Category: Travels

by Veggie Sutra

Vegan food in Southern California + Basil Pesto with Habanero Peppers

 

basil-habanero-pesto-2-2

Before I get to the basil pesto recipe, let me rave about our trip down south.  The Labor Day weekend was rather pleasant, so V and I decided to do a mini getaway from beautiful northern California to gorgeous southern California.  Why travel to far places to vacation when the whole world travels here to vacation?    I would not normally venture in to Southern California in the summer months, but it has been cooler than normal this summer.  Santa Monica and Venice are just perfect – beautiful beaches, beautiful people, beautiful weather, and cars, cars, cars everywhere!

 

santa-monica

 

I did not realize Los Angeles and Santa Monica have become such a haven for restaurants serving plant-based food exclusively.    Walking around downtown Santa Monica we chanced upon Erven, which opened just a few weeks back.  The chef, Nick Erven, though not vegan himself, has created some amazing dishes – one that still haunts my memory is the black garlic chickpea fritter with yuzu.  That is going down in the books as the most creative vegan dish ever.  I hope Erven does well.

We also went to True Food Kitchen, although this is not an exclusively vegan or vegetarian restaurant.  How could we not?  The menu is influenced by Dr. Andrew Weil’s anti-inflammatory diet, and V has been a big fan of Dr. Andrew Weil for a long time, and follows several of his key recommendations.  The main course was great, but the high note was the “Strawberry-rhubarb crisp almond crumble” dessert.  We both fought over it until the last bit had been licked off!

The third noteworthy restaurant we visited in the area was Plant Food + Wine in Venice, CA.  Most of the ingredients used are grown locally (in fact some of the herbs are grown right there in the backyard of the restaurant). The menu is very experimental with some dishes hitting the mark, and others not so much.  But the plating was uniformly delectable.The outdoor seating was befitting a restaurant serving local southern California cuisine.

The great part is that you really don’t have to be a vegan or vegetarian to enjoy the great food down there in southern California!

 

basil-habanero-pesto-4

 

 

Now on to some cooking with local ingredients from our backyard to our kitchen.  It is nearing the end of summer and everything in our tiny garden patch is ripe for picking.  Amma and I have been picking, blanching and saving tomatoes for the winter.  And we had a decent crop of eggplant and bell pepper which we consumed then and there.  Is there anything more refreshing than cooking with freshly picked vegetables from the garden?   Speaking of which, I went in to total ecstasy when I harvested a huge bunch of fragrant purple basil.   And I knew I had to make pesto, nothing but pesto, for now and for later.

 

purple-basil1

 

This time, I added a small twist to the pesto, and it is all because of V.   He planted a habanero chili plant which has gone crazy with yield and I have no clue what to do with all that spiciness.  Please do help me with suggestions!   I snuck in a couple in my batch of pesto.  If you like spicy food, then you will love this variation.  If not simply leave out the peppers.

 

habanero-peppers

 

Recipe for Basil Habanero Pesto

[Printable Recipe]

Ingredients:

  • 4 cups basil leaves
  • 1/4 cup pine nuts
  • 5-10 cloves garlic (yeah I went crazy with garlic and used up a whole bulb, you could tone in down a bit)
  • 2-3 Habanero peppers (optional)
  • 1/2 cup olive oil + a bit more for drizzling on top
  • 1 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
  • salt to taste

Method:

  • In a food processor, combine the basil, nuts, garlic and habanero peppers (if using)
  • Add the olive oil slowly through the feed tube
  • When fully processed, add the parmesan cheese, salt to taste and more olive oil if you want the consistency to be thinner.  Pulse to mix
  • Scoop out in to a couple of bottles and drizzle some olive oil to cover the top
  • Freeze whatever you will not consume in a week or so for later use

 

basil-habanero-pesto-3

 

Pesto is quite versatile and gets consumed in so many ways in our home.  We use it in pasta on the rare occasions that I make pasta or noodles (V is not a big fan), as a spread for sandwiches and mini pizzas, and as a dressing for salads.   We freeze part of the pesto for use in the dreary winter months when a whiff of good pesto reminds you that summer will roll around soon, doesn’t it?

by Veggie Sutra

A Vegetarian in Beijing, China

China, fascinating!

V and I returned a couple of weeks back from our very first visit to China – an awe-inspiring, vast, chaotic country, steeped in centuries of fascinating history and culture. While I had to cut short my travels at Beijing, V continued on to Xian and Shanghai and had a blast! We happened to be in Beijing exactly a week before the National Golden Week and the crowds everywhere were crazy. Honestly I don’t think I have seen more people anywhere else!

