Eating out around Perth

After a six hour drive from Kalgoorlie, unpacking the car and driving out to the airport to pick up the young man (he spent six nights with us in Perth before heading back home to start University), a quick meal was in order. I envisaged we would be tired and hungry on our first night in Perth and had printed a menu from Sri Melaka's website so we could pick up some take away food on our way back from the airport to the rental house. Sri Melaka vegetarian restaurant was one of the recommendations Steph suggested when I mentioned my travel plans to Perth. Steph formerly lived in Perth and is now based in Melbourne, so I used her blog as one of my resources for seeking out vegan food.  

Sri Melaka’s menu is Malaysian styled Nyonya cuisine predominately based on mock meat. It was difficult to choose from a large number of dishes as they all sounded fantastic. We ordered Chicken Kapitan, Kangkong Belacan and two of our favourite dishes Mee Goreng noodles and Lamb Rendang. The Chicken Kapitan contained chunks of mock meat and potatoes in a very spicy coconut curry gravy, the Lamb Rendang was 100% mock meat in a thick spicy coconut paste. Mee Goreng had a combination of vegetables, mock prawns and possibly some other form of mock meat I couldn’t identify and the Kangkong was Asian water spinach stir fried with chillies and mock shrimp paste. Every single dish was very spicy and our noses were running by the end of the meal. No-one could pick a favourite as we thoroughly enjoyed them all. I’ve been to a few Asian mock meat restaurants around Melbourne but none of them have managed to serve up food as delicious as this! It cost a little over $50 and there were enough leftovers to provide the three of us with a light lunch so it was also very good value.   

After reading about the Thai Vegan stall located at the Fremantle markets on Happy Cow, I put it high on my must visit list. I’ve travelled to Thailand a couple of times and haven’t been able to enjoy Thai food in Melbourne restaurants since. A reviewer on Happy Cow piqued my interest by mentioning that the food was that best they had eaten outside of Thailand. The stall is open on market days (Friday to Sunday) and is managed by two lovely women who were run off their feet pounding fresh herbs and spices, stir-frying and preparing fresh salads in addition to taking many orders. There are only a couple of seats to eat at the stall but there is a park nearby as well as plenty of benches in the surrounding streets.

In addition to a few precooked deep fried snacks, the menu is largely based on Thai salads, soups and noodle dishes (priced between $7 - $11). The man had left me to organise our food while he waited outside with Ollie and the young man ventured off to eat whatever he pleased. Salads are usually not popular with the man yet I recalled that he enjoyed the ones we ate in Thailand and boldly ordered a Larb salad, two spicy tofu sticks and a Pad Se Ew noodles. Somehow I managed to order an extra noodle dish which may have been due to the noise level in the markets and my substandard hearing. The amount of heat can be varied to your personal taste so I ordered all of our meals to be spicy.

The spicy tofu sticks ($3 each) consisted of three triangular pieces of crispy tofu on skewers, they were slightly disappointing as they didn't live up to their name in the spice department yet they were tasty enough to enjoy as a starter. The Larb salad was made up of lettuce, spinach, carrot, green papaya and cucumber topped with soy mince and was bursting with fresh flavours of lemongrass, chilli, coriander, mint and lime. It reminded us of the fantastic salads we had eaten in Thailand and I was thrilled that my brave selection turned out to be a success. Pad Se Ew was full of an assortment of vegetables (cauliflower, broccoli, carrot, cabbage and bean sprouts) as well as nicely seasoned tofu and lovely wide rice noodles. I think the extra noodle dish was called Rad Na, it had the same vegetables, tofu and noodles as Pad Se Ew yet it contained more sour flavours and it was spiciest dish of the lot. We loved both of the noodle dishes although the man said that the Rad Na was verging on being too spicy for him.    

Perth is fortunate to have a couple of Loving Hut restaurants which are located a suburb apart from each other. Loving Hut at Victoria Park is open for lunches (Wednesday to Sunday) and weekend breakfasts and East Victoria Park is open for dinners (Wednesday to Sunday). I had looked at both of their online menus and after mentioning to the man that there was an opportunity to eat pizza with vegan cheese he was super keen to drive across and get some take away food.

