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John's Vegetarian Blog Welcome to John's vegetarian blog at the Maison de Stuff. I also have a daily blog, but that tends to be rather cluttered up with all sorts of other things, so I thought it would be a good idea to start a separate blog purely about vegetarian stuff. I plan to fill this section with a mixture of information about vegetarian ingredients, recipes and restaurant reviews.
My email address is as above - I've put it in an image in a vein attempt to reduce the amount of spam I get.
| St. John - Surprisingly Good for Vegetarians Posted on 2010/07/10 16:08:34 As a vegetarian I had never really thought this would be my sort of place, with their "nose to tail" philosophy and everything. However I had heard from a woman I got talking to on a plane recently that apparently they always have something vegetarian on the menu, and it is always consistently good.The menu changes daily, having looked at the menu on a few different days in the run-up to our visit I'd seen that the vegetarian option changed wildly from one day to the next. On the actual day we went, it was a characteristically basic sounding "girolles on toast". It may come across as more of a starter or a light lunch sort of a meal, but this was actually an extremely satisfying main course - some excellent bread, some fantastic wild mushrooms, and a simple but very flavoursome (and perfectly seasoned) sauce of butter and herbs. I just loved this refreshingly minimalist and unfussy approach to cooking - all of the main course seemed to be just one or two things, using the best ingredients, perfectly cooked, on a simple white plate. This wasn't nouvelle cuisine or anything - the portions were all a reasonable size - it was just really good food paired down to the absolute bare essentials. I'm really looking forward to going back, and introducing more people to this exciting place. St. John Restaurant 26 St. John Street London EC1M 4AY United Kingdom [No comments] Peking Palace - Very Good Vegetarian Chinese Food Posted on 2010/07/10 16:06:03 I've had a vegetarian version of crispy duck in several places now, and this one was easily the best - they had really thought about the texture. Very tasty indeed.For our main course I chose the house special tom yam, the sizzling vegetarian "beef" in pepper sauce, and a tofu dish. The tom yam was the best of the three (and is marked on the menu as a house speciality) - a very rich and spicy, but also very fragrant and fresh tasting sauce. The lemongrass was particularly evident. The sizzling beef was very good too, a sort of richness often lacking from vegetarian dishes, again quite a piquant sauce but not overpoweringly so. I really liked the texture of the mock beef too. Overall very tasty food, and it also gave the impression of being quite healthy - none of the dishes were particularly oily, and there were lots of fresh vegetables along with the mock meats, but none of that at the cost of flavour - it was exactly the sort of rich, flavour intense food I like, but they'd manage to achieve this without any MSG, or excessive use of oil. Service was very good (the staff are lovely - very polite and attentive), and the price was almost embarrassingly low - a mere £32, and I left feeling absolutely stuffed. It's just a shame it's not a bit more central, or I think I'd be here every week! Peking Palace 669 Holloway Road London N19 5SE United Kingdom [No comments] Vegetarian Food in Devon and Cornwall Posted on 2010/07/02 18:10:45 I returned to Cornwall for a week's holiday this year with some culinary trepidation, having had a pretty disappointing time food-wise two year's earlier. However, I fared much better this time - whether the situation has actually improved from a vegetarian standpoint in the last two years, or whether we were just luckier in our choice of restaurants is hard to say.Highlights included:  Bustophers Bar Bistro Had a fritata here with sun dried tomatoes and goat's cheese, along with some very nice french fries. Made for a very nice light lunch, washed down with a glass of Camel Valley sparkling wine.
 The Old Watch House Restaurant A sort of sea-side cafe place in St. Mawes. Just had a late breakfast here, but I was pleased to see Quorn sausages on the menu. More often than not a vegetarian English breakfast is just a normal English breakfast with the meat taken off - I really liked that they'd made a bit of extra effort here.
 The Nare Hotel Ate lunch out on the terrace of the Quarterdeck restaurant here. There were two vegetarian options on the menu, the one I went for was an artichoke tagliatelli. It was tasty and quite substantial.
 Pandora Inn Just one vegetarian option on an otherwise very seafood themed menu, but luckily it was quite good - a very rich ratatouille.
 Peter Tavy Inn
We stayed a night on Dartmoor on the way back, and I was delighted to find an amazing three vegetarian options on the menu here - I think they had won awards for their vegetarian food in fact. I had a sort of aubergine bake - I have to admit I'm not normally a huge fan of aubergines, but these were very well cooked, in a rich and tasty sauce. Excellent pub food, accompanied by some excellent local cider.  Al-Farid In Exeter, where we stopped off for lunch on the way back. Really enjoyed the Moroccan mezze here, the hoummus was particularly good.
