vegetables

Five Ways to Eat When You’re Eating Less Meat

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For about six weeks this winter, I didn’t eat any beef, chicken, or pork, as I experimented with some new flavors and learned a few new ways to cook vegetables. My change in diet wasn’t for any particular health-related or religious reason, and I don’t have an especially strong moral or environmental objection to eating meat. Rather, it was just something to shake up my routine during the late stages of the pandemic. If you’re considering eating less meat, here are five strategies that worked for me. While I certainly might have enjoyed a tasty burger from time to time, these foods helped give me enough variety that I didn’t feel like I was missing anything.

1) Eat more fish

Most of the seafood I eat tends to come in sushi form, but during my meat hiatus I mixed things up by checking out a couple of fish markets for the first time. Seattle Fish Guys in the Central District offers a wide selection of fresh fish as well as poke bowls and chowder, but also serves up a delectable, if a bit messy, crab sub on a toasted bun with green onion, Japanese mayo, and Sriracha.  I also enjoyed a Dungeness crab roll at Market Fishmonger & Eatery in Edmonds. The sandwich is stuffed with fresh crabmeat, served on a warm Macrina bun, and topped with arugula, house aioli, and brown butter. For a familiar taste, I also visited my favorite poke spot in Wallingford, 45th Stop N Shop, for an always-delightful bowl filled with salmon, izumidai, rice, greens, seaweed salad, Japanese pickles, and more.

Meanwhile, I also used this time to cook more fish at home. For one dinner, I used one of the Omsom starters I wrote about in February to create a delicious Vietnamese lemongrass shrimp stir-fry. Recently, I pan-grilled scallops with a simple miso and mirin glaze. And I also ate some briny Kusshi and Kumamoto West Coast oysters with a classic mignonette.

2) Eat more Middle Eastern food

Falafel is your friend when you’re not eating meat, and Seattle has no shortage of great options. One of my favorite food finds recently has been Yalla in Capitol Hill, which describes its menu as having Palestinian, Egyptian, Lebanese, and Syrian roots. The falafel there were crispy outside and creamy inside, and the fermented turnip pickles that accompanied them provided a sharp contrast. I also tried the eggplant wrap called batinjan, served on homemade saj bread with tomatoes, olives, greens, and the fermented hot sauce known as shatta. (I tried making my own shatta as well, but the balance of tomatoes and chilies wasn’t quite right on my first attempt.)

Another great spot for falafel is Mean Sandwich in Ballard. In its “Midnight at the Oasis” sandwich, the deep-fried chickpea fritters are accompanied by hummus, harissa beets, and Persian pickles, and come with a side of salt-and-pepper seasoned potato skins. And I also tried the falafel plate at Iyad’s Syrian Grill, a food truck that operates four days a week at lunchtime on Vashon Island, and serves its specialty with hummus as well as salad and pita.

At home, I cooked a few dishes from Yotam Ottolenghi’s cookbooks, including asparagus and gochujang pancakes, cucumber salad with sumac-marinated onions, and “ultimate roasting-pan ragu” with oyster and dried porcini mushrooms, miso paste, and rose harissa. While I enjoyed the complex flavors in the sauce, this was one recipe where lentils weren’t really an adequate substitute for ground beef. A more successful cooking experiment was shakshuka, which I made from a New York Times recipe featuring avocado, lime, and feta. It’s a Middle Eastern dish which in this preparation has both Mediterranean and Mexican flavors, and stars the subject of my next category.

3) Eat more eggs

According to French legend, a chef’s hat known as a toque is said to have 100 folds, representing a hundred different ways to cook eggs. And the versatility of eggs that I wrote about last week is incredibly helpful for people who are eating less meat. I won’t recount all of the suggestions from that post, but it’s possible to eat different preparations of eggs for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert, and never run out of ideas. Over the past six weeks I’ve particularly enjoyed the deviled eggs at Junebaby in Ravenna, which were part of an Easter takeout feast,  and khachapuri, the Georgian bread boat topped with a barely-cooked egg, at Skalka downtown.

