Month: June 2021

Vegan Miso Butter Noodles (two ways)

7 Comments

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Somewhere in the last ten years, two things happened: food blogs became more homogenised – facsimiles of facsimiles which trade strenuous perkiness for any discernible personality. And people on Twitter started complaining about food blogs, usually with the cadence of a joke but an absence of actual humour. “Get to the recipe, Karen”, they say, “I just want to know how to make pancakes, I don’t need to hear your life story. Don’t make me scroll through five paragraphs on your year abroad in the Tuscan hills and how it gave you a new appreciation for the mysteries of olive oil.” Everyone words it as though they’re the first person to be affronted by scrolling through a blog to find the recipe. Even Mindy Kaling tweeted this tired joke, and I know she knows how to be funny! (She since deleted it.)

Spend enough time ploughing in the Discourse Salt Mines and you’ll find insufferable takes on both sides (although anecdotal irritation doesn’t preclude one side from usually being considerably in the right.) For every re-tread of this same snide joke, there are a dozen earnest responses about valuing women’s labour (a valid point) and how bloggers get paid greater ad revenue if their posts are longer, or that Google SEO prioritises particular keywords and structures, or other words that mean nothing to me because my blog doesn’t earn me a cent and it’s too late to reverse-engineer any attention from Google’s finicky SEO.

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Yes, that’s certainly an explanation as to why these rictus-grin food blogs chant the same interchangeable phrases over and over, and my issue with them is that the writing is bad, not that I have to wade through it to get to the recipe – but my question is, why aren’t all the complainers simply reading better food blogs? And why are they so brutishly averse to even a shred of context and back story – who could possibly hate context? Imagine two marshmallows: one is sitting on a plastic plate on the floor in a room dimly lit by a flickering bulb, the second marshmallow is on a china plate on a tablecloth lit by candles with kittens roaming about and a sign saying “this marshmallow is delicious and hand-made using local ingredients” – which marshmallow do you think most people would choose? That’s context, baby! (I realise I accidentally made the first marshmallow sound cool as hell, but hopefully, you get what I was going for.) And even the most unreadable food blog is still providing you with a service, for free, that you could get elsewhere but you didn’t, because they made it easier for you – and I recognise how in their own bizarre bloodless way, these food blogs are as much social history as anything I’ll ever write or any food writer I love will ever come up with. They’re documenting a specific time when the tyranny of SEO flattened –

Okay, I also recognise the irony of kicking off such a blog post with absolutely no sign of the recipe in sight.

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This dichotomy of food blogs and those who consume them is always on my mind and the simplicity of today’s recipe for Miso Butter Noodles was what tied it all together for me and started this rant. Literally, just the simplicity: I was like, I have to reassure the readers that this is simple and they shouldn’t expect too much of it, but also that its minimal ingredients aren’t a mark of success in and of themselves and this is simple because it needs to be – and then I started spiralling – and, well, here we are. I feel like I’ve got more to say about food blogs and the space they take up, and perhaps one day I’ll revisit these opening paragraphs and expand upon them, but for now, I’ll start actually talking about the recipe since you’ve already scrolled this far, and I hear that scrolling is an exhausting task.

In 2013 my cookbook was published by Penguin, when writing the manuscript the recipe for Miso Butter Noodles was perhaps the easiest to commit to paper; it’s definitely the recipe I’ve made most since. In taking this favourite and recreating it to be vegan-friendly I knew I couldn’t just sub in vegan butter – aka margarine – or at least, not until I meet a brand my tastebuds can trust – and while you absolutely could use a homemade vegan butter, I didn’t want to presume such forward-thinking of you. If you’re coming to this recipe, you can make it on the spot using store-cupboard ingredients.