Here's a map of all the places we visited: View Holiday in Cornwall June 2010 in a larger map [No comments] Posted on 2010/07/02 17:55:00 One I sent to Sainsbury's a while back:I've been a bit bemused recently by the lack of selection of vegetarian pies/pasties at your stores. My local Sainsbury's is quite a large store by London standards, and yet in the fresh pie section there only seems to be a single filling available: cheese and onion. Bizarrely there appear to be four different formats of cheese and onion pastry products available - pies, rolls, pastry slices and pasties. These all strike me as being essentially the same thing! I find it really hard to believe that there isn't any demand from any of your other vegetarian customers for any pastry product other than the cheese and onion pie. I have occasionally seen a Linda McCartney vegetarian pie in the freezer section, but on the occasions I've tried this I have been fairly disappointed - I don't think pastry in this format responds well to freezing. Companies like Square Pie and Pieminister do some really interesting and good quality pies with vegetarian fillings (such as mushroom and asparagus). The West Cornwall Pasty Co. also do a couple of very good vegetarian pasty fillings (particularly the cheese, tomato and basil). Other supermarkets (in particular Waitrose) stock vegetable pasties which are a bit more interesting and nutritious than simply cheese and onion. I don't seem to be able to find any products like this in your stores though. Here was their reply: Dear John Thanks for your email. I'm sorry you have found there to be very little selection of pies and pasties at our stores. We try to sell the widest possible range of products to give our customers maximum choice. However, we can't stock every item in every store. For each store, our buyers regularly review what we're stocking and how well it's selling, to make sure that we are meeting our local customers' needs. If enough customers want to see certain products in their local store, we'll do everything we can to provide these. With that in mind, I've passed your request on to our buyers so they can consider it at their next review. I'm grateful to you for taking the time to contact us as your feedback helps us to improve our products and services. Kind regards Derek Gibson Customer Manager [No comments] Vegetarian Hall of Shame: Rasa W1 - not exactly a "Vegetarian Feast" Posted on 2010/07/02 17:45:11 I was very attracted to this place by the reviews, especially the comments that it was very good for vegetarians, and the quote on their website from Jamie Oliver that he has "taken people to this restaurant on about ten occasions just to show off" (although that might be referring to one of the other Rasa Restaurants).So we ordered the 'Vegetarian Feast" for two. On the menu it said "Our team of award winning chefs, are expert at preparing the most exquisite mix of flavours and textures in a Kerala Banquet." so I all in all I had assumed we were in for something really special. It started reasonably well, their take on the usual poppadoms was a bit more interesting than the norm, with a variety of other poppadom style things (acchapam, pappadavadai, murukku and banana chips) I haven't seen before, and some interesting pickles. Then the starter was OK, but nothing particularly special - some vegetable bhajee - a potato ball, a slice of aubergine, and a slice of plantain (which to us tasted more like banana). We had quite a long wait after that, and the main course was then a huge disappointment. The first dish they brought, simply "mixed vegetable curry" already had me worried - it was pretty much just carrots and green beans in a fairly bland curry sauce. It didn't really improve from there - there was a saag daal which had an unpleasant flavour to it, a dish of pretty much just savoy cabbage with some barely perceptible spices, and then a dish of mango yoghurt curry. This was the only thing that had an interesting flavour to it, but I was surprised at one point when I took a spoonful of it and my wife said "can I have half of that?" - it turned out I had taken the only notable piece of mango in there. Other than that it was just a bowl of sauce. The breads were nothing to shout about either - an average paratha, and some kind of bread with red onions in that I found to be stodgy and not all that pleasant. Plus some plain white rice. In the end I had about two or three spoonfuls of each curry and then completely lost my appetite - it was just so boring. Given the price, and the use of words like "feast" and "banquet" in the menu, I'd expected something really special. What we got were four bowls of frankly uninspiring and unimaginative curry. The dessert was nothing to write home about either - a small ramekin of lightly spiced rice pudding. There was nothing particularly wrong with it, it was just boring. If the "vegetarian feast" had been half the price it was (£19.50 a head), and there hadn't been any of the hype, I'd have just left thinking I'd had an average and uninspiring dinner and would have left it at that. As it was I left feeling frankly a bit annoyed - our total bill, including two beers and service, came to £54. We could have eaten South Indian food on any of several restaurants on Drummond Street for half that price, and it would have been much better. Rasa 6 Dering Street, London W1S 1AD, United Kingdom 020 7629 1346 rasarestaurants.com [No comments] Posted on 2010/07/02 17:41:28 A letter I sent to Sainsbury's customer services today. Let's see if it makes any difference. Alas looking back to this forum thread from 2006 it seems this has been the case for some time...No fewer than five of your own brand fresh tortelloni do not contain any meat or fish, and yet are not suitable for vegetarians, due to the ingredients containing cheese(s) made with animal rennet. I find this both baffling and frustrating, and today persuaded me to walk out of your store and go to Waitrose instead, where they have several fresh pastas which are suitable for