4) Eat more Asian food

Seattle is fortunate to have an incredible diversity of Asian restaurants, and all of these cuisines have plenty of options that cater to diners who are eating less meat. Over the past six weeks I’ve enjoyed the royal biryani (with shrimp) and mango curry (with tofu) from Taste of India in the University District, a catfish banh mi from the Vietnamese Le’s Deli and Bakery in Rainier Valley, and fancy rolls from Sam’s Sushi in Ballard. And on weekend excursions outside of Seattle, I’ve also eaten a handful of Chinese and Thai dishes without feeling like I was giving anything up by not including meat as my protein.

I’ve also made good use of Asian flavors in a few recipes I’ve cooked at home this winter, including two dishes from Christopher Kimball’s new cookbook called Cookish: green beans with ginger and coconut milk, and rice pudding with star anise and cinnamon.

5) Eat more fresh produce

One final suggestion to expand your dietary repertoire is to cook dishes that include a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, using seasonal produce and fresh herbs whenever possible. Over the past few weeks, I’ve made risotto using a technique by Kenji Lopez-Alt that featured mushrooms, as well as a spectacular asparagus, goat cheese, and tarragon tart, and a tangy, fresh mango gazpacho. And I topped my homemade pizza with fresh basil and lots of mozzarella.

You might have noticed that during my recap of six weeks without eating meat, I never mentioned trying the Impossible Burger or other fake-meat substitutes. While these might be great choices for some people, I never felt like I was lacking for options for delicious things to eat, even if they didn’t look or taste like beef or chicken.

Now that my meat hiatus is over, I’m sure that I’ll continue to regularly incorporate fish, eggs, produce, and Middle Eastern and Asian flavors into my diet. But I couldn’t wait to sink my teeth into a plate of fried chicken, a grilled pork banh mi, and a juicy burger. I’ve missed my tasty, meaty friends.

What are your favorite ways to change up your diet by eating less meat? Leave a comment and let me know!

To get updates on new posts, you can follow me @seattlefoodhound on Instagram, or @seafoodhound on Twitter.

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What I Ate: Asparagus, goat cheese, and tarragon tart

When you're eating less meat this asparagus and goat cheese tart is a great recipe to try

Six New Ways to Cook Vegetables and Bring Variety to the Table

SeattleFoodHound Cooking, Videos ,

Regular readers to this blog may know that I’ve been trying to eat less meat and reminding myself that once-hated vegetables taste great when they’re properly cooked. But when you’re spending a lot of time in the kitchen, it’s far too easy to fall into the same ruts of blanching broccoli, grilling asparagus, and steaming green beans. That’s why I was excited to come across Thomas Keller’s series of instructional videos about new ways to cook vegetables on MasterClass. Keller demonstrates a few less familiar techniques for working with carrots, parsnips, eggplants, zucchini, beets, and more, using methods that help bring out the best flavor and texture from each ingredient.

Keller explains that it’s worthwhile to select vegetables when they’re at their seasonal peak, especially while they’re young (i.e., newly picked), and to use the cooking method that’s most appropriate for each one. For preparations like roasting zucchini or baking beets, the cooking process aims to remove moisture from the vegetable, which helps concentrate their flavor. Keller also discusses how different methods of preservation can make good-quality vegetables available to you even when they’re not in season.

