Black rice, Tofu, beansprouts



My one pot black rice

Ingredients:

·         300g black rice
·         400g bean sprouts
·         200g Tofu
·         100g frozen petit pois
·         Half cucumber (100grs)
·         1 scotch bonnet
·         1 teaspoon ground lemon grass
·         2 tablespoons dark soy sauce

·         1 small onion
·         5 garlic cloves
·         Olive oil

Method:

Rinse the rice and place it in a sauce pan with 500ml water, salt and a spoon of olive oil. Cook for 1 hour. Regularly check and top up water as needed. Black rice is much harder to cook than all the other rice, so, you will need 45 minutes to 1 hour for it to cook through.

In the meantime, do all the preps as the rest of the cooking goes very fast once the rice is pre-cooked.

Once the rice is cooked, set aside. Assuming that you have done all the preps and cleared your work space, heat 3 table spoons of olive oil in a wok, cut the tofu into chunks and brown with half of the chopped onion.  The tofu tends to disintegrate quite easily, so, once fried set it aside and just add to the dish just before serving. Unlike soya meat, tofu doesn’t absorb flavours. If you have ever eaten a boiled egg white, that is exactly the consistency of tofu.

Once you have removed the tofu from the wok, brown the rest of onion in the same pan for 2 minutes. Now add the rinsed bean sprouts, stir for another 2 minutes. Add the frozen petit pois, courgette, garlic, rice, black soy sauce and finely cut scotch bonnet (chilli). Stir well and cover for 5 minutes.

The hardest vegetable here is the courgette so, after 5 minutes, it should be soft, but crunchy. After 5 minutes  open the pot and stir the content from bottom to top to spread the heat. Cover for another 5 minutes.  Turn off the heat and fold in the previously fried tofu. It is ready to serve.

Bon Appetit! J

Serving suggestion

 

Homemade vegan Apple Tart

Serving suggestion with a vegan ice cream

Apple tart for 8

Ingredients:

• 3 medium apples (gala, golden pink lady any)
• 4 big cooking apples (bramley)
• 1 lime
• 50g sugar
• 1 pre rolled savoury short crust pastry (Just Rolls pastries are suitable to vegans not the All-butter option)
• 15g butter for the baking dish

Method:

Preheat the oven at 180C. And leave the rolled pastry at room temperature.

Start by making a compote. Peel and cut the 3 normal apples, place them in a pan with 100ml of water, zest and juice of one whole lime. Let it simmer and soften for 10 minutes, remove the excess water and blitz with a hand blender to liquidize. The consistency we are looking for is that of a yogurt so the less water, the better. Set aside.

Now peel the cooking apples and remove their middle, then cut them finely as on the picture to the left. Set aside.

When all that is ready, butter your tart dish and place the rolled pastry in it. Make sure that all the surface of the dish is covered then, prick the base of the pastry with a fork.

Now spread the compote on the pastry and place the uncooked apple slices on top and one by one covering the surface of the compote. Once that is done, place the tart in the oven for 40 minutes at 180C.

When it is cooked, remove from the oven and leave the tart cool for 10 minutes before serving. If you like your dessert cold like me, leave it to cool down for 30 minutes at room temperature, then, place in the fridge for 1 hour before serving with ice cream (found mine in Sainsbury's). I wanted a touch of bitterness so, I added dark coco powder in my plate.

Bon Appétit!

J

Check out this Ice cream... loved it!
 

Soy meat, Plantain and Beetroot dip

We are one week before pay day and by pure slackness I have decided not to step out of the house this week end. A quick look through my cupboard informs me that I’ve got plantain, precooked beetroot, flour and soy meat. Not very inspiring, but is it 12 o’clock, I have skipped breakfast and getting hungry! I make myself a cup of coffee, then, light bulb moment. I ate a beetroot puree not long ago. I could try that, but I want something warm all the way so… I wish I could have steak and chips and this is how I came up with this dish:

Soy meat steak, plantain chips and hot beetroot dip - Serves 2 portions

Ingredients:

Ingredients for the dish

·         250g Hydrated soy meat ball
·         25g plain flour
·         25g + 50g onion
·         4 garlic cloves
·         2 yellow plantain
·         25ml sesame oil
·         Chip oil
·         Olive oil
·         Salt & black pepper
·         A bit of herbes de Provence
·         Scotch bonnet (or chilli pepper)  

Preparation:

For the soy meat cakes; squeeze out the water from the hydrated soy balls, place them in a food processor with 2 table spoons of sesame oil and wiz in 2 or 3 quick bursts. We just want them chopped up finer than we can with a knife. When it is done. Empty in a bowl and set aside.

Now peel and crush two garlic cloves on the mix, finely cut 50g of onion and add to the mix. Then add the flour, salt and pepper. Mix well and form as if you were making burghers. Leave to the side

Prep done!

For the beetroot dip; rinse the beetroots, cut and place in a food processor with 25g onion, 2 garlic clove and the scotch bonnet. Also add 3 table spoons of water to help with the liquidizing. Leave aside.

As for the plantain, just peel and cut to your taste.
Now that everything is prep, clear out the mess and reset your work space.

Method:

To cook the soy meat, heat a non-stick frying pan without oil and place all four burghers on the pan and let them cook for 2 minutes on each side. If you want, you can add a tea spoon of sesame oil to help the process.

To prepare the dip, just fry the blended beetroot mix in 3 table spoons of olive oil. Add salt pepper and Herbes de Provence, stir and leave it to cook until there is no traces of liquid (water) coming out of the mix… this should takes 5-7 minutes. Don’t forget to stir so that it doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan.

For the plantain, if you do not have a chip pan, just heat up 500ml of vegetable oil and fry in it the plantain as you would your chips. I recommend that you add a big slice of onion along with the plantain to give it an added flavour. The plantain should take about 5 minutes to brown. Once it is brown, remove it from the oil and place on some absorbing paper before serving.

I recommend deep frying plantain because it absorbs less oil than when fried in a frying pan. And it takes longer too, then the colour isn’t homogeneous.
All is ready! Time to serve and enjoy…

Oh the leaf? It just from one of my house plant. Lol

Serving suggestion