Cooking inspiration with Yondu Culinary Studio

 We have used Yondu in our cooking classes, and it is an amazing tastemaker in the kitchen.

The company is doing some online cooking classes, and they are worth attending, you will get ideas. You can register for the classes through Eventbrite here.

Having said that, like most food businesses, they are trying to leverage the "plant-based' trend only in the general sense, and they stick to a traditional nutritional model, which can be confusing, particularly when it comes to the usual misunderstanding that it is hard to get sufficient protein on a plant-based diet. With high school nutrition, people worry always about "but where do you get your protein?" which is not warranted, and seems to be a problem only because they do not know the actual protein content of foods (like even rice or potatoes at 10-11% of calories from protein are a perfectly balanced food). The corollary to that problem is also the overconsumption of protein in the standard diet, which turns out to be unhealthy in the first place. So, as long as you get your staples of rice, or potatoes, etc., you can build a meal around that. In short, if the general conversion from a "normal" recipe to a #WFPB recipe involves seeing to your staples, which need to be complex carbs (brown rice, potatoes, or whole grain pasta, etc.) and not refined foods. Aside from that, you typically make more veggies than "ordinary food." That can include both cooked and raw.  

Accordingly, if I use a Yondu recipe here, I may post some comments or variations from time to time to illustrate how you can easily make proper Whole Foods, Plant-Based meals with Yondu. Used properly, Yondu allows you to create a lot of flavor without adding a lot of salt and that is really the crux of the whole thing. Their classes have given me some great ideas.

In my own cooking the easiest taste makers ("umami" is the word of the day for aromatic and flavorful taste) are:

1. Yondu
2. Braggs Liquid Aminos
3. Panch Puran

Caramelizing onions

These days, caramelizing onions for me often involves Yondu, though sometimes, depending on what I am cooking, I may start with roasting some Panch Puran in my pan (the seeds, not the powder).

Here is my routine:

1. [optional] Roast Panch Puran for 5 mins at 350F
2. Dry roast the chopped onions at 350F for 5 mins (optionally chopped chili or peppers can also be added at this stage.
3. Continue another 5 mins at 350F, and gradually stir in a cup of water with 1 Tsp Yondu.
4. Add in chopped garlic

That's a great start for many wonderful vegetable dishes. You can make spinach, Malabar spinach (in my Bangla neighborhood "Poi leaf"), Amaranth leaves (" shaag"), chard, any green leafies can be started this way.  On the other hand, we also know that our taste buds do change on a plant-based diet, and I am often amazed how good something simple like steamed spinach can be.  

Winter #WFPB Bean Soup Extravaganza 006h Rogier's Fusion Bean Soup

Again, small steps, big consequences. This week I tried Dominican Red Beans, and just a few small tweaks to the recipe.

For one thing, I had recently begun using some fennel in the recipe, as well as some Panch Puran, aka Panch Phoron which is itself a mixtutre of five spices, which conveys a rich aroma. It contains the following seeds: 

• fenugreek
• nigella
• cumin
• black mustard
• fennel

Now, you can get it ground up, as a powder, or in the form of seeds. If you get it whole, the proper way of using it is to roast it in the pan before you do anything else. This step releases the flavor, you just have to watch that you don't actually burn the seeds. 

This time I used a tablespoon of Panchpuran with an extra tablespoon of fennel seeds. Personally, I found the fennel too strong in the resulting soup, but some others loved the fennel aroma, which shows you again how difficult it can be to satisfy all tastes. For the next time, I will still use the tablespoon of Panchpuran, but will reduce the fennel to 1 teaspoon instead of a tablespoon.

The new routine is now simply to pre-cook the beans with just the kombu in the Instant Pot, and then to create the base in my HestancCue Chef's pot, where the steps now are:

1. Pre-roast the Panchpuran (whole seeds, not powder), and fennel. Sofar I am trying 7 mins at 300F. The trick is to release the flavor, but not burn the seeds. We don't need charcoal in the soup.
2. Caramelize the onions, along with peppers, by dry roasting about 6 minutes at 350F
3. Add in the other herbs and spices and stir-fry by adding a cup of water and Yondu, another 6 minutes at 350F, and next
4. Add the other herbes and spices and the pre-cooked beans with liquid, and let it simmer at 230F for about 15 mins.