The menu begins with Asian entrees, mains are a combination of Asian meals, pasta dishes and pizza. They also offer a range of desserts and like all of the stores in the Loving Hut chain, everything on the menu is vegan. We were in the mood for pizza and pasta, the entrees also sounded great so we ordered way too much food! The spring rolls and samosas were both good but it was the crispy bites (above) that were the most popular starter. These pieces of mock meat coated in a slightly spicy batter and deep fried may not have been the healthiest choice but boy did they taste good! I've been requested to pull out the deep fryer and recreate this at home one day.

While the vegan pizza had been a draw card, it ended up to be slightly disappointing. The base wasn't great, it was thin but the edges were not rolled out evenly and it was unlike a base you would get from a pizza shop. The vegetable toppings of capsicum, mushrooms, spinach and pineapple were fine but there was a scant quantity of Notzarella cheese covering them. By the time we demolished this amount of food we were too full to tackle the pasta dishes and put them aside for next days lunch. We enjoyed ravioli with a tomato based sauce and I was less impressed with spaghetti carbonara with mushrooms as I thought the sauce had a weird flavour but the man seemed to enjoy it. Loving Hut's strengths may be in their Asian meals given the success we had with the entrees. We paid $64 for three entrees, a pizza and two pasta dishes which was pretty good value.

Beautiful dog beach at Swanbourne which had a clear blue sky every day

The Naked Fig in Swanbourne boasts a lovely view across the ocean and was on our daily walking route from our accommodation to the closest dog beach. It is one of three trendy restaurants in Perth, their other locations are in Swanbourne and Fremantle and each of them has a dedicated vego night. We ordered take away soy lattes (with extra shots of coffee) from The Naked Fig twice after early morning swims. We decided not to return as the wait times were 15 minutes one day, over 20 minutes the following day and the coffees were very weak and milky, apparently made with St Ali coffee beans from Melbourne. It was a shame as The Naked Fig had a vegan breakfast on their menu and veggie burgers with vegan options for lunch and dinner.

Ollie waiting for the ball to be thrown in the ocean (yet again)

There were several other eateries I had wanted to visit but was most disappointed that we didn't make it to Heavenly Plate in Applecross as Kari's pre-wedding high tea sounded amazing as did Steph's dining experience there. The man spent half of his childhood growing up in Perth and was astounded by the amount of vegan food that is on offer these days. Vegans who are planning a trip to Perth should check out the following blogs for heaps of food options around town: Vegan4Life, Bite Sized Thoughts, vegan about town and Vegan Sparkles as well as Happy Cow.

Vegan MoFo - Stopover 9 - Brunei

Brunei has been the most troublesome country so far when it came to choosing something to cook, looking back now I'm not sure if I made the wisest choice. It wasn't easy to find a dish unique to Brunei as the cuisine is so heavily influenced by it's neighbouring countries of Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. One dish that really jumped out at me was Roti Murtabak - spiced minced meat and onions wrapped in roti bread and fried which is usually served with pickled onions. Murtabak is also a common food in India, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and some Middle Eastern countries although the ingredients vary between each country.

The recipe I referred to came with pretty vague instructions for making the roti bread. As I was making this on a weeknight and had roti that needed using up I chose to skip this step. For some strange reason I decided that I was going to use tempeh as my mince meat replacement so I prepared the tempeh by boiling small chunks with soy sauce, olive oil and water as this works so well in Isa's Chesapeake Tempeh Cakes. When the tempeh had cooled down, I cut it into tiny mince sized pieces and hoped that frying it with onions and spices would be enough to eliminate the fermented taste I find gross. The tempeh wasn't a complete success as it still had a bit of an unpleasant taste to it yet there was an even more overwhelming presence. Coriander and aniseed were some of the other spices included and I was disappointed that they were undetectable due to the cardamon which was pretty much all you could taste.