vegetarians. Whilst I can just about understand the five cheese tortelloni may require some specific cheeses, some of the other tortelloni were really incongruous - why must the wild mushroom tortelloni or pea and mint tortelloni contain cheese made with animal rennet? It appears you just have a single tortelloni (spinach & ricotta) from the 10 or so you offer altogether which is actually suitable for vegetarians. This does not make me feel like I am particularly valued as a customer. Surely most meat-eating customers of yours will tend towards the tortelloni with meat fillings anyway? It seems absolutely nonsensical to me that you would intentionally cut out such a large part of the target market for these products. As I'm sure you're well aware, there are plenty of vegetarian alternatives to these traditional Italian cheeses - you use some of these in your other products, for example your fresh pesto, which is suitable for vegetarians. The ingredients label this as containing a Pecorino made with vegetarian rennet. If you use this in the pesto, why not use the same cheese in the pesto and goat's cheese tortelloni? Again, I find this baffling and frustrating, and it increasingly persuades me to shop elsewhere. Here was their reply: Dear John Thanks for your email. I'm sorry that lots of our meat free fresh pastas contain cheese made with animal rennet. I understand your bafflement as we're limiting the market for these products. We take great care when formulating our recipes that they're authentic and tasty. I don't have a specific reason why we don't use cheese made from vegetarian rennet in these dishes. It's likely to be a cost issue but I can't confirm this. I've passed your comments to our technologists for their consideration. It's your feedback that helps us improve our products. We're committed to supporting vegetarians and vegans. We've got a wide range of products that are suitable for vegetarians and vegans. There's a complete list of these on our website at http://www2.sainsburys.co.uk/food/allergies-intolerances/product-guides/product_guides.htm. I'm grateful for you taking the time to contact us. We look forward to seeing you in store soon. I particularly enjoyed the sentence: "I've passed your comments to our technologists for their consideration." Would those be their pasta technologists, or their cheese technologists? Also, why exactly is the list of products suitable for vegetarians and vegans on their website in a section titled "Allergies and intolerances"...? Am I no longer a vegetarian, but actually someone who is "meat intolerant?". [No comments] Posted on 2008/10/18 13:06:10 Yesterday was our "official" wedding anniversary (we had the actual ceremony in December, this just marks the day when we did the paperwork), so Chie suggested we go and try Manna for the first time - a long running vegetarian restaurant in Primrose Hill, North London.I have to admit I was initially not that excited by the menu - top of the list of mains was a fairly unpromising "cauliflower and almond curry", which sounded more like a side dish to me, and priced at £13, gave me the definite impression that disappointment could lay in store there. So I deftly avoided that, along with a few other underwhelming sounding options, such as the root vegetable tagine, the chef's salad, and a very plain sounding pasta dish. The main I actually ordered - the lentil, lemon and herb cake (with celeriac and swede mash, wild mushroom and oregano ragout, braised cavolo nero and truffle oil) was the only thing I really fancied. For drinks, Chie fanced rosé wine, so we ordered a bottle of their serenel rosato bettili, which was pleasant enough. For starters, Chie had the jerusalem artichoke and rosemary tart and I had the herb-crusted baked ricotta. The ricotta was a little bland tasting, but had good texture, and the deep fried sage leaves it was served with were tasty and a nice touch. Chie seemed to like her tart, and the green celery pesto it was served with was a surprise hit (I stole some of it to perk up my ricotta a bit). So, onto our mains - I had the lentil, lemon and herb cake, and Chie had the Mexican platter. Both were generously sized portions, and Chie couldn't finish hers. After my slightly bland starter, I found my main was largely very tasty. Whilst I didn't go particularly wild over the lentil cake itself (somewhat reminiscent of vegetarian haggis), the accompaniments were all very well done - the wild mushroom ragout was particularly flavoursome, and this went very well with the cavolo nero. The mash was good too, I assume it wasn't entirely swede and celeriac (probably some potato in there as well?) as the flavour wasn't as overpowering as I might have expected otherwise. We skipped dessert as we were a bit full by that point, and thought we couldn't really do it justice, considering the prices. All in all it was pretty good - the place has a nice cosy atmosphere, the staff were friendly, and it is in a lovely part of the city, just a few minutes walk from the park (where we did in fact go after dinner for a very nice night view out across London). The food was on the whole pretty good too - I definitely wouldn't say I was disappointed, but I think it was probably a little overpriced for what it was - the mains were generally around the £13 mark, the starters around £7, as were the desserts. I think we both agreed we'd probably go back, but only if the menu changed a bit - we felt like we had the only two mains that really appealed to us, and whilst I did quite enjoy the meal, it wasn't so unbelievably fabulous that I'd be happy to go back and have exactly the same thing again. [No comments] Posted on 2008/08/13 20:07:08  My time living in Tokyo (where I often dined at a couple of excellent Taiwanese restaurants) and since then coming back to London and having discovered places here which some really interesting vegetarian Chinese food, have opened my eyes to the fact that there is actually a thriving vegetarian subculture nestled somewhere in the wide pantheon of Chinese cuisine.