@hungryandfrozen

vegan miso butter noodles 🤠 recipe at hungryandfrozen.com #noodles #veganrecipes #miso #butter #nzfood #easyvegan #comfortfood #fyp #almondbutter #fy

♬ The Ballad of Marion Zioncheck – Left at London

The salty, grainy savoury vibe of miso and the rich oiliness of butter make perfect sense together, and I knew there had to be a way to translate that to a vegan recipe without compromise. The result kind of is a compromise, in that I offer two versions: one simply using almond butter, which coats the noodles pleasingly and matches the depth and body of the miso. The second method – my preferred one – fools a few ingredients into acting like butter – coconut oil for fat, soy milk for protein, and vinegar to coagulate. Heating this together with miso paste makes for a more delicate and subtle yet surprisingly, genuinely buttery sauce, and each fat noodle strand is all the more delicious for it.

This is a very simple recipe and it tastes simple – it’s meant to! Feel free to augment any ingredients to make the balance work for you, and definitely add chilli if you want – I love it with Lao Gan Ma chilli in oil, but sriracha or chilli flakes would be friendly too – or garlic sauce, or soy sauce, or kimchi, or fried tofu, or wilted greens. It started life in the cookbook as the sort of meal you could rustle up for yourself while tired, tipsy, or both, and in the years hence it’s slid into pure comfort food territory – it soothes because it’s easy to make, it soothes because it’s salty and oily. I’m glad to have it back.

(PS: speaking of comfort food and things we’re glad to have back, I finally concluded season 1 of my Frasier food blog; to prepare I rewatched the episode under the most perfect of settings: it was raining, it was Sunday and I didn’t have anywhere to be the next day, and I was eating a bowl of these noodles.)

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Vegan Miso Butter Noodles

A revamp of a favourite comfort food recipe from my 2013 cookbook. I offer two variations depending on your ingredients and effort level – but neither version asks too much of you. As you can see this is an incredibly simple recipe: add anything you like to make it more your own. I can definitely recommend a large spoonful of Lao Gan Ma chilli in oil, but then I would recommend that for literally anything you’re eating. Recipes by myself.

Version 1: Almond Butter

This is the simplest of the two simple recipes – a little stirring and you’re done. Make the sauce in the bowl you intend to eat the noodles from for even faster results.

  • 1 x 200g package udon noodles
  • 2 heaped tablespoons almond butter
  • 1 heaped tablespoon white miso paste
  • chives to serve

1: Place the noodles in a bowl and cover with boiling water. Let them sit for five or so minutes until they’ve softened. If you have a preferred way of cooking your noodles then do that instead, this is the slovenly habit I’ve fallen into (in my mind, if the bowl has just had hot water and noodles in it, it only needs a rinse before going back in the drawer…perhaps I’ve said too much but it is what it is.)

2: Whisk the almond butter and miso paste together, using a spoonful or two of the noodle water to loosen it into a smooth paste. Drain the noodles and fold in the miso-almond butter sauce. Taste to see if it needs more miso paste and then snip over your chives with kitchen scissors or finely chop them and sprinkle them over. Serves 1.

Version 2: Quick Emulsion

I need to come up with a more appealing name than “quick emulsion” but that’s what this is – you’re basically tricking these ingredients into acting like butter. Anyway, it’s very fast and gives a more subtle, delicate sauce – of the two, this is my favourite version, but they’re both delicious.

  • 1 x 200g package udon noodles
  • 1/4 cup soy milk
  • 1 teaspoon vinegar of your choice (I used Chinkiang black vinegar)
  • 2 tablespoons refined coconut oil
  • 1 heaped tablespoon miso paste
  • chives, to serve

1: Prepare the udon noodles as above, or to your preference. Meanwhile, place the soy milk, vinegar, coconut oil and miso paste in a small saucepan and stir over low heat until it’s bubbling slightly and all the ingredients have combined to form a cohesive sauce. Drain the noodles and stir them into the sauce, then top with the finely chopped chives. Serves 1.

Note: if you have homemade vegan butter (eg this recipe or this recipe) then you can melt as much of that as you like together with a heaped tablespoon of miso paste and stir that through your noodles for an excellent time. If you have a store-bought vegan butter that you genuinely love and trust, then use that instead, too, and if you live in NZ please tell me the brand name because I want to know what love is!

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music lately:

Looking For Someone by 8 Eyed Spy. The film-noir horns and Lydia Lunch’s voice both have this incredible mix of bombastic yet careless, I love it so much.