In an attempt to make the meal enjoyable, I looked up a curry dipping sauce for a Malaysian dish called Roti Canai, this condiment that was very easy to prepare pretty much saved the day. The dipping sauce was spicy enough to drown out some of the cardamon and add some additional spices. I wouldn't repeat these rotis without a lot of playing around so I haven't bothered posting my version. A lentil and mushroom filling may work better than tempeh and the cardamon definitely needs to be cut back by at least half if not a quarter.

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Did you know?

Kampong Ayer which translates to Water Village was named after Venice in Italy and it is in fact the world's largest water village. It is a region in the capital of Bandar Seri Begawan which was built almost completely on wooden stilts and is connected by many bridges. Approximately 10% of Brunei's population reside there and their main mode of transportation is by water taxi.

Do you want to know where else I've been this month? Click here for the round up.

Burmese curry

A Thai/Burmese restaurant in our neighbourhood gave us an introduction to Burmese food many years ago, namely Burmese curries. They include many similar ingredients to Thai curries although they don't typically use coconut milk or kaffir lime. I used to reproduce one at home with the aid of a cookbook recipe that would have my boys raving that it tasted exactly the same as the one down the street. These curries were always meat based so it's something I've been keen to replicate with the aid of some mock meat.

This was in fact my second attempt at a mock meat version. When I first gave this a shot and it didn't taste quite right, I realised that I had used the wrong recipe. There are a couple of Burmese curry recipes in my cookbooks and I had completely forgotten which one I used to make. This time it turned out much closer to how we can recall it tasting although it still wasn't perfect in my mind. It was a dry curry rather than saucy which may have been due to using mock meat; that stuff really seems to absorb a lot of liquid.

People who aren't fond of mock meat may find that this recipe works well with tempeh which is something I will try at some stage. The amount of chillies could also be decreased to suit personal spice preferences. It was perfectly spiced for us which means it could be too spicy for others with lower heat tolerance. It's also quite a simple meal to put together. Preparing the paste is the most labour intensive task and once that's out of the way, it's just a matter of simmering with the occasional stir.


Burmese Curry (Adapted from Taste of Thailand by Kit Chan)

3 dried red chillies, soaked in warm water for 20 minutes
3 small shallots, roughly chopped
2 large cloves garlic, roughly chopped
1 stalk lemongrass, roughly chopped
2 teaspoons roughly chopped ginger
1 teaspoon roughly chopped galangal
2 teaspoons Golden Mountain Thai thin soy sauce (or use soy sauce)
1 tablespoon dark brown sugar
300g "beef" chunks
1 cup water
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon dark soy sauce
1 tablespoon tamarind puree

Pound the chillies, shallots, garlic, lemongrass, ginger and galangal into a rough paste with a mortar and pestle. Add one teaspoon of the Golden Mountain Thai thin soy sauce and the brown sugar and continue to pound until it the paste is relatively smooth.

Heat a pan over medium heat, add the "beef" chunks and the paste and stir frequently for 5 minutes. Stir in a cup of water along with the turmeric and dark soy sauce. Cook over a low heat for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. The curry will be quite dry after this time.

Add the remaining teaspoon of Golden Mountain Thai thin soy sauce and tamarind puree and stir well. Serve with steamed rice and stir-fried Asian greens.

Thai chickpea patties

I love when using up remnants in the fridge results in a delicious meal. This one began with asian greens I felt like having as a side dish rather than a tofu/veg combination as we had eaten tofu the night before.  After brainstorming what to serve the greens with, I was drawn to Kari from Bite-sized thoughts recent Thai vegetarian cakes recipe.

Kari used mashed butter beans in her cakes and recommended that other white beans or chickpeas could also be a good choice. Chickpeas sounded good to me until I started mashing them with a fork! I have little patience when it comes to mashing beans so they ended up going in the food processor with the potatoes which saved me some time and sanity. I was pleased with this decision because the mixture turned out so smooth, it reminded me of mum's salmon patties which I used to eat doused in tomato sauce as I never liked seafood flavours although I did love their texture.