Or perhaps what I'm really identifying here is vegetarian Taiwanese food. Like Japan, Taiwan has a long history of Buddhism, but unlike Japan a large portion of people there are vegetarian as a result. Yes, in Japan they have Shojin Ryori, but this is a tiny minority thing served at some temples, and even then is often not 100% vegetarian. I never in all my time there met a Japanese person who was vegetarian. Taiwan, on the other hand, does seem to have a decent population of vegetarians, and as such (perhaps along with other parts of Greater China) they produce some really interesting vegetarian food. Particularly they seem rather fond of "mock meats", which many Western vegetarians turn their noses up at, but I have to admit to being rather fond of. I never stopped eating meat because I didn't like it - I was one of the biggest carnivores you'd ever have met before I turned vegetarian - it was purely a moral thing. I recently found a particularly good supermarket in London's Chinatown - See Woo. I have determined it is particularly good because very few of the customers or staff seem to speak English! After a good ferret around managed to find some interesting vegetarian items. Including: - Vegetarian beef jerky. - Vegetarian duck. - Vegetarian abalone. - Vegetarian shrimp! - Vegetarian cheung fun (intestines!) ...plus a of course all the usual Chinese staples like tofu, black bean sauce, and straw mushrooms. Click the picture above to see pictures of some of these items, and some of the dishes I made with them. [3 comments] Vegetarian Hall of Shame: Matsuri St. James's, London Posted on 2008/07/27 14:49:33 The next entry in my vegetarian hall of shame series is Matsuri St. James's - a Japanese restaurant in London.I had been to their other branch - Matsuri High Holborn - a couple of times before, and whilst I wasn't bowled over by the vegetarian options (not nearly as interesting as vegetarian sushi could be, and very pricey for what it was) it had proved a useful place to entertain non-vegetarian colleagues visiting London from other offices, who generally seemed quite impressed by it. I imagine these sorts of business customers probably account for the bulk of their clientèle. However, until yesterday I had never been to Matsuri St. James's. Chie had noticed that there was a special offer for Saturday lunchtime on their website, and as our friends Leon and Yukari were also coming into London for the day, we thought this would be a good opportunity to give it a try. Chie had made a point of checking that they had vegetarian options available for the lunchtime special, and this really is the core of my complaint. This page on their website advertising their "Natsu Matsuri" offer very clearly states that vegetarian options are available. I'll quote the main text here as if they have any sense I imagine they'll update it following our criticisms yesterday:
So, on arrival at the restaurant, we were seated and they took our drinks orders. We then told them we were all going for the lunch buffet and mentioned that one of us (me) was vegetarian. So they then brought me a menu, and left again, with which I was a bit confused. We then mentioned that we were under the impression (from the website) that there was a vegetarian option for the buffet itself, and were a bit unclear as to why I had a menu. The waitress, who seemed also quite confused by this, told me I could go and help myself to the Okonomiyaki and Californian rolls. "Oh?", I enquired, "But don't the Okonomiyaki contain bonito (fish flakes) and the California rolls contain crab?". So I explained to her that those things were not vegetarian and that the website had said there were vegetarian options available. So the waitress went off to the head chef. When she came back, she informed us no, the chef wouldn't do that. We seemed to be having communication difficulties with the waitress, so Chie asked to see the manager. They had a conversation in Japanese, Chie explaining about the website, and the manageress said she had checked the website just now, and didn't see any mention of the vegetarian options, and that they would contact their web designer. Please take a look at the block of quoted text from their website again. The page was just made up of four short paragraphs, one whole paragraph of which says quite plainly "Vegetarian options are also available". This page is linked from the main matsuri-restaurant.com page. I really can't fathom how you could look at that page and not see the "Vegetarian options are available". It sounds fairly unambiguous to me, and the website was still bearing this text even 24 hours after we left. Besides, the fact that she even went and checked in the first place is a little confrontational - whatever happened to "the customer is always right", which in Japanese is put even stronger - they say "the customer is god". The manageress also made what I considered to a slightly offensive remark about our original waitress, which didn't really seem appropriate. The manageress then said my only option was to order a la carte, at the regular menu prices, but did "helpfully" suggest I could share any of the buffet dishes with the other three people. At this point I wondered if she was drunk or something, and tried to point out that none of the things in the buffet were vegetarian, which was the whole point. I had that horribly sinking feeling you get when you realise you're just going round and round in circles. So all our protestation was in vain. All in all she was thoroughly unprofessional, and both Chie and I wondered how someone like that could get a job at a restaurant like this. Given that the menu is basically the same as the one at High Holborn I wasn't particularly enthused at paying significantly more than the buffet price for significantly less food, and by this point there was a bit of a bad atmosphere in the place. So we decided to just finish our drinks and leave, without ordering any food. You'd think they might offer to give us our drinks on the house or something, but no, when we asked to pay for them they brought us a bill, and with the service charge already added on, no less! Chie was having none of that, and very quickly crossed the service charge out and asked for the rest of our change. We left distinctly unimpressed. I suppose I can't