While it is simmering, I start to build the broth, and I let that simmer to the point that the veggies are getting soft, and then I add in the bean base and more water as needed (usually about a pint).

Then I let ic simmer together for 30 mins until it is time to take out the bay leaves and the cloves, and at that point I take out about 1/3rd or the soup, and the other 2/3rds are pureed with a stick blender.

The list of beans. This week it was the turn of Dominican Red Beans, so here is where we are on the list.

1. Dutch Brown beans (bruine bonen - the reference bean)
2. Roman beans (aka Cranberry beans, aka Borlotti beans, aka Cargamanto beans). A very close second indeed.
3. Small Red Beans. On the heels of Roman beans.
4. Pinto beans. Fine as well, but not as creamy, slightly flatter tasting.
5. Red Kidney Beans. Totally delicious just as well. 
6. Dominican Red beans, delicious. <Bean of the week, this week).
7. Central American Red beans, next week.
8. Pink beans - future.
9. Red Cargamanto - future.
10. White Cargamanto - future.

Winter #WFPB Bean Soup Extravaganza 006g Rogier's Fusion Bean Soup

The transformation of my soup project is complete.

• It started out trying to re-create my mother's Bruine Bonensoep (Dutch Brown Bean Soup), which was a favorite dish of my youth, that I have not tasted since I lived in the USA for now 42 years.
• Then the project evolved to finding out the types of beans that were most similar in taste to the Dutch bruine bonen, which are not available in NYC, where I live. I got up to 4-5 varieties to try, including some of the Dutch beans, which I ordered from the Netherlands. After perfecting the recipe, I froze a bunch of cup-size portions of the soup that was made with the bruine bonen. And every Sunday, I cooked a new batch of soup, and on Monday, I would have the taste test. Of the first five varieties we tried, in the end I probably had a slight preference for the Dutch bruine bonen version, but only slight. Simply all of them were delicious in my book, and while slightly different from one another, at the end of the trip I could not decide if any one of them was simply BEST. The truth was, they were all good. So the next question was, with how many bean varieties can I really make this soup?
• Eventually, I also realized that I was no longer thinking in terms of recreating bruine bonen soup, and that while I started from the traditional Dutch recipe, the question had now become not which is the best bean to make this soup, but how many varieties of beans that are readily available to me can be used to make this soup. The list is starting to grow, but I am at 10 for now. In the process, I am now calling this recipe Rogier's #WFPB Fusion Bean Soup. Somebody already asked me to open a restaurant based on this recipe. You never know what the future may hold...

1. Dutch Brown beans (bruine bonen)
2. Roman beans (aka Cranberry beans, aka Borlotti beans, aka Cargamanto beans). A very close second indeed.
3. Small Red Beans. On the heels of Roman beans.
4. Pinto beans. Fine as well, but not as creamy, slightly flatter tasting.
5. Red Kidney Beans. Totally deliciouis just as well. This was this week's variety
6. Dominican Red beans, future.
7. Central American Red beans, future.
8. Pink beans.
9. Red Cargamanto
10. White Cargamanto.

In short, I now am half way through my new list of 10 bean varieties that all lend themselves to making this style of soup. The recipe is about half beans, half veggies, and it produces a thick soup - the type of soup that I call a meal soup, where a coup and a salad really makes a meal worth living for. A soup you can stick a fork in, so to speak.

The Updated Recipe

Inevitably, the recipe has evolved throughout this exercise, and I am printing the newest version here. The new ingredients are Fennel, and Panch Puran:

Ingredients

===the substance===

1 lb cups of Roman beans (Borlotti beans, Cranberry beans), or Pinto beans, or Red Kidney beans, or, but of course, Dutch Bruine Bonen), dry
1 strip of kombu for soaking overnight
1 tsp -1tbsp fennel for cooking the beans
12 Oz block of baked seitan (kao fu) or alternatively a cup of TVP (Soy chunks) - added with the veggies.
1/2 lb of barley - added with the veggies.