Here are few of the new ways to cook vegetables that I’m looking forward to inserting into my rotation:

  • Glazing carrots: This method highlights the vegetable’s natural sweetness. Cook your carrots over high heat, with just enough water to cover them, and a teaspoon each of butter and sugar. The water will evaporate as the butter emulsifies and the glaze reduces. Don’t overcook the carrots or you’ll start to caramelize the sugars instead of leaving the vegetable shiny.
  • Pureeing parsnips: For this root vegetable, as well as others like rutabaga or celery root, Keller suggests simmering it in a pot with cream and water. Once it’s fully cooked, transfer the vegetable and its cooking liquid to a blender. Add butter and process until it’s completely smooth.
  • Roasting zucchini: First, slice the vegetable in half, score it with a crosshatch pattern, season it with salt, and let it sit for half an hour to draw out the moisture. Then, sear the flesh in a hot pan with neutral oil for about five minutes. After the zucchini is well-caramelized, roast it in a hot oven for another 25 minutes, which makes the interior come out soft and creamy.
  • Baking beets: This technique is preferable to boiling beets, but it may take a while, depending on the size of your vegetables. After you clean them, season, and sprinkle with oil, wrap them in foil and bake until you can insert a knife and feel very little resistance. Then, peel the beets while they’re still warm (using gloves to protect your hands from stains and parchment paper to cover your cutting board). Season with salt and dress with your favorite vinegar.
  • Preserving eggplants: Similar to a preparation you might use for duck, you can confit this vegetable by slow-cooking it in oil at a low temperature. First, as with zucchini, it’s best to score the eggplant and season it before cooking to draw out as much moisture as possible. Place it in a baking pan, cover with warm, neutral oil, and cook at 300 degrees for about 45 minutes. You can add flavor to the dish by using the same technique to preserve garlic. The vegetables will keep in the refrigerator for up to a week if they’re stored submerged in oil.
  • Pickling radishes: You can endlessly vary this preservation technique by using different vegetables and flavor profiles for your pickling liquid. In one preparation, just combine water, sugar, white wine vinegar, garlic, thyme, and mustard seeds in a pot and simmer until the sugar is dissolved. Then pour the hot liquid over your vegetables (radishes, peppers, onions, and cauliflower all work well) and chill in the refrigerator until you’re ready to eat.

With each of these techniques, make sure you have the right amount of seasoning to bring out the best flavor of each ingredient. And to make your vegetables taste even better, it’s often worthwhile to complement them with additional fresh herbs. Or, for many preparations, you can’t go wrong with some extra melted butter.

What are your favorite new ways to cook vegetables? Leave a comment and let me know!

What I Ate: Roasted zucchini garnished with parsley

Roasting zucchini is one of my new favorite ways to cook vegetables

Why You Need to Give Brussels Sprouts Another Chance

SeattleFoodHound Cooking

I can’t think of a vegetable more people grew up hating than the lowly brussels sprout. They would usually go straight from the freezer into a pot of boiling water, from which they emerged in a grayish, overcooked clump without any distinct flavor except one. Bitterness. The brussels sprouts of the 1970s and 1980s weren’t typically prepared well, and they didn’t taste good.

Fortunately, many adults today have learned how to properly cook and season vegetables, and there are more options for fresh produce than many people had access to in decades past. But there’s an even more important reason that brussels sprouts aren’t as horrible as they used to be – the actual sprouts themselves are much less bitter, and much, much tastier.

What happened? In the 1990s, a Dutch scientist named Hans van Doorn, who was working at the company Novartis (which at the time included a seed division) was able to isolate the chemical compounds that made brussels sprouts taste bitter. Dutch seed companies then cross-bred old varieties of sprouts that had low levels of those chemicals with modern high-yield varieties. After several attempts in test plots, they discovered some crops that weren’t as bitter. Eventually, this resulted in varieties of brussels sprouts that became significantly more popular.

When you start with a less bitter vegetable, it’s much easier to cook it in ways that bring out its pleasing qualities. One technique that works wonders is to halve the sprouts, toss them with olive oil, and season with salt and pepper. Then, pop them into the oven to roast at a high temperature, which makes their leaves brown and crispy. (Cooking them in an air fryer would also work well.) To add a touch of sweetness, toss the roasted sprouts with balsamic vinegar and either honey or maple syrup.

The result is a well-seasoned, flavorful vegetable that, even with the salt, oil, and sugar, is still relatively good for you and will disappear from your dinner table like candy on the day after Halloween. But if you want to make sure that there won’t be any leftovers, there’s one easy way to make your brussels sprouts taste even better – just add bacon.  

