Bryanna Clark Grogan’s Vegan Feast Kitchen/ 23rd Century Table

My late mother-in-law, Ruth Stuhr Clark, was very fond of Hot German Potato Salad,which I had never heard of before I married her son, my late husband Wayne Clark. It just wasn't part of my mother's culinary repertoire. Ruth was half Irish and half German and from a very large family, so I'm sure she grew up with this tasty and economical dish, which utilized leftover cooked potatoes, with little bits of ham or bacon-- a good meal-stretcher!

Southern German Potato Salad ("Kartoffelsalat") is one of a number of warm (or room temperature) potato salads from various European, Balkan, Middle Eastern, and South American countries. The addition of ham or speck (German bacon) and the sweet-tart dressing differentiates it from the warm potato salad of other cultures, such as the Greek style, using olive oil and lemon, or the Sicilian version with green beans, red onion, olive oil and red wine vinegar.

Here's an interesting article about the spread of, acceptance of and even dependence on potatoes around the world, despite a great deal of early suspicion regarding this nutritious food from South America: http://www.history-magazine.com/potato.html

And here is my vegan version of Ruth's "Kartoffelsalat".

Printable Recipe

BRYANNA'S VEGAN HOT GERMAN POTATO SALAD
Serves 6

2 lbs thin-skinned red or yellow potatoes, peeled or unpeeled (your choice)
1 tablespoon dark sesame oil (this oil gives the salad a smoky, "bacon-y" flavor)
1 medium onion, minced (red onion is traditional, but I use yellow onion if that's all I have)
about 4 ounces vegan "bacon", thinly sliced (here's my favorite)
2 tablespoons flour
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1 cup of your favorite vegan "chickeny" broth (I like Better-Than-Bouillon No-Chicken Vegan Broth Base)
2 teaspoons unbleached granulated sugar
1 teaspoon celery seed
3/4 teaspoon salt, or to taste
freshly-ground black pepper to taste
1/2 cup minced fresh parsley
Optional: If you have some, top the salad with chopped chives

Cook the potatoes (whole or in large chunks) by either simmering in water or steaming until tender but still firm. Drain them, cool until you can handle them and slice them about 1/3 of an inch  thick.

In a large, deep skillet (preferably nonstick or cast iron), heat the oil over high heat. Add the onions and and sliced "bacon" saute until the onions start to brown a bit and the "bacon" gets a little crisp around the edges.

Sprinkle on the flour and stir it around a bit with a wooden spoon, then add the broth, vinegar, sugar, celery seed, salt and pepper. Stir-cook over medium heat until dressing is thick.

Add the potatoes to the skillet and gently fold everything together until coated. Cook gently until heated, and taste for salt and pepper. Sprinkle with the parsley and chives, if you have them.

Serve warm.

Nutrition Facts
Nutrition (per serving): 195.3 calories; 12% calories from fat; 2.8g total fat; 0.0mg cholesterol; 479.1mg sodium; 959.8mg potassium; 34.9g carbohydrates; 3.0g fiber; 2.3g sugar; 9.4g protein; 3.5 points.

Enjoy!

Naan Pizza

I've been taking a wee break from blogging, gathering some steam, so to speak, and also gathering some inspiration.  I haven't baked much for a while and, all of a sudden, I got the baking bug.  So, I made some  flatbread dough-- a very simple one-- and put it in the refrigerator.  With it, I made some stove-top flatbreads.  We ate them plain with some garlicky olive oil and my husband took some for wraps with his work lunch-- I even used one as a wrap for a vegan hotdog for lunch today (better than a crummy commercial bun, I can tell you!).  Last night we had a friend over for dinner and I broiled freshly-made flatbreads with some vegan cheese over sauteed leeks (the green ends most people throw away), which we at as an accompaniment to our soup...mmmmmmmm!

Leek and vegan cheese flatbreads for dinner last night-- so good!

I'm still playing with this recipe-- kneaded or no-knead, for one thing; how much whole wheat flour for another; playing with stovetop vs. baked, etc., etc.. My goal is easy, versatile, low-fat, nutritious, tasty.  Stay tuned for my next blog post!  UPDATE: My 1st flatbread dough; my 2nd flatbread dough-- both no-knead doughs.