The Key The Secret by Urban Cookie Collective, this song is simply pinging with unreal levels of euphoria – when Diane Charlemagne goes from “I’ve got the key, I’ve got the secret” to “I’ve got the key, I’ve got the secret” – that’s the sound of living!

Freedom! ’90 by George Michael. Those piano chords…that bridge…those supermodels…my life would be NOTHING without this song, that’s all there is to it!

PS: If you like my writing and wish to support me directly, there’s no better way than by stepping behind the claret velvet VIP curtain of my Patreon. Recipes, reviews, poetry, updates, secrets, stories, all yours on a monthly basis.

vegan green garlic oyster mushrooms

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There is meat, and there is fake meat, and then there are vegetables widely considered to be meaty substitutes: the mushroom, the jackfruit, the cauliflower sliced into steaks, tofu (it was once a soybean! It’s basically a vegetable.) “Meaty” is a crown heavy with expectation to place upon these vegetables – especially the poor cauliflower steak. Can’t they just be vegetables, you might ask, must they dance for us so?

Divorcing the concept of meat-proximity takes a lot of unlearning – at least, for me, as someone who grew up with meat-and-three-veg as the guiding framework for a successful meal, even if l’m pretty sure 90% of what I actually ate was two minute noodles – but I’m not offended if someone says that mushrooms are “meaty”, in fact, it remains a useful term. They are meaty, in that they have heft and cellular density, they’re comfortable in a starring role and their flavour is savoury, pure and inarguable. It would be wonderful if one day the relationship between meat and the adjective “meaty” was entirely etymological, by which I mean, we know it once referred to dead animals and now it refers to vegetables but remains informed by that memory – at least I think that’s what I mean – and till that day comes where we high-five with the cows and skip merrily with the lambs in the fields and know every chicken in the world on a first-name basis, one way to get that ball rolling is to just…eat more mushrooms. Or any other so-called meaty vegetables.

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For example, this recipe for Green Garlic Oyster Mushrooms. If the creaturely spore-cloud forest-floor aspect of buttons and portobellos leaves you disquieted, oyster mushrooms may just be your gateway fungus. Their fan-shaped bods have a calmer, more subtle flavour and their texture once cooked is hearty and chewy, more so than you’re expecting. Unfortunately I’ve never seen oyster mushrooms in any chain supermarkets in New Zealand but if you have an Asian supermarket within a reasonable radius they should be available there – that’s where I found mine and bought a bag the size of my head just to be safe.

In the recipe I have for you today, these oyster mushrooms are roasted till crisped at the edges then smothered in a smashed up mixture of herbs, pumpkin seeds, lime, olive oil, double garlic in both shoot and clove form, and mushroom soy sauce (for synergy! And also because it’s unbelievably delicious.) It’s sticky and messy and oily and salty and pinging with exuberant greenness, an absolute feast of garlic flavour without burning your throat or making your eyes water. And the texture – there’s crunch, there’s that magic chewiness combined with a silky yielding quality in every mouthful.

@hungryandfrozen

chewy sticky garlicky and delicious 🍃🧄🍄 #recipevideo #veganrecipes #veganfoodblog #plantbased #mushroom #garlic #homemade #nzfood #fyp #delicious

♬ 30 Century Man – Scott Walker

This dish is versatile: you can eat the mushrooms as they are, or force them into a veg-and-three-veg tableau, or drape them on top of rice or stir them through pasta or divide them between tacos; I imagine they’d be great clamped between a bread roll as a kind of verdant sloppy joe, they’d definitely be perfect with polenta in any format. I didn’t have any leftovers but I know in my heart these mushrooms will be incredible cold the next morning, which in turn leads me to suspect they would, freshly cooked, also be wonderful in any kind of breakfast-related capacity – alongside a scramble, on toast, as part of a big fry-up. And while this recipe won’t work the same without using the oyster variety, I definitely wouldn’t turn down button mushrooms fried till very golden brown before adding this same green sauce to the pan and letting it sizzle till it feels done.