I swapped the lemon for kaffir lime leaves as we have a small tree growing in our garden and I love to use the fresh leaves whenever appropriate. One of the young man's favourite condiments is sweet chilli sauce so I removed this from the recipe and planned to serve it on the side instead. A few other ingredients were added in it's place to give the patties some spice and I also used some baking powder as I recalled enjoying the fluffiness that it brought to the healthy baked falafels I made from Appetite for Reduction. The pattie mixture turned out nice and firm and I had no qualms about them falling apart as they were frying.

The young man and I loved these patties, the man liked them but mentioned not being a huge fan of the kaffir lime flavour which I found odd as it doesn't seem to bother him in a Thai curry. The kaffir lime was a highlight for me and I preferred to eat the patties plain rather than with sweet chilli sauce. The man tried all sorts of condiments I thought were odd and decided that he liked them best with my tomato and chilli relish whereas the young man was more than happy with his beloved sweet chilli sauce.      

The recipe below was just enough to satisfy the three of us so I would recommended doubling it for a larger crowd. I'm sure that leftovers would taste great too!  

Thai chickpea patties (Adapted from Bite-sized thoughts)

150g small waxy potatoes
1 x 400g tin chickpeas, rinsed and drained
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon minced ginger
1 birds eye chilli, minced
2 kaffir lime leaves, minced
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup cornflake crumbs (I normally use fresh breadcrumbs)
1/4 cup fresh coriander leaves, chopped finely
olive oil, for frying

Peel the potatoes and place into a saucepan full of boiling water. Cook for 15 minutes or until they are soft and then drain. Allow to cool slightly.

Place the potatoes and chickpeas in a food processor and pulse until the chickpeas are completely broken down. Transfer the chickpea/potato mixture to a bowl and stir through the rest of the ingredients thoroughly, except for the olive oil.

Roll the mixture into patties of your desired size with your hands, place them on a plate and refrigerate for 15 minutes.

Heat some oil in a frying pan, add the patties and cook them in batches on medium heat until browned, about 3 minutes on each side. Serve with sweet chilli sauce, another condiment of your choice or enjoy them plain as I did.

Thai inspired tofu and noodle salad

Salads are not commonly eaten in our house. It is difficult to find ones that suit all of our tastes, given everyone's individual food aversions. When we do eat salads, they are generally served on the side but the recent few days of warm weather motivated me to want a cold meal which is highly unusual. Perhaps this craving was due to some inner guilt as the "must try more salads" pledge I made to myself before the start of summer hadn't eventuated into anything more than a thought.

After rummaging through the pantry and fridge I was inspired to make a noodle salad. I had some left over tofu to use up and discovered half a tin of red curry paste hiding in the back of the fridge. I was in the mood to play around with the ingredients that were on hand rather look up recipes so that's just what I did.

The tofu was marinated in watered down red curry paste and fried briefly. The dressing for the noodles was kept simple, lime juice, Thai thin soy sauce and crushed garlic. Thai thin soy sauce is something I purchased whilst recipe testing, it has a lighter colour and flavour even though the sodium content is higher than regular soy sauce. I used some grated purple carrots as one of the vegetables which stained the noodles slightly as well as adding colour to the salad.

The young man isn't usually interested in salads in the slightest so I was extremely pleased that he liked the look of his dinner before he sat down to eat and then proceeded to devour his bowl with compliments. The tofu was initially quite spicy to eat, stirring it through the noodles toned it down a little as some of the marinade separated from the tofu and blended in with the noodles. The recipe has been written with different serving suggestions and recommended garnishes I didn't have on hand but would love to try next time around.