===The Base===

1 tbsp of Tianjin vegetables
1 tbsp summer Savory (note this also helps with digesting beans)
1 tsp-1tbsp Panch Puran
3 medium size yellow onions, cut-up fine
3 shallots or other small onion
6-10 cloves of medium sized cloves of garlic, minced
1-3 toes of turmeric, minced or 1 tbsp of turmeric powder

1 cup water with 1 tsp of Yondu for sautéing the onions and peppers
2-3 Thai chili, green
1-2 jalapeños, cut-up fine
1 green bell pepper
1 tbsp of ground Annato seeds
1 tsp smoked paprika (?)

===The Veggies===

1 leek, washed and sliced fine
1 cup of eddo.
3 stalks of celery, including leaves
2-3 red skin potatoes, washed and diced,
2-3 carrots peeled & diced
other root vegetables as might be around, turnips, parsnips, celeriac root etc.
2 tomatoes, or a 15- Oz can of diced tomatoes
2 quarts of veggie broth, or water with Vegetable Better Than Bouillon or similar. More water as needed.
3 bay leaves
3 cloves
3 sprigs of thyme, fresh if you can, or 1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp basil
1 tsp oregano
1-2 tbsp of either miso or gochujang (or 1 tbsp of each) at the end to finish the taste mild with miso or hot with gochujang (or half and half)

Preparation

• Soak the beans overnight (minimum 6 hours ideally), with the kombu
• Drain the beans and cook with water, including the kombu, and fennel in the Instant Pot on Pressure Cook High for 10 mins.
• Meanwhile, cut up the onions fine, add in the panch puran, and dry roast for 5-7 mins at 350F (Medium High) - until the edges start to brown, but before they stick to the pot.
• Add in the minced garlic, minced shallots and sliced chilis, jalapeños, pepper and turmeric and stir fry it for another 5-7 mins, adding about 1 cup of water with Yondu.
• Add in the cooked beans and the savory and let it simmer together for 15 mins.
• In a separate pot, add the veggie broth and slowly bring it to a boil and turn it down to a slow simmer.
• Add in the barley, the cut-up veggies, potato, thyme and other spices and seitan and allow to cook slowly until veggies being to get soft.
• Add in the beans + the base of onions and allow to simmer another 30 mins or longer
• Add the tomatoes and more water to gain right consistency
• You can make the soup thicker by pureeing half or 2/3rds with an immersion blender, while leaving the other half/one third alone, so you can still see some beans and some chunks of vegetable floating in the soup.
• Finish the taste with miso (mild) or gochujang (hot & spicy).
• Note, if you have people who want it milder, go to the low end with the hot peppers, i.e. 2 chilis, 1 jalapeño. That is just enough for a hint. I then finish it in two batches, one with miso, and from that I put aside an amount for the "mild" customers and one with gochujang for the customers who like it spicy. Then, after I set aside enough "mild" soup, I combine the two. The Gochujang elevates the spicy nature and the miso adds the deep aroma.

Pre-Thanksgiving Dinner

Here were our festive dishes... with some Thanksgiving-styled ideas.

Pumpkin- ginger soup

Ingredients

• 1 average sized organic Hokkaido Pumpkin, or Kabocha Squash cut into chunks (deseed but don't peel)
• 3-5 onions chopped
• 3-10 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 1-2 inch piece of ginger sliced, or ginger powder
• 2-3 pieces of turmeric sliced, or turmeric powder
• pint of vegetable stock
• 1-2 jalapenos, seeded
• 2-3 small green chilies, sliced
• 1 tbsp panch puran
• 2 table spoons of whole wheat flour

Preparation

1. caramelize the onions adding garlic, chili and jalapeno, and panchpuran and gradually add the whole wheat flour and liquify with some veggie stock
2. gradually add all of the soup stock, and let it come to the boil
3. add the pumpkin and let it boil about 20 mins.
4. Allow the soup to cool down a little then pour into a blender and blend at high speed till smooth and creamy, or use an immersion blender to achieve the same result. 