Forbidden Palace in Beijing, China

Beijing is an old great, great, grand daddy of a city with the old and new architectural elements coexisting next to each other, creating an irresistible allure.  We had a room with a view of the Forbidden City, a ~500-year old, humongous palace compound situated bang in the center of Beijing. On the first day we sat at our window watching the red sun go down over the Forbidden City, slowly coming to the realization that the haziness and eerie beauty of the sunset was partly due to the horrendous smog engulfing the city.

Great Wall, China

And now, let’s talk chopsticks, lotus root and numbing hot Sichuan peppercorns!  As V and I love Chinese food, we put in a considerable amount of research before our trip to China so that we could savor the local cuisine.  Our efforts paid off and we enjoyed some wonderful food.  But it was not easy.  One of our guidebooks simply said, “If you are a vegetarian, good luck finding anything to eat”!  (Hmmppff.  Who needs their advice?!)

Our hotel concierge wrote down “I am a vegetarian” in Chinese for us

So, here are our top 10 observations on being a vegetarian in Beijing, China:

1. To cut to the chase, traveling as a vegetarian in China is tough and it is made worse if you do not speak the language as it is very rare to find English-speaking staff in the restaurants.  Our hotel concierge wrote down for us in Chinese that we were vegetarian, i.e. no beef, no pork, no fish, no chicken, etc.  (At least, that’s what we think he wrote).  
2. In big cities like Beijing, one can always find international restaurants and American chain restaurants like Subway, but heck, we were not going to resort to that.  We were determined to try the local food especially as Chinese is one of our favorite cuisines.
3. It is not that there is any dearth of vegetable dishes.  In fact I would say the bulk of the food they consume is vegetable-based.  However, it is the method of preparation that is a huge question mark, i.e,. did they use beef broth in their sauce, or pork lard to cook, etc.   This is where it helps to have someone spell it out in writing that none of this is acceptable. They do not have an idea of what being a vegetarian means, except maybe that it is some variation of food that Buddhist monks eat.
4. Restaurants in Beijing and other big cities may have an English description below the item in the menu, but it does not contain a full list of ingredients or method of preparation, and sometimes it is not even understandable.   (Agrocybe Cylindracea, I learnt later, is simply the scientific name for edible mushroom!)

Menu describing a vegetarian dish.  We ordered it not knowing what it was!

5. Beijing, Shanghai and most cities in China have functioning Buddhist temples and we found that most of the all-vegetarian restaurants are concentrated around these temples.  (Most of these restaurants also tend to be somewhat expensive.)  One of the best meals we had in Beijing was at Baihe Vegetarian restaurant near the Yonghegong Lama temple, a popular tourist spot.  Their menu (they have an English version) is as long as a novel with both mock meat dishes as well as regular vegetable dishes.  Wish we had time to go back there for another meal.  The crispy mock rabbit we had there was juicy and flavorful on the inside , and their mushroom dish with fried red peppers was deliciously spicy!  

Crispy Mock Rabbit at  Baihe Vegetarian restaurant in Beijing, China

6.  Food in Chinese restaurants here in the U.S. does not taste like the food in China, except maybe at a few restaurants nestled deep in China Towns in San Francisco and New York where they probably require you to order in Chinese.  
7.  If you ask for your food to be spicy in China, it is guaranteed to make your mouth go up in flames, or numb your tongue to a rock.   Red pepper, ginger, and Sichuan peppers are liberally used. (In other words, there is no such thing as hot and sweet.) One of the memorable dishes we had in Beijing right in our hotel was Bamboo Shoots with Sichuan Peppercorns which literally made our tongues go numb. Sichuan pepper is an interesting ingredient that has a tingly lemony flavor with a spicy, numbing after taste.

Bamboo shoots with Sichuan peppercorns

8. The variety of vegetables is amazing.  There are a million types of mushrooms and yam, and a gazillion types of greens.  In addition to eggplant, bitter melon and taro root, there is the popular lotus root and bamboo shoots.  Rice and noodles are both commonly available, and is eaten in small quantities along with the vegetables.  Tofu is omni-present as well and I had a couple of different, yet delicious versions of vegetarian Mapo tofu, one of my favorite Chinese dishes (although V is not a fan).
9.  Dessert is a low key item on the menu.  Most of the upscale restaurants will have western desserts like ice cream in local flavors like green tea and lychee.  Fruit-based desserts and fruit juices are very popular.  (V overdosed on the freshly squeezed pomegranate and plum juice on the streets of Xian.)