Thai inspired tofu and noodle salad

250g firm tofu, drained and pressed
3 tablespoons Maesri (or other vegan) red curry paste
3-4 tablespoons water
270g packet soba noodles
2 tablespoons lime juice
3 tablespoons Thai thin soy sauce (or regular soy sauce or tamari)
1 teaspoon agave nectar
2 cloves crushed garlic
1 tablespoon peanut oil
1 carrot, grated
2 x purple carrots, grated
1 small red capsicum, cut into thin strips
75g baby spinach leaves, shredded
lime wedges, to serve

Recommended garnishes
roasted chopped peanuts or cashews
fresh coriander leaves and/or thai basil leaves

Cut the tofu into bite sized cubes. Mix the red curry paste with 3-4 tablespoons of water in a bowl and stir through the tofu, ensuring that all of the cubes are coated in the marinade. Set aside for 30 minutes.

Cook the soba noodles in boiling water according to the package directions. Drain in a colander, then rinse well with cold water. Transfer the noodles to a large bowl.

Whisk together the lime juice, soy sauce, agave and garlic, then pour over the noodles. Add the carrots, capsicum and spinach to the noodles and toss well to combine.

Heat the oil in a frying pan, add the tofu and cook for a couple of minutes on each side. Allow to cool.

Serve the noodles and vegetables in large bowls, then add the tofu cubes on top. Alternatively, stir the tofu through the noodles and vegetables prior to serving. Garnish with chopped nuts and herbs if desired and serve with a wedge of lime.

Vegan MoFo - R is for Rendang Nangka

R was a difficult letter because I couldn't decide what to make. Rice paper rolls were my original idea as I have wanted to make them for a long time and then I thought about making a risotto but that seemed a little mundane. On the morning I was due to cook something for R, I read this interesting post on I Eat Grains! about how green jackfruit has a very meaty texture and neutral taste and decided to try it out in a Rendang curry. I even stumbled across a rendang recipe using jackfruit in my copy of World Vegetarian Classics by Celia Brooks Brown.

World Vegetarian Classics contains chapters of regions around the world and each chapter starts with a page about an expert in the regions cuisine. I was interested to find that the expert for South-East Asia was Sri Owen, a cookbook author that Cindy and Michael from Where's the Beef have been posting about in recent times. Cindy and Michael have posted a Sri Owen recipe for rendang using tempeh instead of beef which apart from being doubled in quantities looked very similar to the ingredients in my cookbook. The main difference between these recipes was the latter part of the method.

Cindy and Michael mentioned a few tweaks they would make next time around which was to increase the ingredients in the spice paste and/or reduce the amount of coconut so I took this on board and altered the World Vegetarian Classics recipe a bit. I used the stated amount of chilli but decided the leave the seeds in to make it spicier, increased the shallots, garlic, ginger and galangal and cut back on the coconut milk a little.

Reducing the coconut milk decreased the cooking time by about 30 minutes which was fantastic as the curry still took a good 2 hours to cook. The initial preparation doesn't take very long but once that is out of the way, it's just a matter of stirring every now and then. After about an hour, a crust develops on the bottom of your pot which you need to scrape off a few times and mix in with the sauce. These crusty bits were a highlight of the curry as they contained so much flavour.

The man and I were so impressed with the jackfruit in this rendang, my son was a little less enthused about the jackfruit but still liked the curry. The texture of the jackfruit was rather meaty and the pieces were mostly intact after 2 hours of cooking. I think jackfruit is a great mock meat alternative for gluten and/or soy free people and it's something I will use more often, perhaps in my "butter chicken" next time. You can find green jackfruit in tins at asian groceries but be aware that they also sell ripened jackfruit in syrup which is sweeter and softer and wouldn't produce the same result.

The rendang was served with basmati rice and choy sum steamed with minced garlic drizzled with a touch of sesame oil at the end.

Click here to see my A - Z of Vegan MoFo posts.