justifiably be angry at them for making a mistake - which presumably is what led them to have this misleading information on their website. However, the fact that we had come to the place specifically because of that piece of information, and that they then handled it so poorly once we were there, was just awful. How hard would it have been for them to have picked a couple of similar things and offered it at the buffet price - say an assortment of vegetarian sushi while the others were having their California rolls and Okonomiyaki, and then a vegetable teppan-yaki while the others had their main course? And it just made no business sense - they were completely shooting themselves in the foot. Had they just made a tiny bit of effort on my behalf, they would have had four paying customers, and it wasn't as if the place was particularly busy - less than a quarter of the tables were occupied. Plus on top of that the staff were just incompetent or downright rude, not what you expect in an upmarket Japanese restaurant like this. So Matsuri St. James's takes a place in the Vegetarian Hall of Shame, and I won't be going back there again. Update 13th August 2008: We wrote a letter to Matsuri, and after a few days got a reply with an apology, including a voucher for 25% off our next meal. [1 comment] Vegetarian Hall of Shame: Hotel Tresanton, St. Mawes, Cornwall Posted on 2008/07/27 11:49:16 As a vegetarian I'm often bitterly disappointed with the food I get fobbed off with in restaurants. Up until now I've tended to just accept this, but given that I am a paying customer I no longer see why I should.And so I have started the vegetarian hall of shame where I'm going to publicly broadcast restaurants which have done particularly badly for vegetarian food. The first in this series, and perhaps one of the worst culprits to date, is the Hotel Tresanton in St. Mawes. We went there on the first night of a week's break in Cornwall at the end of last month, and the experience rather marred the rest of the holiday. Admittedly, it is in a lovely spot - with great sea views - albeit hard to appreciate given the weather on the day in question - but still it was very atmopheric. The hotel has quite a reputation in the area for fine dining, and I believe my fellow non-vegetarian diners all enjoyed their meals, but it appeared it was the sort of place for which vegetarian dishes are very much an afterthought. Whilst my starter (asparagus soup) and dessert (a West country cheese plate) were both adequate, I couldn't contain my irritation at how downright awful my main course was. In another venue I might have just accepted it, but given the reputation of this place - and moreover the prices here (£43 for three courses, which I am not ashamed to admit I consider to be expensive) I really just did not feel it was acceptable. Everyone else's main course looked appetising and had clearly had some care taken over them - they had a whole range of interesting ingredients, many of them with interesting vegetable accompaniments such as grilled artichoke, steamed pak choi and sautéed broad beans. Overall the non-vegetarian dishes looked well cooked and thoughtfully assembled. I, on the other hand, was utterly disappointed. There was only one vegetarian dish on the menu - whch I wouldn't have minded, as long as it is actually any good - but even before ordering I had a suspicion it was going to be a bit underwhelming considering the price. I did ask the waiter if they could make any alternatives, fearing it might not be worth the money, but they told me their special had already sold out, and they wouldn't make anything off the menu. So, I somewhat unwillingly ordered the "gnocchi with tomato sauce". It was appallingly bland. They had actually attempted to make the gnocchi themselves, rather than just get ready made ones out of a packet, which would have been commendable were they not actually worse than any I had ever had out of a packet. They were stodgy, starchy, and glutinous, and appeared to have been fried (after, or perhaps instead of) boiling, and were actually slightly burnt in places. As for the "sauce" if I can call it that, was one of the worst tomato sauces I have ever had. It appeared to just be a spoonful of tinned tomatoes that had been reduced until they were dry, and that was it - no other discernible ingredients whatsoever. Oh, and because this was a "gourmet restaurant", they'd added a slice of a fittingly bland and uninteresting goat's cheese to the pitiful ensemble. It was just terrible. I was utterly maddened at the fact I'd been charged somewhere in the region of £20 for that. Unusually for me, I did actually complain - both to our waiter and to the lady I assumed to be the manageress, but neither of them seemed to be prepared to do anything about it. The manageress even said "yes, we're not very strong on vegetarian dishes" - as though, like the weather, this was just an unfortunate set of circumstances over which she had no control. She even had the nerve to ask me if I'd ever had gnocchi before, as though somehow it was my own ignorance that was at fault. Perhaps I just caught them on a bad night, but regardless of that, charging £20 for a dish which was tasteless, had no care or attention put into making it, and cannot have cost more than £1 for the ingredients, is completely unacceptable. I made my feelings very clear to them and they barely apologized, and didn't even consider offering any kind of refund or compensation whatsoever. Update 13th August 2008: Since posting an abridged version of this review on Tripadvisor, I was contacted by the general manager at the Tresanton who actually seemed very nice, and not only profusely apologised, but also offered a refund / free meal. I asked that they give the money to charity instead. Apparently they have got a new sous chef who specialises in pasta, and so hopefully my experience may well be an isolated one. [No comments] Posted on 2008/07/20 18:33:03  I love whisky, and I love cheese. Previously it hadn't really occurred to me that the two things might go together - until I was given some Laphroaig cheese. It is made by Inverloch Cheeses on the Kintyre Peninsula, which is of course the nearest bit of mainland Scotland to the whisky paradise that is the Isle of Islay, home of Laphroaig and many other great malts.
