minced

1 stalk celery, minced

1 TB ginger, minced

2 TB sherry

3/4 cup vegetable broth

1 tsp dark miso

*

minced scallions

white sesame seeds

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 425.

2. To roast the maitake, place one tablespoon of the olive oil into a medium-sized cast iron pan, tilting it to cover the bottom. Place the maitake into the pan, taking care to kept them as intact as possible. Drizzle the remaining tablespoon of oil evenly over the maitake and place into the oven to roast for about 25 minutes, turning over once through the roasting time.

3. To make the broth, heat the vegan butter and toasted sesame oil in a small saucepan over medium-low heat. Add in the shallot, celery, and ginger and stir to coat. Allow them to sweat for about 12 minutes, stirring occasionally and lowering the heat if needed if any of the vegetables start to brown.

4. Turn the heat up to medium-high. After 2 minutes, deglaze the saucepan with the sherry. Allow to simmer for 3-4 minutes more, then add in the vegetable broth. Allow to simmer for a few minutes, then remove from the heat. Remove a bit of the broth and add the miso to it. Stir until smooth, then add it back to the saucepan.

5. By now, your maitake should be almost ready. It's done when it smells buttery and is very slightly crisp around the edges. Divide the maitake into two bowls, spooning the desired amount of broth over the top. Garnish with minced scallions and sesame seeds, and serve immediately.

Sesame-Ginger Green Beans

Like these recipes, to make this recipe you blanch your beans first and then add the flavors. I suppose it's almost like a salad.

Sesame-Ginger Green Beans

Ingredients
3 c beans, trimmed and cut to 1-in pieces
*
1 in ginger
1/2 serrano, seeded minced
2 cloves garlic
1 TB miso
1 tsp sugar
1 TB lime juice
1 TB rice vin
1 TB sesame oil
2 tsp tamari
2 TB sesame seeds

Instructions
1. Blanch green beans by pouring boiling water over them, letting them sit for 7-9 min, then draining them and putting them in ice water. Set aside until ready to use, then drain again.
2. Mix together remaining ingredients into a sauce, then toss beans in that sauce.

Pumpkin Sage Pasta

Here's another thing I kept making the past few months, with different variations. I started with vegan Richa's recipe, but added some more cashew cream to thin it. The second time, I added some full fat coconut milk, smoked salt, chili flakes, and nutritional yeast; and I thickened the whole thing with 1 TB flour (mixed with water).

Pumpkin Sage Pasta

Ingredients
6 to 8 oz Rotini or Fusilli (or similar) pasta
1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
8 sage leaves, chopped
1 to 1.5 tsp fresh thyme leaves or 1/2 tsp dried thyme
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 to 2 Tbsp tomato paste
3/4 cup pumpkin puree
3/4 cup coconut milk
1/2 tsp salt
smoked salt to taste
red pepper flakes to taste
nutritional yeast to taste
black pepper to taste
1 TB flour mixed with 1/4 c cold water
*
1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
6 fresh sage leaves, julienned
2 to 3 Tbsp breadcrumbs or coarsely ground cashews or pumpkin seeds
a generous pinch of salt and pepper

Instructions
Cook the pasta according to instructions. Drain and keep aside.
In a large skillet, heat oil at medium low heat. Add Sage, thyme and garlic and cook until garlic and herbs change color slightly. Stir frequently to avoid burning.
Add tomato paste and pumpkin and mix in. Add milk, salts and peppers and mix in. Bring to a boil. Add flour-water mixture and reduce heat. Simmer; taste and adjust salt.
Add cooked pasta, toss well. Cover and take off heat. Let sit for a few minutes.
Make the topping
In a small skillet, add oil and heat at medium. Add sage and cook for half a minute. Add breadcrumbs or coarsely chopped nuts and cook until golden and toasted. Add salt and pepper and mix in. Use to garnish the pasta generously.

Basil Zook Soup

Another green soup! I've made this one countless times since this first run with its sadly underwhelming photo. Try it with a drizzle of olive oil (basil-infused?) or cashew cream to make it look not so sad.

This one is mostly zucchini (I used Mexican squash; they're interchangeable). That, and the inclusion of ginger and basil, gave it a lightness that actually made it very good cold. Similar soups (with asparagus) I've found to be a bit cloying when eaten cold.

This one was like jumping into a deep, clean lake on a hot summer day. A lake with a lot of spiciness. This seems like the perfect late-summer soup because even though in LA you can have them year-round, I still really associate both zucchini and basil with that time of year.