Rendang Nangka (Adapted from World Vegetarian Classics with some tips taken from Where's the Beef)

4 shallots, roughly chopped
4 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
3cm piece of ginger, roughly chopped
3 red chillies, roughly chopped
1cm piece galangal, roughly chopped
2 x 400ml tins coconut milk
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1 bay leaf
1 stalk lemongrass, outer layer removed
1 teaspoon salt
2 x 540g tins green jackfruit in brine, drained and rinsed
1 x 400g tin chickpeas, drained and rinsed
 
Place the shallots, garlic, ginger, chillies and galagal into a blender with about 1/4 cup of the coconut milk and process until smooth. Pour the blender mixture into a large pot along with the rest of the coconut milk, turmeric, bay leaf, lemongrass, salt and jackfruit and bring to the boil.

Lower the heat to medium and allow it to simmer, uncovered for about 90 minutes, stirring occasionally. After 60 minutes the gravy will become very thick and will require more frequent stirring. A crust will begin to form on the bottom of your pot which should be scraped with a metal spatula to allow a new one to form. After scraping the crust a few times, the gravy should be almost totally absorbed by the jackfruit. Add the chickpeas and cook for a further 30 minutes, scraping the crust a few more times. There should be no liquid remaining. Remove the lemongrass and bay leaf before serving.

Vegan MoFo - N is for Noodles

N is for noodles because they are such a wonderful versatile food. I often cook different types of noodle dishes on weeknights as they are generally quick meals to prepare. Char Kueh Teow is a delicious dish made with fresh flat rice noodles that has been on regular rotation since I tried Steph from vegan about town's version earlier this year.

The noodles are flavoured with garlic, chilli, light and dark soy sauce and stir-fried with a few vegetables and tofu. One thing I love about this recipe is that the tofu is crumbled rather than cut into cubes or strips. I usually break up the tofu in a bowl and marinate it with a dash of soy sauce for about 30 minutes to give it some extra flavour.

I have blogged about Char Keuh Teow previously but didn't post a recipe. Next post will feature two recipes for the letter O so I'll leave this post short for now and be back with more tomorrow.

Click here to see my A - Z of Vegan MoFo posts.

Thai "Chicken" Basil stir-fry

Back in October 2000, the man and I embarked on our first overseas trip together to Thailand. Nothing had been booked apart from our flights but I knew exactly where we were heading for the duration of our time. The ultimate highlight was our 2 night stay in Khao Sok national park, a stunning rainforest in Southern Thailand slightly off the beaten track, which meant that it wasn't over populated with tourists like most of the islands are. 

Our accommodation was a little village comprising of basic huts and a couple of tree houses. We were fortunate to secure one of the tree houses as a couple happened to be leaving just as we arrived. It was the perfect set-up. A tree house in the rainforest right next to the flowing Khao Sok river, which felt a bit rugged at nighttime when the jungle came to life and was full of so many unique sounds like gibbons calling. 

The greater surprise was the atmosphere in the communal area where the backpackers socialised when they weren't out and about exploring the beauty of the rainforest. The tourists were mainly European; lots of Brits, Germans, French and Norwegians and there was one chirpy Brit in particular that we became rather friendly with. We were intrigued when one of the lovely ladies that ran the place asked our friend if he was hungry and if he would like the "usual" with a cheeky grin on her face. Apparently he had been eating it for breakfast, lunch (when not out on a tour) and dinner while he had been staying there! We both decided to follow his recommendation and were also totally hooked.  

It was such a simple dish loaded with garlic, chillies, fish sauce, soy sauce, chicken (we were omnivores back then) and vegies but it was the aniseed taste of the thai basil throughout that made it so unique. We longed for authentic Thai food after we returned to Australia and were unable to find anything like this meal at restaurants. When I did manage to track down thai basil down at a local asian supermarket I was able to replicate the dish to a decent standard so it became a regular until we gave up eating meat.  

Upon sorting through my freezer contents recently, I came across a packet of Fry's chicken-style strips that had been bought so long ago they were getting pretty close to the best before date. We do enjoy a Fry's "chicken" schnitzel topped with a tomato sauce and cheezly every now and again when time is short and have tried a few of other products in the Fry's range but not the strips.  
I decided to put these strips to use in a stir-fry like the one we used to have and hope that they would be a good stand-in. The meal was cooked almost identically to the way it used to be done with the exception of the "chicken" strips. The directions instructed that they were to be cooked in a wok for 5 minutes with some oil and not defrosted first. 