Whilst my first instinct for a fine product like this would be to enjoy it in its' raw and unspoilt state - perhaps with an oatcake or two to continue that Scottish theme - the particular specimens I got hold of had been on a very long journey and had suffered somewhat. So I thought it would probably be advisable to cook with it to be on the safe side. As it happens I was making a lasagne recently, and didn't have any of the usual cheeses I would cook it with in the fridge (more often than not just a good cheddar, sometimes perhaps a mixture involving some blue cheese, perhaps some emmental and perhaps some vegetarian Parmesan), and so I thought for an experiment I'd give the Laphroaig Cheese a go.  So I made the cheese sauce in the usual way I make cheese sauces - starting off with a roux of cornflour and butter, then continuously stirring in milk until I get the right consistency. I then usually bung in a load of grated cheese, in this particular instance the Laphroaig cheese. I was really pleased by the fact that the aroma of the Laphroaig was not lost by cooking, and remained there right through into the finished product. If you can't get hold of actual Laphroaig Cheese (I'm not sure it is actually available anywhere but on Islay at present), then you could probably achieve a similar result by just pouring a glug of your favourite dram into a standard cheese sauce - honestly, it sounds odd, but whisky in cheese sauce really works (assuming, that is, you actually like whisky!). I suppose it's not that different to fondue - the traditional recipe calls for kirsch. In fact a Scotch fondue (with whisky instead of the kirsch) sounds rather fantastic to me.
The rest of lasagne was then the standard recipe for me - a vegetarian bolognese sauce made by sautéeing some red onions and garlic in some olive oil, then adding in some Quorn mince and a good glug of red wine. After that a tin of chopped tomatoes, some tomato puree, some basil (fresh when I've got it, this time I had to settle for dried). I also like to add a splash of vegetarian Worcester sauce - my favourite is Bulldog available in Japanese stores. Then I assemble the lasagne by alternating between the tomato sauce, lasagne sheets, and the cheese sauce. In the lasagne dish I have I usually get through two iterations of this, possibly with another layer of lasagne sheets somewhere in the middle as I feel like it. The end result was particularly good this time round - to my surprise and delight you could really smell and taste the Laphroaig in the finished dish - a really nice twist to a classic dish. [1 comment] Posted on 2008/07/15 17:35:19 Like wine, beer is quite infrequently labelled as to whether or not it is suitable for vegetarians, particularly in pubs.One notable exception to this is Sam Smith's (who own a lot of pubs here in London). I noted last night their Alpine Lager (affectionately known as "man-in-a-box") has a vegan symbol on the pump. In fact, according to the wikipedia article, all of their beers are vegan. So I am happy to make an entirely unashamed plug for this great brewery - made even better still by their extremely reasonable prices, and, at least in London, the fabulous old pubs they tend to inhabit. Keep up the good work Sam Smith's! [No comments] Posted on 2008/07/15 17:30:19 Vegetarian labelling on wines in shops and restaurants is frustratingly rare. The chief culprit is of course finings (particularly isinglass, from the swim bladder of sturgeons) but there are other animal derived ingredients used in wine occasionally. I don't believe wines made without any non-vegetarian ingredients are actually that rare though, it's just a question of the wine producers actually bothering to include this information on the label. Unlike food, alcoholic drinks are not required by law to include an ingredients list on them, so you can't even check for yourself easily.Supermarket own brands often have better labelling. The Co-op and Marks and Spencer are both very good at labelling their wines as to whether or not they are vegetarian. Other supermarkets (for example Saisnbury's) do less well on this front. they only seem to put labelling on their more expensive wine ranges (Taste the Difference and So Organic) and, in my experience, don't bother with their ordinary cheaper ranges. I also wasn't particularly impressed with the effort made by Waitrose on this front. That aside though, in a standard wine shop / off licence in the UK, it can often be nigh on impossible to locate any wines with vegetarian labelling. I have almost never seen non-supermarket wines with "suitable for vegetarians" or equivalent on the label. The only exception I have found so far is the French producer M. Chapoutier. Other than that you just have to resort to researching wine on the web, which is not particularly convenient when you're just popping into a wine shop to get something for dinner on the way back from work. However, thanks to the web I have learnt that most champagnes are vegetarian (for example Veuve Cliquot) and also the famous Lebanese wine Chateau Musar is vegetarian. It seems like such a small effort for wine producers to label their wines accordingly, and they'd undoubtedly get an increase in sales from people like me as a result. [9 comments] Posted on 2008/07/06 16:59:09 In my experience, when people think of vegetarian dishes, they more often than not end up thinking of something either Italian, Indian or perhaps Chinese. Whilst these are undoubtedly three great culinary nations, with plenty of interesting vegetarian food to offer, I crave variety and often find myself looking further afield.Over the last few years I've experimented with food from quite a few countries, from a vegetarian perspective, and found that more or less every country with a well established national cuisine has at least a couple of interesting vegetarian dishes. So I thought I'd compile a short list, with a few examples from each country, of some of the international vegetarian food I've enjoyed. Japanese