Dessert menu, usually low-key and fruit-based

10. We were complimented several times by the locals on our chopstick wielding skills.  Chopsticks are very versatile and I personally found it a bit awkward to come back here to forks and spoons. Inexplicably, Chinese food eaten with chop sticks somehow tastes better.

So at the end of the long write up, I just have two main takeaways to enjoy local food as a vegetarian in Beijing, China:

One, do your research online and look through guidebooks and map out the vegetarian restaurants close to your sightseeing destination for the day.   And two, get someone to write down in Chinese all of your restrictions as it will help immensely with the wait staff at the restaurants.
(And as a bonus, do practice your chopstick skills.)
Traveling to China is a once in a lifetime experience and while you are there, I would recommend everyone to be brave and go for the local food!   We will probably be making several more trips to explore this vast, fascinating country and to enjoy more Chinese food!
by Veggie Sutra

Our favorite hiking snack – A spicy, crunchy mix of puffed rice and nuts

Road trip!!  We left hot and dry Northern California over the July 4th weekend only to end up in hot and dry Central Oregon!  Seeing the effects of drought spread over such a vast geographical area is actually scary.   Despite the drought, we saw some beautiful waterfalls nestled deep inside gorgeous albeit dry forests. (On the plus side, hiking to them was a lot easier due to the low water levels in the rivers).

View of Mt. Hood, Oregon along US-26

V and I love taking road trips and I can’t wait for the day when electric charging stations are ubiquitous around our country so that I don’t have to feel so guilty about it.   We usually pack enough food to last us for a few meals.   Our favorite lunch/dinner is pita pocket sandwiches – we carry hummus and sliced vegetables like bell pepper in the icebox, and whole wheat pita bread and marinated tofu slices.  They are easy to assemble on the go and makes for a very filling meal.

Crunch hiking snack with puffed rice and nuts

And of course, snacking is de riguer on car trips!  One of our food bags is packed with snacks such as chips, cookies (don’t judge!), nuts, cherry tomatoes, fruits, etc.  This bag and a bottle of water is kept within reach of the person sitting in the passenger seat whose job is to attend to every whim of the driver (including providing sparkling conversation on those sleepy stretches)!

A staple of ours in the snack department is a crunchy homemade mix made with puffed rice and nuts. This snack is also very satisfying for long hikes when the body craves something salty!

A crunchy snack made of puffed rice and nuts ideal for hiking and road trips

So, here is the recipe for the crunchy puffed rice snack with nuts that will leave you craving for more and more!

Recipe for a crunchy hiking snack mix with puffed rice and nuts
[Printable Recipe]

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup puffed rice (for eg. Quaker Cereal Essential Puffed Rice Cereal. If you are sensitive to gluten, make sure it is certified gluten-free)
  • 1 cup flattened or beaten rice (for eg. Organic Beaten Rice (Poha – White) (If you cannot find this, substitute with another cup of puffed rice)
    • Note that both can be bought in an ethnic Indian grocery store as well as on amazon.com
  • 1 cup chopped nuts like almonds, walnuts, peanuts, pecans or any other nut you like
  • 2 Tbsp organic peanut oil or any oil of your choice
  • 1 inch piece ginger grated
  • 4-5 thai green chilies split in to two (optional if you can handle the heat)
  • A few sprigs of curry leaves, washed and patted dry (optional only if you can find it in an ethnic Indian grocery store)
  • 1 tsp rock salt or Himalayan Pink Salt (You can find Himalayan Pink Salt in natural foods stores also)
  • 1 tsp black pepper or paprika or a pinch of both
Ingredients for making a delicious crunchy snack
Method:
  • Preheat the oven to 325F
  • Combine the nuts on one tray and put it on the bottom shelf of the oven
  • Combine the puffed and flattened rice on one tray and place it on the top shelf of the oven
  • Bake for 10 mins and check once in the middle to make sure nothing is burnt.  The rice should be golden brown but not burnt.
  • Turn over the contents on each tray with a spatula
  • Bake for 5 more mins if needed.  Set both trays aside to cool
  • Heat the oil in a wok and add the grated ginger and green chilies
  • When the moisture is cooked out of the ginger and chilies in about 2-3 minutes, add the curry leaves and cook for about 2 mins
  • Add the baked contents from the two trays (puffed and flattened rice, and nuts) to the wok and mix and switch off the heat
  • Season with salt and pepper (add more or less per your taste) and mix thoroughly
  • Store in airtight containers or in little baggies to carry on your road trip!
A crunchy snack made with puffed rice and nuts ideal for hiking and road trips
What are your favorite vegetarian road trip snacks?  Do let us know as we are always looking for new ideas!
A crunchy snack made with puffed rice and nuts ideal for hiking and road trips
by Veggie Sutra

The Wok Shop in China Town, San Francisco (and How to Season a Cast-iron Wok)

V and I celebrated eight years of being together in my most favorite city in the world.  We are lucky to have San Francisco, the beautiful City by the Bay, right in our backyard.