Mushrooms, wrote Alicia Kennedy in her newsletter edition devoted to them, “help us to remember the role of our food in the life cycle of the planet.” She continued: “here is food, freely available, fruiting as an expression of waste and decay. The earth gives even in death.” Who could resist such a metal description? Truly the food of mavericks and heroes!

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Green Garlic Oyster Mushrooms

Sticky and garlicky, these roasted mushrooms smothered in green sauce are so delicious and super versatile. Use the flared, fan-shaped oyster mushrooms for this recipe – save any thick stems or the King variety for another day. Recipe by myself.

  • 500g oyster mushrooms (more is fine)
  • 3 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1/4 cup flour (or you can use cornflour/cornstarch)
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper
  • pinch salt
  • 1/2 a bunch garlic shoots (roughly 1 cup, chopped)
  • 3 fat garlic cloves
  • a handful of curly parsley – about 1 cup loosely packed sprigs
  • 1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
  • 1/3 cup pumpkin seeds
  • zest and juice of one lime
  • 1 tablespoon mushroom soy sauce
  • 3 tablespoons olive oil, extra

1: Set your oven to 200C/400F and find a shallow-sided roasting tray – if the sides of the dish are too high the mushrooms will struggle to get crispy. I used one of those trays which comes with the oven and slots into the side runners to create a shelf. (If you’ve only got a high-sided oven dish and really need these mushrooms I’m sure they’ll end up still tasting good but I just want to mentally prepare you.) Drizzle two tablespoons of the first measure of olive oil on the tray.

2: Brush any dirt off the mushrooms with a paper towel or pastry brush and shred the larger mushrooms in half. Toss the mushrooms with the flour, salt, and white pepper and arrange them in one layer on the roasting dish. Alas, they will shrink, so don’t worry if it looks a little crowded at this point. Drizzle over the remaining tablespoon of olive oil and roast the mushrooms for twenty minutes, turning once halfway through. If your oven is anything like mine the mushrooms on the outer edges will crisp up and the mushrooms in the middle will stay serenely un-crisp, I advise re-arranging while also turning them over so everyone gets a go.

3: While the mushrooms are in the oven, make your green sauce. Roughly chop the garlic shoots into short lengths and drop them into a food processor along with the peeled garlic cloves, parsley, thyme leaves, pumpkin seeds, lime zest and juice, mushroom soy sauce and olive oil. Pulse briskly till the ingredients merge into a chunky salsa-type arrangement – you absolutely don’t want this pureed, but everything should leave smaller than it came in.

4: Remove the tray of mushrooms from the oven and spoon the green sauce evenly over them, tossing a little to get everything combined. As I said, the mushrooms will have significantly shrunk, but still spread them out into one even layer as opposed to piling them up. Return the tray to the oven for another ten to fifteen minutes, till the mushrooms are sticky and garlicky and at one with their sauce.

Serve these mushrooms however you like, whatever you do will be correct but will also affect how many servings there are – as a main this would serve two, but as a smaller part of something else it could definitely serve four. If you’re lucky enough to be alone, I wouldn’t reduce the quantities, just make it as is and enjoy your bounty of mushroom leftovers.

Notes:

  • Garlic shoots are usually available at Asian supermarkets – which is also where I found the oyster mushrooms – but if you can’t get hold of them, substitute a few spring onions instead and add a couple of extra garlic cloves.
  • The mushroom soy sauce (again, easily found at any Asian supermarket) makes all the difference – my favourite brand is Suree, I genuinely have to hold myself back from just drinking it. I know this sounds like the sort of exaggeration you’d expect from a food blog but I never exaggerate!! But if you can’t find it just use regular soy sauce or Maggi sauce instead.
  • You can use any other nut or seed instead of pumpkin but I liked the green-on-green – of course if you have pistachios, that would be wonderful, but pumpkin seeds are significantly cheaper, so.

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music lately:  

Distopian Dream Girl by Built to Spill, as sun-drenched and delicious as a shaved ice covered in blue syrup.