Evidently, you can make this as spicy as you like, by varying the amounts of turmeric, ginger, chilis and peppers. You can use a small amount of Bragg's Liquid Aminos or Yondo to finish to taste, but if you are using the Panch Puran, you should not need much at all. The whole point is that by choosing aromatic spices, you can pretty much eliminate the need for added salt. With turmeric and ginger if you can use fresh, that makes all the difference in the world. If you want to give it some extra zing, you could slice some scallions on top for garnish.

Baked Cauliflower with Fennel 

Ingredients

• 1 head cauliflower, cut into florets (about 3 cups)
• 1 bulb fennel, halved and sliced thin (about 2 cups)
• 1 pomegranate, seeded (about ¾ cup)
• ½ cup pecans
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• ½ tsp turmeric powder
• ½ tsp mustard powder
• ½ tsp cinnamon
• ¼ tsp pink Himalayan salt, or to taste

Preparation

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. 
2. Place cauliflower florets in a large container with a lid. Drizzle with lemon juice, turmeric, mustard powder, cinnamon, and salt. Cover the container with the lid and shake it up until the cauliflower is completely coated. 
3. Spread the cauliflower evenly on the baking sheet.
4. Place the fennel slices on baking sheet with the cauliflower.
5. Bake for 15 minutes.
6. Remove from the oven and add the pecans. Bake for another 5 minutes.
7. Remove from the oven and sprinkle with pomegranate seeds.

Mashed Potatoes recipe from Whole Foods Market

Ingredients

• 2 pounds potato, such as Russet or Yukon Gold cut into 3/4-inch cubes
• 1 medium white onion diced
• 1/3 cup low-sodium vegetable broth
• 4 cloves garlic finely chopped
• 1 cup unsweetened oatmilk, soymilk, almondmilk or ricemilk
• 3 tablespoons nutritional yeast
• 1 teaspoon granulated onion
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

Preparation

1. Place potatoes in a saucepot and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil.
2. Reduce heat and simmer until potatoes are very tender, about 20 minutes. 
3. Drain potatoes and return to pot. Stir over low heat until potatoes are falling apart and slightly dry, about 5 minutes. 
4. Remove from heat and mash potatoes or purée with a ricer until smooth.
5. Meanwhile, heat a large skillet over medium heat. Add onion and cook, stirring frequently until lightly browned and beginning to stick to the pan, about 5 minutes. 
6. Stir in broth and garlic and continue to cook, stirring frequently, until onions are tender and golden, 6 to 8 minutes.
7. Add onion mixture, oatmilk, nutritional yeast, granulated onion and pepper to pot with potatoes and stir until combined. Serve immediately.

Mushroom Sauce

View on brandnewvegan.com

Ingredients

• 1/2 onion diced
• 4 cloves garlic minced
• 2 Tbs white wine (or sub veg broth)
• 8 oz mushrooms sliced
• 2 Tbls Soy Sauce low sodium variety, Braggs Liquid Aminos, or Yondu
• 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 Tbs nutritional yeast
• 1/2 tsp thyme
• 1/2 tsp rubbed sage
• 1/2 tsp rosemary
• 2 1/4 cups vegetable broth low sodium variety
• 1/2 tsp kitchen bouquet browning sauce
• Drop or two of liquid smoke (optional)

Preparation

1. Saute onion and garlic in wine until softened
2. Add mushrooms and soy sauce and cook until reduced
3. In a separate pan, lightly toast flour, nutritional yeast, and herbs
4. Add flour mixture to mushrooms and stir well
5. Slowly add vegetable broth and stir well to combine
6. Add browning sauce and liquid smoke and heat to desired consistency

Red Leaf & Spinach Salad

• 1 Head Red Leaf Lettuce
• 1 bunch fresh young spinach
• 1 red onion
• 1 red pepper
• 1 yellow pepper
• 1 box cherry tomatoes
• optional: some scoops of chia seeds, or milled flaxseed.

1/2/3 dressing with lemon and lime juice

Economics

Plant-based is pretty affordable... we had 7 people or about $105 to work with, and we spent $75, meaning we contributed $30 to St. Helena's. Or, we spent about $10.50 per person, and some people took food home, plus we left an ample portion for Fr. David.

