VEGETARIAN COOKING
The pleasures of making and serving food with vegetables as the star
By trade, I’m an omnivore. The only food rule I follow is that I eat everything, because anything can lead to deliciousness. Maybe it’s goat meat on the bone, cooked low and slow and served in a dark pool of its own cooking juices. Maybe it’s a bloomy wheel of cheese made from cashew milk, dense and creamy in the middle. If it’s good, I want it, and then I want seconds.
But when I cook at home, what I want more and more of is vegetables. Right now, this instant, I want long, skinny tongues of charred eggplant dressed in soy sauce and maple syrup, over rice. I want bright tomato pulp puréed with bread and olive oil, right from the lip of the bowl. I want a big pile of lettuce leaves filled with Hetty McKinnon’s sweet and spicy tofu larb.
I don’t know exactly when my appetite became so intensely focused on vegetarian foods in my own kitchen. It happened slowly, then all at once. I revised my food shopping, and my home cooking followed, branching out and expanding. I went back to old, favorite cookbooks that included meat and fish only occasionally, or not at all, like “River Cafe Cook Book Green,” by Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers, and “Classic Indian Vegetarian Cookery,” by Julie Sahni.
Maybe you’re drawn to vegetarian food for ethical reasons, for health reasons, for ecological reasons, for reasons you can’t quite explain just yet. Maybe you’re trying to get out of a kitchen rut. Maybe, like me, you really love to eat well, and you want to cook with vegetables more.
Persian cucumbers, roughly peeled, chopped and plopped into a blend of buttermilk and yogurt, quickly form the base of Naz Deravian’s abdoogh khiar, an Iranian chilled soup, crunchy with walnuts, which is quick to make, and life-affirming in this late summer heat.
I’m energized by cooks who coax the best out of vegetables, and not only professionals, but also friends, family and other home cooks who have walked me through a technique, or documented their work online.
Just when I thought I might be getting a little bit sick of salads, for example, Ali Slagle went and put one on a pizza. And not just any pizza, but a super thincrust pizza covered entirely with a crisp, lacy layer of
Tofu larb
Total time: 20 minutes
Makes: 4 servings
For the tofu:
3 tablespoons uncooked glutinous (sticky) or jasmine rice
2 (14-ounce) packages extra-firm tofu, drained and patted dry
1 tablespoon neutral oil, such as grapeseed or vegetable
1 lemongrass stem, outer layer removed, tender stem finely chopped
1 shallot, halved and thinly sliced
4 makrut lime leaves (optional), thinly sliced 1 cup mixed soft herbs, such as mint, Thai basil, basil, cilantro and chopped scallions 1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more as needed 1 head butter lettuce, leaves separated
¼ cup store-bought crispy fried shallots or onions
For the dressing:
4 tablespoons fresh lime juice (from about 2 limes)
3 tablespoons dark or light brown sugar 2 tablespoons soy sauce
½ teaspoon red-pepper flakes or ½ to 1 red chile, such as bird’s eye, finely chopped
Parmesan cheese. With all due respect to California Pizza Kitchen, and the chain’s tricolore salad pizza, it is infinitely better than its inspiration.
Piling salad on a cheesy, thin-crust pizza is the kind
1. Make the toasted rice powder: Heat a medium (10-inch) skillet over medium-high. Add the rice and stir constantly for 4 to 6 minutes until golden, with a nutty aroma. Transfer rice to a mortar and pestle or spice grinder and grind until it is a coarse powder. (You don’t want it too fine; some texture is nice.) You should have about 3 ½ tablespoons. Set rice powder aside.
2. Make the dressing: In a small bowl, combine the lime juice, brown sugar, soy sauce and red-pepper flakes; whisk until the sugar is dissolved.
3. Crumble the tofu into small chunks and place in a large bowl.
4. Heat the medium skillet over medium-high and add 1 tablespoon oil. Add the lemongrass and shallot and cook, stirring constantly, until softened and aromatic, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat and add to the tofu, along with the lime dressing, rice powder, makrut lime leaves, herbs and salt. Taste and add more salt if needed.
5. To serve, spoon the tofu larb into the lettuce leaves and garnish with crispy fried shallots.
— Recipe from Hetty McKinnon
of smart, simple technique I know I’ll practice again, maybe with crunchy lettuce in a tahini ranch dressing. Or maybe with some cherry tomatoes, roasted until they burst, tossed with olive oil and big pieces of torn basil. It’s official, salad pizza is now a part of my repertoire.
And that’s the thing about a good vegetarian recipe: It leads you to a delicious meal, then makes hundreds more possible.