All this ruminating on bread reminded me of a  recipe I developed for my old newsletter, The Vegan Feast, a few years ago-- a sort of pizza with a base of vegan naan and an Indian-style pea/tomato sauce, topped with vegan cheese and rich-tasting browned onions. So, I offer it to you here while I make a few more flatbread discoveries for the next post.  Bon appetit!


Printable Recipe

BRYANNA'S FUSION NAAN PIZZAS WITH INDIAN TOMATO SAUCE WITH PEAS, ARUGULA, VEGAN MOZZA,  AND CRISPY BROWNED ONIONS 
Serves 12  Yield: 6 pizzas


4 large onions, thinly-sliced


















About 8 ounces vegan mozzarella, shredded

I know it may seem odd to start MOFO by talking about onions, but when I get hold of some interesting and useful information, I want to pass it on!  Reading books on food science can be very enlightening, even reassuring when you are proven right about some method that you have been using. Take onions, for instance. I have always used plain ol' yellow onions for cooking and saved the sweet onions for using raw. It seemed to me that the yellow onions developed that wonderful onion-y sweetness after cooking just as well as any sweet onion, and they are much cheaper. But I had no idea why.

I had ordered L.A. Times Food Editor Russ Parson's book "How to Read a French Fry" to re-read after doing my post on soaking, salting and cooking beans a couple of weeks ago. And there, in the introduction, was the explanation for the onion conundrum. It's simple, Russ explains: sweet onions taste sweeter because they contain fewer acrid sulfuric compounds and more of the enzyme which actually produces much of the onion flavor. Cooking removes much of the sulfuric acid, and, according to Russ, the humble yellow onion, when cooked, may actually taste sweeter than the sweet onion! So there was actually some method to my penny-pinching madness, even if I was unaware of it for years!

But I learned more-- the smelly, tear-inducing acids in onions are very unstable, AND they are heat-sensitive and water-soluble, which means that they vaporize when heated and can be washed away in water. Again, I have demonstrated this without knowing why it happened, pouring boiling water over sliced yellow onions, or soaking them in vinegar, to "tame" them for use in a salad. But news to me is that chilling an onion or rinsing it under cold water will prevent so many tears while chopping! Have to try that!  (Harold McGee, in his fascinating food science book "On Food and Cooking: the Science and Lore of the Kitchen", recommends pre-chilling onions for 30-60 minutes in ice water, which makes the volatile molecules in the onion less able to rise into the air and cause tearing-up, and also makes the peel come off more easily.)

Also, I learned that if you use a dull knife, it will rupture the smaller cells in the onion (called "vacuoles") which contain a variety of chemical components. These components combine and re-combine to form the sharp, smelly compounds called sulfonic acids. A sharper knife will not damage as many cells as a dull knife-- meaning fewer tears for the cook!  I knew it was time for a new chef's knife!  (Just ordered this one, which got a rave review in Cook's Illustrated magazine, despite it's low price.)

Are you bored yet? I find this fascinating, but skip to the recipe if you like! Just a wee bit more science!  The size of the cut you make in an onion makes a difference.  The smaller the chop, the faster the sulfuric acids disappear, so the onion flavor will be milder.  if you want sharp onion flavor, use a larger dice.  And how you cook it matters, too.  Cook your onion over high heat, quickly, and the onion will taste sharper and be crispier.  Cook it slowly at a low heat, and the flavor sweetens, the texture becomes melting...

                               
...which is what happens with caramelized onions and why we love them so much.  I did a post some time back about making a big batch of caramelized onions in a slow-cooker overnight (plugged in out on my deck so that the house doesn't get overwhelmed with the smell on onions!).  So, I won't repeat the instructions-- check them out here, along with my vegan onion soup recipe.  (You'll notice that I give slightly different instructions for making them with oil than for making them without oil.)  But it is certainly an easy, effortless way to make a big batch of caramelized onions, which can be refrigerated or frozen for use in many recipes.