Our October Suppers/#WFPB Meal Prep at St. Helena's

It was that time again, and we managed to make a lovely dinner, complete with soup and salad and a simple main dish of paella. In all, we spent $11.97 per person.

The Salad

1 head of green lettuce
1 bunch of water cress
1 purple onion
1 green bell pepper
1 red bell pepper
1 cup of cooked quinoa
1 pint of cherry tomatoes
1 bunch of parsley
6 shopped-up sun-dried tomatos

1/2/3 dressing: 1 measure of maple syrup, 2 measures of Dijon Mustard, 3 measures of balsamic vinegar. We forgot to put in a few spoonfuls of chia seeds, and milled flax seeds, but ideally you'd want to do that.

Clearly, everyone enjoyed the salad.

The Soup: Locro de Lentejas

Incredients

1 lb whole lentils, optional other beans or you can make it thicker with 2 lb of beans.
1 lb young potatoes (the kind with the thin skin, either yukon gold or redskin), quartered or smaller, depending on the size and personal preference
1 small/medium green or savoy cabbage, quartered, stem removed and sliced in thin strips
1 white onion cut up in small pieces,
2-3 large red onions, sliced thin
1-2 yellow onions cut up
4 green chilis, sliced thin, with seeds
2 jalapeño peppers, sliced thin (without seeds)
6 cloves of garlic, crushed and chopped fine.
2 packs of shiitake mushrooms, stems removed, sliced
1 tsp panch puran
1 teaspoon of savory
1 teaspoon of tarragon
1 tsp rosemary
1 tsp thyme
5 bay leaves
2 pints of low sodium vegetable stock
3 pints of water
1/2 bunch of cilantro, chopped
2-3 heaping tablespoons of miso paste dissolved in cold water and add at the end and use less liquid aminos
Braggs Liquid Aminos, to taste.

This was our second attempt at Locro de Lentejas, and it was clearly better than the first one, using a lot more spices. The discovery of panchpuran, thanks to our Bangladeshi neighbors is a welcome addition to the repertoire. You can get it either as a mixture of the five seeds (the meaning of the word Panch Puran is five spices), or as a powder. We used the powder today, but it tremendously enhances the flavor of the onions. The five spices are fenugreek seed, nigella seed, mustard seed, fennel seed, cumin seed.

 Wonderful instruction, though you can buy it pre-mixed, and evidently, we do not use any oil, but in our case it is a great ingredient that you can best add when you have browned the onions and are starting to add some broth or water to it. That's also when we added the other spices, and then the bay leaves last when you are adding in the rest of the vegetable broth.

I've also made this same soup with a mixture of 1lb of lentils and 1lb of 16 bean soup mix. Another option is to add a half a cup of barley. 

Preparation

Dry fry the onions with the panch puran, I do it in two steps, 5 mins at 425F without stirring, and then 5 mins at 425F stirring it a little bit, then add chilis and jalapenos, and other spices and the mushrooms and cook for another 5 mins at 425F, while adding a splash of veggie broth as needed, so it does not stick to the pan.
Add garlic, the vegetable stock and the herbs, the lentils, let cook for 15 minutes.
Add the potatoes. Let cook for another 10-15 minutes.
Add the cabbage and let it cook for 5 minutes.
Add the chopped cilantro.
At the end, add some miso, dissolved in water.

(Notes:

1. Some people would peel the potatoes, but if you buy thin-skinned potatoes, you can easily cook them in the skin, even cut-up: you lose less nutrition that way.
2. Evidently, you can vary the herbs and spices to taste.
3. Never boil the miso.)

The Vegan Paella

Source:

• English: https://nutritionstudies.org/recipes/main-dish/vegan-paella/
• Spanish: https://nutritionstudies.org/es/recipes/plato-principal/paella-vegana/

A word of caution: This turned out to be one of these recipes with some ingredients that showed up in the cooking instructions out of thin air - they were not listed in the ingredient list.
Somehow we made it all work, and we had a very nice meal with the whole crew. This is clearly a dish that lends itself to any number of variations. But the whole idea of one of these one-dish meals is always attractive.