Cable car on San Francisco’s picturesque hilly street

It was serendipitous that we had just picked up the April issue of San Francisco Magazine, devoted entirely to Chinese culture and politics in the City.  V has an utter fascination for anything Chinese and hence read it cover-to-cover and came across a piece called “The Wok Shop Abides” about Tane Chan’s unique shop in China Town.  The article reported that it is arguably the best place in the country to not only buy a wok but also to learn how to use one.

China Town, San Francisco

We love cooking Chinese stir-fries, and since the carbon-steel wok that we used was a constant source of frustration to both of us, we decided to shop for a new one.  Woks have a characteristic round-shaped bottom allowing vegetables to be cooked quickly over high heat using the tossing method, retaining the crispness and nutrients.

Vegetarian Szechuan Stir Fry with Seitan 

After a welcome spell of rain had washed the streets clean, V and I woked, oops, I mean walked into “The Wok Shop” on Grant Avenue, the main China Town thoroughfare.  The signs for the shop can’t be missed, but the shop itself is small and crammed with cooking implements and other novelties.  We saw woks of different kinds (cast-iron and carbon-steel) right up front and we informed the lady behind the counter that we were there to buy a cast-iron wok.  She immediately disappeared to the back of the store and came back with Randy.  It didn’t seem like they were just going to take our money and hand us a wok!

The Wok Shop in China Town, San Francisco

Randy was an intelligent-looking articulate man with a good sense of humor who was dead-serious about woks.  We told him that our current wok was misbehaving.  He looked alarmed and immediately concluded (might I say, incorrectly) that we had not seasoned our wok properly.  In any case, he decided that we had to be schooled in how to properly season a wok before he deemed us worthy of owning one!  

We are grateful that he wok’ed us (ok, last time I use this pun, I promise!) through the process of selecting, seasoning and maintaining a traditional Chinese cast-iron wok.  He spent a great deal of time answering our questions patiently, showing an apparent pride in his wares.  Only in China, he said, had they figured out even 3000 years back how to make such a thin gauge wok using cast iron.  For example, compare it to the American Lodge cast iron pan and the South Indian “vaanali” which are both fairly thick.   (Carbon-steel woks are also thin but we were not interested in one and we wouldn’t touch a non-stick one with a 10-foot pole.)  Properly seasoned, Randy told us, a cast iron wok would behave like a non-stick one.

Our new unseasoned cast-iron Chinese wok and bamboo brush

Method for seasoning and maintaining a traditional Chinese cast-iron wok
As told to us by Randy at The Wok Shop in China Town, San Francisco

Seasoning a brand-new wok:

  1. Scrub the wok with a stiff bamboo brush and wash with water to remove debris and iron dust
  2. Wipe off the water with a cloth and let it air dry completely
  3. Coat the inside and outside of the wok with a thin layer of any oil with a high smoke point (not olive oil!)  Randy seemed to prefer organic flax seed oil which is what we used.
  4. Place inside an oven pre-heated at 450F for 20 minutes to polymerize the oil
  5. Let it cool
  6. Repeat steps 3,4 and 5 a second time around to season the wok very well
  7. After the wok has cooled, place the wok over high heat on the stove and cook a chopped yellow onion tossing it up and down along the sides of the wok until charred.  Randy told us that his father who was a Chinese restaurant chef for years insisted on using an yellow onion although some sources may suggest other vegetables
  8. Discard the charred onion and clean the wok with hot water and the stiff bamboo brush
  9. It is ready for use now!

Seasoning a cast-iron wok with yellow onion

Cleaning the wok after use:

  1. Clean under running hot water using a stiff bamboo brush to remove any stuck food
  2. Wipe and dry thoroughly
To maintain the wok:
  1. Once in a while, cook an yellow onion in the wok and discard.  This will re-season the wok.
  2. The non-stickiness of the wok may sometimes be lost due to rough use and non-use.  In that case, it is okay to season the wok using the steps above for a new wok
  3. Never cook with acidic ingredients such as tomatoes, tamarind, lemon juice, vinegar etc. in the cast-iron wok.  (Meaning, you cannot simmer marinara sauce in your wok!)
  4. At least for the first year or so avoid slow cooking in the wok, such as steaming, poaching, etc. 

