Global Vegetarian Dishes

Posted on 2008/07/06 16:59:09 (July 2008).

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 Bœuf 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.