However, if you don't have a slow-cooker or want the onions right away, try the no-fat method used in the recipe at this blog post, OR, if you don't mind using some oil, try the original version of this method  from Cook's Illustrated magazine.

Below is the recipe for the  dip. Once you have the caramelized onions ready and waiting, it's easy to make and SO much better than the usual type made with soup mix!  Chock-full of umami flavor.  

A summer lunch-- Denman Island corn and homegrown tomatoes (and basil!) with homemade salsa (for the corn) and homemade vegan low-fat mayonnaise (for the tomatoes).

The above is a frequent lunch these days, as we eat corn on the cob and fresh sliced tomatoes virtually ONLY in season, when we can eat corn within a few hours of picking, and our own fresh tomatoes. They are soooooo good in season that nothing else is ever as good, so why bother? I tell you, that last tomato sandwich of the early Fall is so sad!

We have had alot of company (and alot of fun!), but not much time to cook anything fancy or to blog!


Some of my grandchildren at play on the Denman playground.


Me supervising my youngest grandchild, visiting from Vancouver

I'm also dancing regularly again, which is great exercise and more fun! (I have lost 20 lbs. so far, BTW!) This also takes up some of my time, but I decided that I need to take more time to do both exercise and something for myself, and bellydancing meets both criteria!

We managed to squeeze in a dinner party with friends last Thursday night, but I failed to take pictures of everything. We had some yummy hummous and pita and grilled eggplant from one guest, Sarah, and a delicious salad from another guest, Pam. It was also a spectacularly beautiful salad, with a vibrantly colorful cooked Blackberry Vinaigrette:



This was the recipe she used. Pam said that she used agave nectar instead of sugar and didn't have any tarragon. It was delicious and, as you can see from the photo, spectacular! Of course, she didn't use the cheese in the recipe, and she used butter lettuce and a mixture of toasted seeds instead of pistachios for the salad itself.

I served a Greek spinach rice pilaf; Turkish-style red lentil patties; Breast of Tofu with lemon wedges; vegan Key Lime Bars; grilled zucchini and pattypan squash with olive oil, lemon juice and basil; and the following bean dish, which sounds so simple you wonder how it can be that good, but it is, and was eaten enthusiastically by all.



Printable Recipe

BRYANNA'S GREEK-STYLE WHITE BEANS WITH PEPPERS AND ONIONS IN OLIVE OIL
Servings: 6
I wanted to make a summer bean dish for a dinner party, and one guest is allergic to tomatoes. I had some canned white kidney beans and lots of peppers and onions, so I made the traditional Greek Lenten dish of peppers and onions braised in olive oil (with not quite so much olive oil as usual!), called Pipironata, and added the beans to it. It's good hot, or at room temperature. (I doubled this recipe and we had leftovers for a couple of lunches.)

2 lbs. bell peppers (preferably a mix of different colors)
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 large onions, thinly sliced
2 large cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
salt and freshly-ground black pepper
OPTIONAL: chopped fresh basil
1/ 19 oz. can Great Northern beans, rinsed and drained

Potato Kibbi hot out of the oven (a corner missing because I just had to try it!)

I had to make some finger food for a fundraising event I organized last week and I didn't want to just make the usual things. I have been wanting to try this kibbeh/kibbi recipe for a long time, so I made two pans of it, and it was so superior to any other vegetarian kibbeh I have ever tried. We loved it, and everything I brought sold out, even though most people had no idea what it was! It's the large amount of onions, cooked in the olive oil, that makes it so tasty and moist, I'm positive!

I often serve this recipe at big family gatherings and everyone loves it-- even if they don't know what it is!

An Easter dinner with Potato Kibbeh in the foreground

ABOUT KIBBEH/KIBBI:
The Arabic word kubbeh means a ball. The name has been widely borrowed, with various spelling variations: in English, the spellings kibbe and kibbeh are both common; also kubbah and kibbi. In Brazil, it is called quibe or kibe; elsewhere in Latin America, kipe or quipe. In Turkey, it is called içli köfte. In Armenian, it is called kufteh.