See my article on vegetarian sushi. Sushi aside, one of the safest offerings from Japanese cuisine is vegetable tempura. It's also possible to make a vegetarian version of Okonomiyaki (a kind of pancake). Korean Not a country with a particularly high vegetarian population, but it does have some interesting dishes which can be adapted to be vegetarian. These include kimchi (spicy pickled cabbage, although be careful this can sometimes contain fish/shrimp extract), bibimbap (rice cooked in a stone bowl) and pajon/chijimi (a kind of pancake, sort of the Korean answer to okonomiyaki I suppose). Middle Eastern Turkey, Lebanon and other countries in the Middle East offer some great vegetarian dishes. My favourite dishes are things like Halloumi, foul moudammas and all those dishes with beans (broad or green) in rich olive oil and tomato sauces - like loubbieh. English With some decent vegetarian sausages (I like either Cauldron or Quorn) both toad in the hole and bangers and mash become an interesting possibility - particularly if served with a really rich onion gravy. Alternatively I occasionally like to make a vegetarian Lanchashire totpot - soya chunks, or just some interesting mushrooms in place of the meat. I often cheat with the sauce and use vegetarian gravy granules, plus some booze (beer or wine). Similarly cottage pie works well with vegetarian mince. One of the best examples of English vegetarian cuisine I ever had in a restaurant was a mushroom and ale pie at Mildred's in Soho. Scottish I'm rather partial to vegetarian haggis - the most notable one being made by MacSween's, of course served with the traditional "neeps and tatties". Welsh Whilst Welsh rarebit is typically served as a heavily augmented cheese-on-toast - not really a very hearty meal - the addition of mustard and ale to a cheese sauce is a winning combination and can be used to make a much more interested cauliflower cheese, or even macaroni cheese. Leeks in a rarebit cheese sauce is about as Welsh themed as you can get. Y Fenni cheese was presumably created with rarebit in mind - it already contains the mustard and ale. French It's particularly hard to find any deliberately vegetarian dishes in French cuisine, but they do have a few cooking techniques which can be borrowed to make some interesting vegetarian dishes. One of my favourites is essentially an adaptation of the classic Bouf Bourguignon, but without the beouf of course. So it's basically a kind of vegetable stew, with the important ingredients being shallots, red wine and button mushrooms. I often use soya chunks in place of the beef. Spanish Tapas dishes usually include a few vegetarian offerings - of course the classic Tortilla Espanola (Spanish omelette). I can also usually find a few other interesting bits and pieces in Spanish restaurants, like patatas bravas, fried artichoke hearts, and mushrooms with garlic. Mexican I find chilli works really well with vegetarian mince, and what I've quite often seen is the mince removed altogether, and replaced instead with a variety of beans. That aside it's easy to make vegetarian versions of things like fajitas, burritos, quesadillas, chimichangas and so on. American Boston Baked Beans is a fabulous hearty dish. The original recipe includes pork, but it is still really satisfying without. Greek The first thing that springs to mind is Moussaka - that can easily be made vegetarian of course. Swiss If you can find vegetarian versions of the right cheese (see here) then fondue is an obvious choice. One nice dish I had at St. Moritz, a Swiss restaurant in London (see here) was a Rosti Aux Legumes - basically a rosti topped with vegetables and cheese, and then gratinéed. Another interesting dish from Switzerland is spatzli - a type of noodle. Hungary Vegetarian Goulash. Use soya chunks, Quorn or mushrooms instead of the meat, and give it plenty of time to marinade in the paprika. Russian I've made something vaguely like Borscht a few times, which is more or less vegetarian by default. [1 comment] Posted on 2008/07/06 16:38:22 Contrary to popular belief, sushi doesn't have to involve raw fish - that's sashimi. Sushi is any item involving vinegared rice, and I've had quite a few types of vegetarian sushi both in Japan and elsewere in the world.To start with, there are several standard vegetarian fillings for maki sushi which, although not very exciting, are pretty easy to find. Perhaps most common of all is cucumber - these are called kappamaki. Also fairly common are takuan (pickled raddish) and kanpyo (gourd). I love umeboshi (pickled plums) and find they make a very tasty filling for maki sushi, although I guess this is considered a little unrefined, as I haven't seen it done in restaurants. Various other types of Japanese pickle also find their way into sushi occasionally - such as pickled nasu (aubergine / eggplant), hakusai (chinese leaf) or Hiroshimana - a pickled leaf vegetable which is a regional speciality of Hiroshima. Tamago (literally egg, in the context of sushi it generally refers to a Japanese omelette) is also a commonly found item in sushi restaurants, either as a nigiri sushi (a thin slice of omelette balanaced on a block of rice) or sometimes with the rice actually stuffed inside a slice of omelette. However, sometimes dashi (fish stock) is used in making these omelettes so be careful when ordering in restaurants. I've occasionally had shiitake mushrooms as part of sushi too - typically cooked first and then served as a nigiri. Again you may need to be careful if ordering these in restuarants as they may be cooked in dashi. Alternatively they can be very nice if just grilled and flavoured with a little ponzu. Inari sushi - those little deep fried tofu pockets filled with sushi rice - are a particular favourite of mine. Whilst it would be unusual to find these in a sushi restaurant in Japan, you can buy the cases in Japanese food shops and they're easy enough to make at home. I also found ready filled inari were widely available in supermarkets and convenience