Back to Life (However Do You Want Me) by Soul II Soul. This is one of the first songs I heard on the radio where I was like damn, this is living, you know? Where I was aware of real-life music and not just pandering sing-song children’s stuff which I was generally suspicious of anyway. And no wonder it hit me so, Back To Life is a perfect song and Caron Wheeler’s voice is a dream, so is the airy, mellow production and it still sounds like the promise of a bigger world out there.

Rhythm of Life by Sammy Davis Junior from the film adaptation of the Broadway musical Sweet Charity. His star power is unreal and this song is so fantastic and euphoric and unhinged and my only fault with it is that the chorus should appear more than twice, oh well, guess I’ll just have to watch it thirty times in a row.

PS: If you like my writing and wish to support me directly, there’s no better way than by stepping behind the claret velvet VIP curtain of my Patreon. Recipes, reviews, poetry, updates, secrets, stories, all yours on a monthly basis.

vegan rhubarb panna cotta

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The alluring culinary dichotomy of sour and sweet is present in numerous fruits but enjoys arguably its prettiest expression in the vivid magenta blush of roasted rhubarb. And there’s nothing like adding a creamy, fat element to this – a tri-chotomy? I’m sorry! I know words have meaning! – to truly enhance its colour and flavour, like wearing an enormous fluffy coat with a tiny slip dress: there’s contrast and balance.

Now, you’d think my lack of object permanence would cause a container of roasted rhubarb to languish in the fridge, entirely forgotten before I’d even closed the door, but fortunately for all involved a secondary function of my brain kicked into gear, where I commence a random and often barely relevant task as if by automatism and wake up halfway through; in this case the morning after roasting the rhubarb I found myself, entirely without thinking, making a pink variation of the passionfruit panna cotta I rapturised about back in March.

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This is a delightful way to come up with new recipes – by taking an existing recipe I love and sliding in a new ingredient, mad-libs style. There is obviously no points system at play here but if there were I would give bonus credit to any such recipe where a half-assed, barely-thought-out replacement ingredient proved so deliciously perfect that at the very last minute I decided to blog about it. But subconsciously I must have known I was onto a winner because I divided most of the mixture between four glasses with a little extra in a fifth glass as a “tester” – surely the actions of a person who suspected they’d want to make sure the recipe worked so they could photograph the remaining desserts in an attractive tableau before the intermittent winter sunlight faded altogether. Also, I took videos of the cooking process for a TikTok which really makes it sound like this was all planned in advance but again: I can’t stress enough how many things I do without thinking! It’s possible! It’s horribly annoying! It’s rarely anything useful! Not once have I zoned in on myself industriously tidying my room or paying bills.

@hungryandfrozen

vegan rhubarb panna cotta 💖🌸🌺🌷🐷🎀💄👛🦩🩰 #vegan #veganrecipes #dessert #rhubarb #pink #howtomake #nzfood #nz #fyp #delicious #vibes #foodtok

♬ Ever New – Beverly Glenn-Copeland

Anyway, all I was trying to say before getting quagmired in the psychological journey is that I guess I knew this was going to be delicious but I was not prepared for just how exquisite it would taste! So let’s finally get to the important part: what does this rhubarb panna cotta taste like? I could and unfortunately will say things like “sherbet cloud” and “nights in pink satin” but to be more specific, the perfumed, green apple-raspberry vibes of the rhubarb become even more pronounced when roasted and cooled; this softened fruit near-on dissolves in the cream leaving nothing but tiny threads interrupting the otherwise plush smoothness, and each thread carries within it a tiny fizzy burst of candy sourness met but not dulled by the modest quantity of sugar. Draping it with more roasted rhubarb stops it from being too mellow and importantly, adds another shade of pink: we eat with our eyes and the sheer aesthetic power of this panna cotta leaves you full up before you can blink.

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I’m not sure if that accurately describes them or if I’ve ended up moving even further away from my point but the point is: these panna cotta taste incredible and you should make them today. And if you can’t get hold of rhubarb? Try the passionfruit version! There’s a sour-sweet dessert for all seasons! Also, I looked up the word ‘trichotomy’ and it’s actually real: my mind is always three steps ahead even when it’s two steps behind.