PRONUNCIATION: There is a little hesitation between the two b’s, and the second syllable is pronounced with a short e. It should look like this: kib’beh.

Kibbeh is defined as a dish of minced meat with bulgur and spices with many variants, both raw and cooked. However, there are several popular vegetarian versions (Lenten versions for Christians, usually) made with potato, pumpkin, sweet potato, etc, with plenty of onions for flavor. Many chefs are experimenting with stuffed vegetarian kibbi, utilizing greens, pomegranate molasses, nuts, herbs., etc.

It is a popular dish in the Levant, sometimes considered the national dish of Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, and Iraq. It is also a common food in North Africa, Turkey, the Arabian Peninsula, and parts of the Caucasus, such as Armenia and Georgia. Like hummus, everyone’s mom does it best.

In its most common form, it consists of minced meat mixed with bulgur and spices, stuffed inside a bulgur crust. The shape, size and ingredients vary between different types of kibbeh and between the recipes traditional in different areas. Recipes can include pine nuts, and green herbs, among other things. It can be baked, fried, boiled, stuffed, or served raw. The mix of spices changes as does the composition of the crust. Kubbat Halab is an Iraqi version made with a rice crust, though apparently not originating in the Syrian city of Halab (Aleppo) as its name suggests. Kubbat Mosul is another Iraqi version originally from Mosul where a bulgur crust is used, but the shape is flat and round, like a disc. Finally, Kubbat Shorwa is an Assyrian-Iraqi version where kibbeh is mixed in a stew, usually cooked with tomato sauce and spices.

It is traditionally served with a tahina dip which is made with sesame seed paste.

Besides being found in the Middle East and in Middle Eastern restaurants world-wide, it has also become a popular dish in South America, where it was introduced by Lebanese and Palestinian immigrants.

Information sources:
http://toughtimesbeirut.blogspot.com/2007/01/kibbeh.html (link no longer works)
http://www.answers.com/topic/kibbeh-1?cat=health

Printable Recipe

POTATO KIBBI (KIBBIT BATATA BIS-SAYNIYYI)
Serves 8

This is adapted from a recipe in the excellent book "Lebanese Cuisine" by Madelain Farah.





I have tried other potato kibbi recipes, but this one is absolutely the best! Good hot or at room temperature, plain, or with vegan Taheena Sauce.

1 1/2 cups bulgur wheat (#2 or medium-fine)
2 tsp salt
1 Tbs chopped fresh basil (or 1 tsp. dried) (NOTE: mint or cilantro or oregano can also be used)
1/8 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp freshly-ground black pepper
1 small onion, grated
4 medium (4 oz. each) potatoes (I used Yukon Gold), cooked tender, then peeled and mashed (NOTE: To peel the hot cooked potatoes, hold under running cold water and the skin will peel off easily.)
2 large onions, thinly sliced
2/3 cup oil (I used olive oil), divided

Rinse the dry bulgur in cold water, squeeze, sprinkle with salt and let stand for 20 minutes.

Work seasonings with grated onion and add the mashed potatoes, mixing well. Add the bulgur and knead into soft dough. Moisten hands in cold water while kneading to prevent sticking. ( If mixture doesn't stick together, add 1/4 cup of flour-- but I didn't have to add any.)

Place the sliced onions in the bottom of a 9" square baking pan (spray the sides with oil). Cover with 1/3 cup of the oil.

Place the potato mixture evenly on top of the onions, smooth down, and cut into diamond shapes about 1/2" deep. Pour the remaining oil on top and bake at 400° until golden brown - about 50-60 minutes.

Let cool until you can handle it and cut the diamond shapes all the way down.

Variation:
Use above recipe omitting oil and sliced onions. Form the mixture into patties and fry in 1/2" of oil or place on a well-oiled pan and bake.

Servings: 8

Nutrition Facts
Nutrition (per serving): 315.8 calories; 51% calories from fat; 18.5g total fat; 0.0mg cholesterol; 478.5mg sodium; 381.5mg potassium; 35.4g carbohydrates; 6.4g fiber; 2.3g sugar; 29.0g net carbs; 4.7g protein; 7.1 points.

Enjoy!