Basil-Zucchini Soup

Ingredients
1 onion, chopped
4 garlic, chopped
1/2 chili, minced
2 TB ginger, minced
4-6 c mild green vegetables, sliced: I used 2 broccoli stalks (only the stalks, not the florets) and 6 small mexican squashes
4-6 c stock/broth/miso (I used broth prepared with half veggie better than boullion and half cold mountain kyoto red miso)
1 large bunch basil, chopped

Instructions
1. Saute onion, garlic, chili, and ginger, then add mild green vegetables and saute a bit more.
2. Add broth and simmer until broccoli stalks are quite soft. Turn off heat and let cool.
3. Add basil and blend until quite smooth. I tried using the immersion blender and found that the broccoli was a little too tough, so I ended up using my regular blender.
4. Enjoy hot or cold. Serves about 5.

Radish Dal, Potato Masala Dosa

Not quite a triumphant comeback, but hello! I have many things to share from the past few months!

I always forget that you can cook radishes. I can't wait to try this recipe for roasted radishes and cipollini onions, and this recipe from aromatic cooking was great. For this radish dal, I used brown lentils rather than moong beans; otherwise I followed the recipe.

***

I also really liked Vaishali's recipe for quick masala (potato) dosas: It's not a traditional recipe, but it's really easy; a great shortcut. (no foto sry!)

Roasted Corn Chowder with Coconut Milk

A while ago, Native Foods's soup of the day was a lovely coconut corn chowder. Creamy, with only a hint of coconut and other south Asian flavors, this soup stayed at the back of my mind until

we were staying with friends in Chicago and my friend Clare and I were trying to plan a menu around what they'd gotten in their CSA box. (I've stopped getting CSAs because it is way too much food for one person, but I love how they force you to be creative). They had corn and "frying peppers," and we were eager to grill out in the nice weather, and so this soup came back to me! We made it that night, and it was great.

I flew back to LA and promptly recreated the soup again, with a few changes (did you know you can grill corn in a frying pan?). This recipe is an amalgam of both of these two soup iterations.

PS Has anyone ever tried huitlacoche (or 'corn smut')? It looks appalling but sounds fascinating.






























Roasted Corn Chowder with Coconut Milk

Ingredients
5 ears of corn, shucked
1 poblano pepper
*
1 TB olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
pinch salt
*
1 or 2 cans coconut milk
4-6 c vegetable broth (depending on how much coconut milk you use)
1-4 TB chili-garlic paste, to taste
*
3-4 TB lime juice
3 TB chopped cilantro
1/4 c chopped basil

Instructions
1. Grill the corn in a large oiled cast-iron frying pan (like so). Roast the pepper over another gas burner (like so). When they are done, remove from stove and set aside to cool.
2. When cool, use a knife to cut all the kernels of corn off the cob. Discard cobs or save to make stock.
3. When cool, peel the most burned parts off of the poblano pepper. Remove seeds and stalk and coarsely chop the rest.
4. In a large stock pot, heat oil over medium-high heat. Saute onion, celery, and garlic with a pinch of salt until fragrant. Then add corn and chopped poblano and cook for another two minutes.
5. Add chili-garlic paste, coconut milk, and broth--use more coconut if you want a richer soup, and more broth if not. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 15 min.
6. Blend with an immersion blender (or let cool and use a regular blender). Leave it slightly chunky still.
7. Return to pot, bring back up to temperature. Add lime juice to taste. Taste also for chili-garlic sauce and salt. Stir in chopped cilantro and basil and serve. Serves about 6.

Ful Mudammas

i want to lay you down on a bed of parsley
for tonight, i sleep on a bed of kale

Uh, hello. Parsley makes everything prettier. I made this ful because I found a bag of dried favas at the back of my cupboard. And maybe also because I miss my brother, who lives in Egypt and eats a lot of ful. Other than "it was pretty good," I have two important things to report:

1) Peeling fava beans is SO much work. Why would anyone do this so long as there were chickpeas, or lentils, or black-eyed peas available? Yes, it is easier if you soak overnight, then peel, then finish cooking. But not as easy as chickpeas... 

2) The taste and texture of this ful really reminded me of tuna salad. Now, maybe I'm at the point of vegandementia where it's been a good 10 years since I actually had tuna salad and maybe I just don't remember. But I think this would be really good with a little bit of nori and a little bit of finely chopped celery.

Ful Mudammas
(from tori avey)

ingredients
2 cups (16 oz.) cooked or canned fava beans
Extra virgin olive oil
1/2 onion, minced
2 raw or 4 roasted garlic cloves, chopped
1 tsp cumin
1/2 cup water
Salt and black pepper to taste
Juice from 2 fresh lemons (or more to taste)

instructions
Blend.