Here’s another take on seasoning a wok from the kitchn where they prefer a carbon-steel wok: How to buy and season a new wok
If you are more curious even after all this reading, check out this book: The Breath of a Wok: Unlocking the Spirit of Chinese Wok Cooking through Recipes and Lore by Grace Young who is mentioned in the article on the kitchn.

If you are not lucky enough to live within driving distance of San Francisco, don’t fret!  You can buy the wok online!  (Although you will definitely miss the wonderful experience of talking to the wok experts.)

Randy sold us a wok, a bamboo cleaning brush, a wok chuan (spatula) and a wok ring (so that the wok does not wobble on the stove) for a little over $30.   And I bought a few other things as well, like the lotus-shaped dessert cups which I have been on the look out for a long time!

Our seasoned cast-iron wok, ready for use!

We are excited with our newly seasoned wok and will be posting wok recipes soon!  Until then!

by Veggie Sutra

A Vegetarian in Taipei

How can one be apprehensive of being a vegetarian in a city which has a posted warning “For vegetarians only”!   Yes, this was posted on one of the buffet dishes at the hotel I was staying at. Taipei made me feel entirely comfortable on a recent business trip and not too out of place for being a vegetarian.

There was “Congee” for my morning breakfast with toppings like spring onion.  (This is essentially the same as what is known as “kanji” in Tamil, i.e. rice porridge).   Also, most restaurants served vegetarian dishes marked by the symbol below:

素

Not to mention every major American chain restaurant seems to be thriving in the city – Chilis, Macaroni Grill, Subway, et al.

But let me mention a couple of memorable meals I had in Taipei.

Part 1: In the heart of a bustling city that never sleeps
The first was at a chain restaurant called “Din Tai Fung Dumpling House” at the famous “Taipei 101” which at one point was the tallest building in the world, now surpassed by the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.

Taipei 101

This chain is gaining popularity in the U.S. as well with branches in Seattle and Los Angeles.  The Din Tai Fung in Taipei is the first one I have been to.  The waiting line apparently is quite long even on week nights, but we got there early enough and our wait was just 20 mins or so.   

Din Tai Fung at Taipei 101

Inside you can see fresh dumplings being made through the glass and the smell wafts all over the restaurant as waiters carry bamboo trays of steaming dumplings to the tables.

Making their famous dumplings at Din Tai Fung in Taipei

My host ordered several vegetarian dishes, and I did not have to study the menu at all.  Out of curiosity since I had enjoyed the meal so much, I looked at the English menu online afterwards.

We started with noodles in peanut sauce which was divine and made me miss V as he loves anything peanut.   We ordered this with a side of sauteed spinach in garlic and sauteed kang kung in shallots.

Noodles in peanut sauce (Din Tai Fung)
Sauteed Kang Kung with garlic (Din Tai Fung)

Then we ordered several trays of dumplings and one of them was vegetarian that I totally laid dibs on. It had a flavorful green filling but I am not sure what it was made of.  It is supposed to be dipped in a dish with grated ginger in soy sauce and popped in to the mouth whole.   This was divine and I could have easily eaten one more tray!

Vegetarian Steamed Dumpling (Din Tai Fung)

We ended the meal with dessert buns with taro and sesame filling and I didn’t think this was nothing to write home about.

Sweet Taro Bun and Red Bean Bum (Din Tai Fung)


2. A home-cooked meal in the heart of Taipei
The second memorable meal was at a colleague’s place in Taipei, not too far from Taipei 101.  He has a cook come in twice a week and apparently her vegetarian dishes are healthy and abundant.   Indeed, she had prepared a lovely meal for all of us and we ate in a relaxed homely manner, chatting around the table.

The vegetarian dishes served with warm brown rice in a bowl included a “Tofu soup”, a “Cabbage-Mushroom Stir Fry” and a “Bok Choy Stir Fry”.   I love the way the vegetables were prepared with minimal spices and left a little under-cooked so that the vegetables shone bright green and were crisp to the bite.  Feast your eyes on the pics!!

Tofu Soup and Bok Choy Stir Fry

Cabbage Mushroom Stir Fry

When I came back from my trip and told V about the home-cooked meal in Taipei, he immediately wanted to invite my Taiwanese colleague to our place to sample V’s Chinese cooking!  V takes pride in making excellent stir fries and his kung pao with tofu is to die for!   One of these days, I will post the recipe.

Taipei also boasts of several night markets which serve food late in to the night, but not knowing the language, I wasn’t sure if there was any way for me to validate the pure vegetarianism of a dish and hence did not venture to one for a meal.   Let me know if any of you have been brave enough to try!