Dinner was sensational! I'm not sure that I loved the "chicken" strips, they were quite good although I may prefer to use some tofu instead next time. The balance of the salty sauces with a touch of sugar and the aniseed bite of the thai basil was perfect. Even the man who used to become a little tired with my thai basil fascination thoroughly enjoyed it. 

I would have liked to include some of our photos from Khao Sok but they were taken in pre-digital camera days and our scanner is on the blink. :( 

Thai "Chicken" Basil stir-fry

2 tablespoons peanut oil
1 packet Fry's "chicken" stir-fry strips
4 cloves garlic, sliced into strips
2 birds-eye chillies, finely sliced
1 carrot, chopped thinly
1 red capsicum, sliced into thin strips
6 button mushrooms, sliced
1 bunch pak choy, stems and leaves chopped separately
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon vegan oyster mushroom sauce
2 teaspoons raw sugar
1/4 cup water
1/2 large bunch thai basil leaves

Heat a tablespoon of peanut in a wok on the highest temperature and stir-fry the frozen "chicken" strips for about 5 minutes. Remove the strips from the wok.

Add the other tablespoon of peanut oil to the wok, stir-fry the garlic and chillies for about 15 seconds then add the carrot, red capsicum, mushrooms and pak choy stems. Stir-fry for about 2 minutes then add the chicken strips, soy sauce, vegan oyster mushroom sauce, sugar, water, pak choy leaves and thai basil leaves. Stir-fry until the pak choy and thai basil leaves have just wilted. Turn off the heat and serve immediately with brown (or white) rice.    

Planet VeGMeL week (Part 7) - In the Mood for Noodles Lemon Tofu "Chicken"

When I came up with the idea of Planet VeGMeL week, Lemon Tofu "Chicken" from In the Mood for Noodles became an immediate inclusion as I had been longing to try it for ages. I wanted to end the week with a bang which is why it was saved for last.

Deep-frying and shallow frying is something I don't partake in often. I'm sure my boys wouldn't mind if I did more of it, however I try to make healthy meals more often than not. My past experience with frying tofu hasn't been ideal with bits of oil spluttering over me but after tonight I'm putting that down to not using a wok (as I never had room in my previous kitchen for one) and not pressing enough moisture out of the tofu.

As the tofu needed to be cooked in batches plus I wanted to stir-fry some greens to have with it, I decided to cook the tofu first and leave it in a warm oven. My fear was that the tofu might lose it crispiness however the greens only took a few minutes to complete and the tofu came out with pretty much the same delicious crunchiness.

The tofu tasted fantastic with the lemony sauce over the top, after I finished the plate of food in the photo I stuffed myself full of more until I was ready to burst as it was soooo good. The greens are pak choy with crispy shallots and toasted sesame seeds from Veganomicon which were previously posted here.

Now that I have completed Planet VeGMeL week and cooked some fantastic meals from the featured blogs, I'll post a quick summary tomorrow to round it up!

Planet VeGMeL week (Part 4) - Vegan About Town Char Kueh Teow

My eye has been on Steph's Char Kueh Teow from Vegan About Town for quite some time after having success with her Mee Goreng recipe ages ago. For several years, our household take-away favourite has been Malaysian food and noodles normally make up at least one of the meals ordered. The man has always preferred Mee Goreng and the son Char Kueh Teow, I quite like both of them in different ways and Singapore Noodles can be pretty tasty too.

Tonight was an exciting night of firsts for me. I mentioned cutting down our orange tree to make way for our house extension in this post which turned out to be an extremely drawn out painful project. I could write a lengthy essay about this but this is a food blog not a renovation nightmare blog! Only yesterday we were given the green light to use our rangehood for cooking after a final inspection from an electrician. This was very exciting news for me! 