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Vegan Rhubarb Panna Cotta

Dreamy, pink and delicious. Recipe adapted from my Passionfruit Panna Cotta, which was, in turn, adapted slightly from this recipe at anisabet.com.au. Roasted rhubarb is a method suggested in numerous Nigella Lawson books, most recently Cook, Eat, Repeat. Makes 4-5 servings.

  • 500g pink rhubarb, cleaned and trimmed
  • 1/2 cup sugar, plus 1/3 cup extra
  • 1 x 400ml tin full-fat coconut cream
  • 1 teaspoon agar-agar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1: First, roast your rhubarb – slice each stick of rhubarb into smaller lengths, pack into a roasting dish in more or less a single layer, sprinkle over the half cup of sugar – and honestly, I didn’t actually measure it out, I just shook the bag of sugar over the rhubarb till it felt right and encourage you to do the same – then cover the tin tightly with tinfoil and place in a 180C/350F oven for thirty minutes. Allow the rhubarb to cool before decanting it, along with all the pink syrup that has formed, into a container and store in the fridge. This will make more than you need for the recipe but roasted rhubarb is always delightful to have on hand.

2: Scoop about 3/4 cup of the roasted rhubarb and syrup into a saucepan, along with the can of coconut cream and the extra 1/3 cup of sugar. Cook over low heat for a few minutes, without letting it come to a boil, stirring to break down the rhubarb.

3: Dissolve the agar-agar in a little cold water and spatula the lot into the pink rhubarb cream, stirring thoroughly to ensure there are no lumps. Keep stirring over a low heat – again, without letting it get anywhere near boiling – for another five or so minutes. It should thicken up slightly. Stir in the vanilla (you can really stir it in at any point along the way, I just remembered it now.)

4: Use a cup measure or ladle to divide this mixture between four or five small ramekins or pretty glasses. If you use four, you’ll get more, if you use five, you’ll get five panna cotta, it’s as simple as that. Refrigerate the panna cotta for a couple of hours – they set quite quickly, but I find the flavour grows stronger if you leave them overnight.

Serve with reserved roasted rhubarb and a little of the rhubarb syrup spooned over the top.

Notes:

  • Agar-agar is available at shops that sell vegan stuff and Asian supermarkets, it’s usually quite inexpensive at the latter. One teaspoon doesn’t sound like a lot to set all that liquid but it’s powerful stuff.
  • Use any leftover rhubarb on yoghurt and cereal, to top ice cream, add the syrup to cocktails, or just – make another batch of panna cotta!

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music lately:

Snow by Whipping Boy. I swear every dinner time a random forgotten shoegaze band will come up in conversation with my brother that I’ve never heard of and then I listen to them and it turns out they’re my new favourite band! Somehow we haven’t run out of shoegaze bands yet! This song came from Whipping Boy’s album Submarine, and I recommend listening to it all at once, but Snow has all the hallmarks of what makes the rest of the album excellent: a muffled, layered early 90s grimness coupled with remarkable, soaring beauty.

Supervixens by A.R Kane. Speaking of shoegaze; Spotify recently capitalised on the user-propelled free advertising they receive with their end-of-year listening summaries by delivering a distinctly half-hearted mid-year version, and yes, I knew I was being pandered to but unfortunately I love being told I’m special and when Spotify said: “who else but you would play Linda Eder after A.R Kane?” I was like yes, who indeed could do this? Well, now you can enjoy being special too. I’ve mentioned this song so many times on here already but I don’t care because I love it so much.

Don’t Rain On My Parade by Linda Eder. Look if you don’t have time, skip to 3 minutes and 10 seconds, the direction the notes go in compared to how utterly chill she appears to be delivering them is literally comparable to the Moon landing in terms of widespread cultural significance.

PS: If you like my writing and wish to support me directly, there’s no better way than by stepping behind the claret velvet VIP curtain of my Patreon. Recipes, reviews, poetry, updates, secrets, stories, all yours on a monthly basis.