stores in Japan, and I practically lived on these while I was working there. Avocado goes very well with sushi, either as temaki or nigiri. I quite often have avocado as part of a Japanese meal just "sashimi style" - i.e. just sliced up and put on a plate, then dipped in soy sauce and wasabi immediately prior to eating. Fresh yuba (the sublimely creamy tasting skin from tofu) is also sometimes eaten "sashimi style" although presumably due to its' delicate flavour I have never seen it used directly as part of any kind of sushi. Similarly Konnyaku is also often eaten sashimi style, although I have to admit I'm not particularly a fan. Here in the UK I've seen a few attempts to make vegetarian sushi with more domestically available vegetables like peppers, green beans and asparagus - although I have to say I'm generally not that impressed. All these vegetables are also available in Japan, and if they don't regularly use them in sushi there, there's probably a reason for that! A couple of other specialities I've had - I imagine these are hard to find outside of Japan: Hawasabi - the leaves from wasabi plants, pickled. Typically as a temaki sushi. These have a slightly milder taste than the root, although can still be fairly fiery, and also have a great crunchy texture. A particular favourite of mine. Umibudo - literally "sea grapes". This is a type of seaweed, which looks very much as the name suggests, although reassuringly the "grapes" are very small - a similar size and appearance to some types of fish eggs. This is typically served as a temaki or a gunkan. [No comments] Posted on 2008/07/06 15:33:06 Parmesan is pretty much the bane of vegetarian dishes when dining out - how often have you seen a risotto or a pasta dish with Parmesan shavings as the token vegetarian offering on a restaurant menu? I can kind of understand the chef's line of thinking here - they want to use this slightly luxurious ingredient to add a spark of interest to an otherwise fairly mundane dish (and to justify the price of course!).Unfortunately, genuine Parmesan is never vegetarian. The name is a "protected designation of origin" under EU law, much like Champagne, and within the EU you can only call a cheese Parmesan if it is made in certain designated areas of Italy. Within Italy the production is strictly supervised and controlled to ensure the cheesemakers follow the traditional method. The traditional method, of course, uses an animal rennet. All hope is not entirely lost though, as there are some (well, two) substitute cheeses available here in the UK made using a similar method to Parmesan but with vegetarian rennet. For legal reasons they don't seem to be able to write the word Parmesan anywhere on their packaging, and instead have to settle for names like "Italian style hard cheese"  My favourite is the award winning Twineham Grange (also called "Farmer's Hand") from Bookham Cheese.
The other one I've seen on occasion is Castelli's Vegetalia. I've used both of these over the past few years, and found them both perfect for grating and shaving to sprinkle on top of dishes as a final touch, as well as adding to sauces and in making my own pesto. [No comments] Champagne Marmite IS Suitable for Vegetarians Posted on 2008/07/05 12:27:44 (This article was originally posted here in April 2008 - however it seems more appropriate in this section.) I saw the special edition "I Love You" Marmite made with champagne in Selfidge's a while back, but couldn't find anything on the label that said whether or not it was vegetarian.
A search around on the web was also somewhat fruitless, and it appeared several other people were asking the same question. So I am largely posting this article just in case other people are doing similar searches. I tried emailing the company via marmite.com, but never received a reply. Finally I tried phoning the Marmite customer care line instead (first time I've ever phoned one of those!), and the chap on the phone confirmed that champagne marmite is suitable for vegetarians. Sorry for any vegans out there - I forgot to ask about that. It seems most champagnes are vegetarian and vegan anyway (take Veuve Cliquot for example - they're quite open about that on their website). As for what it actually tastes like, well I did buy a jar while it was still on sale (not sure if it is any more) and, unlike the earlier Guinness Marmite, there was actually a distinguishable difference in the taste from the regular stuff. Not unsurprisingly there are winey notes - sort of sharp and slightly sweet. It tastes more like they've added a sweet white wine than a champagne, but it definitely lists champagne in the ingredients. Either way, I am actually quite fond of it. [4 comments] Posted on 2008/07/05 12:23:29 For some time now I've been trying to find a vegetarian Gruyère. Along with Emmental it seems to be an essential ingredient in fondue, and whereas vegetarian Emmental seems easy to come by (Président, for example) all the Gruyère I've ever seen in shops and supermarkets appears to always be made with non-vegetarian rennet.Searching on the web had been a largely fruitless exercise (I was typically finding recipes that contained vegetarian Gruyère, but no actual information about where to buy it). Eventually though I decided on a change of tack - having found one page that said Gruyère was made in the UK, and given that most British cheese companies use vegetarian rennet, I instead started searching for British Gruyère. As a result I came across Joseph Heler's British Gruyère. Whilst (at the time of writing) that page itself did not mention whether or not this cheese was suitable for vegetarians, their main page mentioned that all of their cheeses are suitable for vegetarians, and I also confirmed this with a mail to them. I haven't actually bought any yet (I'm not sure it is on sale in London anywhere, and it seems it might be mail order only), but will update this article when I've tried it. [5 comments] | |
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