What I Ate: Roasted brussels sprouts with balsamic and honey

Brussels sprouts are much tastier than they used to be, thanks to science

How Ottolenghi’s Intriguing Flavors Are Changing the Way I Eat

SeattleFoodHound Books, Cooking, Podcasts ,

Eleven months into the pandemic, it can sometimes be hard to feel enthusiastic about cooking. How many different ways are there to prepare chicken, anyway? But a new book by Jerusalem-born chef Yotam Ottolenghi has infused some new flavors into my kitchen that have inspired an experiment with eating differently – and perhaps, more healthfully.

Ottolenghi’s latest book, co-written with Ixta Belfrage, is called Flavor. Its recipes make use of 20 essential ingredients that layer a punch of heat, spice, or texture within Ottolenghi’s typically vegetable-forward creations. These flavors include chiles (aleppo, ancho, cascabel, and chipotle), fish sauce, gochujang (fermented soybean paste), mango pickle, miso, rose harissa, tamarind paste, and more. You can find each of these ingredients online or in local specialty markets, and they add complexity, variety, and depth to the Middle Eastern flavors for which Ottolenghi is typically known.

The book’s three major sections describe how to transform vegetables with cooking processes (charring, browning, infusing, and aging), how to pair them with other flavors to bring out their intrinsic qualities, and how to get the most out of different types of produce, keeping them at the center of individual dishes. Ottolenghi’s “ultimate roasting-pan ragu” recipe develops a rich umami flavor with the use of both oyster and dried porcini mushrooms, as well as miso paste and tomato paste, and also includes a complex heat from the addition of rose harissa. And using cumin seeds, soy sauce, and coconut cream helps steer the dish in the direction of Asia, a surprising turn for those used to making a meaty, typically Italian Bolognese like Marcella Hazan’s well-regarded sauce.

As is customary for Ottolenghi, the number of elements included in some of his dishes can turn a recipe that seems easy into a cooking project. When I made his asparagus and gochujang pancakes the other night, it involved mixing a dipping sauce, toasting sesame seeds, chopping vegetables, making a batter, cooking pancakes individually, and garnishing them with cilantro. Sure, you could simplify the recipe, but would the results be as delicious or as visually interesting?

Ottolenghi argues that the extra effort helps his recipes move beyond just tasting good. He expanded upon his cooking philosophy on a recent episode of the Milk Street Radio podcast with Christopher Kimball. Ottolenghi said that his recipes are designed to look appealing, with an emphasis on visual contrast. “I hate a boring meal, even if the level of cooking is exquisite … A smooth soup with nothing in it is kind of my idea of hell,” Ottolenghi said. That aesthetic is also something he brings to his restaurants, like his takeout shop in London’s Notting Hill that I visited in 2019. His dishes are presented on large, colorful platters, which he says recreates the feeling of the souks he grew up near in Jerusalem.  

Inspired by the interesting flavor combinations and appealing look of the recipes in Ottolenghi’s new cookbook, I’ve decided to experiment this winter with eating less meat. Instead, I’ll look to gain satisfaction from using a variety of produce as well as some of his essential flavors that are less familiar to me. I’m eager to try Ottolenghi’s ultimate ragu, as well as meatless schnitzels made with romano peppers, and tacos that are filled with celery root and a date barbecue sauce that contains black garlic and smoked paprika.

And if these dishes start to feel like too much effort for a weeknight dinner? Well, I’m also a fan of Ottolenghi’s 2018 cookbook, Simple. His cauliflower, pomegranate, and pistachio salad is something I can whip together quickly. And when I’m ready to switch things up again, it seems like that dish would go great with some lamb and feta meatballs.

What I Ate (A Few Days Ago): Ottolenghi’s asparagus and gochujang pancakes

Asparagus and gochujang pancakes by Ottolenghi pack a world of flavor into a small bite