Last weekend, the man and I went wok shopping. He had surprised me by taking it upon himself to do some research into the best types of woks to buy and how to season them properly. Prior to breaking it in with food, I had been instructed to go through the seasoning process of applying a thin coating of oil to the wok, heating it on a low flame until the oil started to smoke, waiting for it to cool and wiping it down with paper towels. This process had to be repeated several times.

Then it was time to cook some noodles. I went against Steph's advice a little and changed a few of the ingredients around but I did take on board not to overload the dish with veggies and let the noodles be the star. Beanshoots don't really do it for me so these were omitted instead I added in some shiitake mushrooms, and pak choy instead of kai lan as that's what needed to be used up in the fridge.

My plan was to either fry up some tofu cubes or crumble the tofu in like Steph, however I remembered that there were a few Vegan Brunch mini tofu omlettes in the fridge so these were sliced up and added to the noodles towards the end of the cooking time. The omlettes were a great vegan stand-in for eggs in this dish and would also work well in a Nasi Goreng, so if you are interested in the recipe I have previously posted it here.  

I am very pleased to say that I loved this recipe as did the others, the chillies used were quite spicy which didn't bother me at all but I may have to use one instead of two in the future. My new wok worked extremely well, this is the first real wok I have owned and it will be treasured and used very often.

Planet VeGMeL week is over the half way mark now and there are only 3 days remaining...

BBQ Baked Tofu and Bok Choy

Sometimes I have a clear idea of what I will be cooking for dinner, other days I'll resort to searching through blogs, cookbooks or my pile of "recipes to cook" that is always growing looking for some inspiration. Some days when I hunt around a recipe will jump out pretty quickly and then there are those days when it's too hard to make a decision because so much is appealing. Today was one of those days...

After going back and forth and changing my mind a million times I decided to ask my son what he would like for dinner. I was planning to show him a couple of recipes however he was sold on the first - BBQ Baked Tofu from Veganomicon. It wasn't that surprising given he loves BBQ sauce with anything and he also loves happens to love tofu. The next question posed to him was "What should we have with it?" After a very short pause he came back with Bok Choy. A quick scan of the Veganomicon index and Baby Bok Choy with crispy shallots and sesame seeds was deemed to be the pairing dish as well as some steamed rice.

The BBQ Baked Tofu was made almost to the recipe apart from a minor reading mishap with the sauce ingredients. Only 2 teaspoons of sugar was added instead of the specified 2 tablespoons. It didn't seem to matter as the flavour of the sauce tasted pretty nice anyway so I left it. Other meals featuring BBQ sauce will have to be on the menu in the near future as I probably used about 1/4 of the sauce on the tofu. I have never been a fan of commercial BBQ sauces before however this one was surprisingly tasty.      

The Baby Bok Choy with crispy shallots and sesame seeds was modified slightly and also simplified by using pre-fried shallots purchased from the Asian grocer. Baby bok choy was unavailable at the shops so I used normal bok choy and also decided to add some shitake mushrooms into the mix. This turned out to be a very tasty side dish, the addition of the fried shallots and toasted sesame seeds took those simple greens to another level.

Bok choy with crispy shallots and sesame seeds (Adapted from Veganomicon)

1 tablespoon peanut oil
1 inch piece ginger, chopped finely
1 bunch bok choy, washed
1 tablespoon mirin
1 tablespoon soy sauce
15g dried shitake mushrooms, soaked for 30 minutes
Some fried shallots
1 tablespoon sesame seeds, toasted

Chop the bok choy stems into bite site pieces and place in a bowl. Roughly chop the green tops of the bok choy and place in another bowl.

Heat the peanut oil in a large saucepan or wok, add the ginger and fry for 15 seconds. Add the bok choy stems and stir fry for 2-3 minutes and mix through the mirin, soy sauce, boy choy greens and shitake mushrooms. Stir fry for another minute or two until the greens have wilted. 

Transfer to serving plates and top with fried shallots and toasted sesame seeds.