Gluten-Free Recipes for the Conscious Cook: A Seasonal, Vegetarian Cookbook (11 page)
Read Gluten-Free Recipes for the Conscious Cook: A Seasonal, Vegetarian Cookbook Online
Authors: Leslie Cerier,Kathie Swift Ms Rd
Tags: #Cooking, #Vegan Cooking, #Vegetarian, #Vegetarian & Vegan, #Vegetarian Cooking, #Gluten-Free Diet, #Low-Fat Diet, #Milk-Free Diet
I used to make this quick and easy dish for my daughter after her Ultimate Frisbee practice. I’d start it when she walked in the door, and it was ready by the time she was out of her shower. I recommend using a raw milk Cheddar here; if you can find a local variety made with goat’s milk or milk from grass-fed cows, so much the better. I highly recommend seeking out a high-quality sea salt, such as Hawaiian Deep Sea Salt or Celtic Sea Salt for this dish.
serves 3 to 4
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 cup sliced red onion
1 cup stemmed and sliced shiitake mushrooms
½ teaspoon sea salt
3 cups chopped kale
2/3 cup corn grits
1 teaspoon dried thyme
2 cups boiling water
1¼ cups grated Cheddar cheese (about 5 ounces)
Heat the oil in a large saucepan or skillet (one with a tight-fitting lid) over medium-high heat. Add the onion and sauté for about 5 minutes, until it begins to soften. Add the mushrooms and salt and sauté for about 5 minutes, until the mushrooms soften. Stir in the kale, grits, and thyme. Lower the heat, then slowly pour in the water. Cover and simmer for 5 to 10 minutes, until all of the water is absorbed.
Add the cheese, cover, and let sit for about 3 minutes, until the cheese melts. Use the edge of a spatula to cut the dish into wedges. Serve immediately.
When I teach my Vegetarian Express cooking class, I include this recipe, which is often the first taste of teff for many of my students. Since teff is native to Ethiopia, cooking it with African spices gives it an authentic and robust flavor. Here, the combination with quick-cooking red lentils and coconut milk makes for a fabulous, rich-tasting stew with a great nutritional profile.
serves 4 to 6
2/3 cup red lentils, rinsed
2/3 cup teff
2 cups peeled, grated yams
¼ cup seeded, chopped poblano pepper
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon ground fenugreek
1 (14-ounce) can coconut milk
2¼ cups water
7 cups sliced collard greens
1¾ cups diced tomatoes
3 tablespoons grated fresh ginger
1 teaspoon sea salt
Combine the lentils, teff, yams, poblano, cumin seeds, and fenugreek in a soup pot. Add the coconut milk. Pour some of the water into the coconut milk can and swish it around, then pour it into the pan; if needed, repeat with more of the water so you get every last drop of the coconut milk’s goodness into the pan. Stir everything together, then bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Lower the heat, cover, and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes, until the lentils practically dissolve and the teff is tender.
Add the collard greens, tomatoes, ginger, and salt and simmer for about 5 minutes, until the collards are bright green. Taste and adjust the seasonings if desired.
The cooked butternut squash practically melts to form a sweet sauce in this warming stew. Chickpea miso is especially complementary to the flavors of this stew, but you can substitute other gluten-free varieties if you like; hearty brown rice, adzuki bean, or millet miso would all be good choices. You can use either red or white wine in this dish—or any other wine for that matter. I recommend using whatever wine you’d like to drink with the stew. For a special treat, try pear or peach wine.
serves 4 to 6
½ cup dried shiitake mushrooms, stemmed
2/3 cup wine
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 pound tempeh, cubed
4 cups cubed butternut squash
4 cups cubed potatoes
1½ cups water
2 tablespoons chickpea miso
2 tablespoons prepared mustard
1 teaspoon dried rosemary
1½ teaspoons dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried sage
Soak the shiitake mushrooms in the wine for about 15 minutes, until they soften.
Heat the oil in a soup pot over medium heat. Add the tempeh and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 to 10 minutes, until golden brown. Add the squash, potatoes, water, wine, and mushrooms. (You may want cut the mushrooms into bite-size pieces or at least halve larger mushrooms.) Bring to a boil, then lower the heat, cover, and simmer for about 20 minutes, until the potatoes are tender and the butternut squash is melting into the pot.
Stir the miso and mustard into some of the hot broth, then stir the mixture back into the stew, along with the rosemary, thyme, and sage.
This warming and stimulating stew is one of my favorite winter meals because it tastes like a trip to a sunny climate and keeps the cold at bay. In this recipe the spices are first sautéed in ghee to trap their volatile oils, then the chickpeas are cooked from scratch together with these spices to infuse them with rich, complex flavors. Long, slow cooking sweetens the cabbage and carrots and makes them practically melt in your mouth. For a hearty main dish, serve the stew over millet or Bhutanese red rice. You need to soak the chickpeas for at least six hours, and then the stew cooks for over an hour, so plan ahead.
Variations
For a vegan version, substitute 4 cup extra-virgin olive or sunflower oil for the ghee.
Onions and garlic make a lovely addition; simply add chopped onions and garlic when you add the carrots and cabbage.
For a greener stew with a higher iron content, substitute collard greens or kale for half of the cabbage, adding either one about 15 minutes after you add the cabbage and carrots.
serves about 8
2 teaspoons cumin seeds
1 teaspoon fenugreek seeds
½ teaspoon coriander seeds
¼ teaspoon whole allspice
½ teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon ground cardamom
¼ teaspoon ground turmeric
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
¼ cup
ghee
, or ½ cup butter
1 teaspoon dried chile flakes
10 cups water
1½ cups dried chickpeas, sorted and soaked for 6 to 8 hours
7 cups coarsely chopped cabbage
2½ cups coarsely chopped carrots
1 tablespoon sea salt
Toast the cumin seeds, fenugreek seeds, coriander seeds, and allspice in a small dry skillet for about 1 minute, stirring frequently, until fragrant. Transfer to a spice grinder or seed mill, add the ginger, cardamom, turmeric, and cloves, and grind until powdery.
Drain and rinse the chickpeas.
Put the ghee in a large soup pot over medium heat. Once it melts, add the chile flakes and ground spices and sauté for about 1 minute, until the chile flakes take on a brighter hue. Stir in the water and chickpeas. Turn up the heat to high and bring to a boil, then lower the heat, cover, and simmer for about 30 minutes, until the chickpeas begin to soften.
Add the cabbage and carrots and simmer for about 30 more minutes, until the cabbage is transparent and practically melts into the broth.
Stir in the salt. Taste and adjust the seasonings if desired.
Making Ghee
Even if you aren’t familiar with ghee, an ingredient commonly used in Indian cooking, you may be familiar with clarified butter. In fact, the two are one and the same. No matter what name it goes by, it couldn’t be simpler to make; the method basically boils down to heating butter until the solids separate out, so that you can pour off the clear butterfat; this is the ghee or clarified butter. It’s a useful ingredient to keep around for several reasons. It has a higher smoke point than butter, so it can be used for sautéing and other higher heat applications without burning. It also keeps better than regular butter.
Here’s how you make it: Place 1 pound of unsalted butter in a small saucepan and heat it gently over low heat until it melts. Allow it to simmer for about 10 minutes, scooping off the foam from time to time. Remove the saucepan from the heat and let it stand for a few minutes so all of the solids can settle to the bottom. Then carefully pour off the clear liquid, leaving the solids in the pot. It’s a good idea to pour the ghee through a fine-mesh sieve to ensure all of the solids are filtered out. You may even want to line the sieve with cheesecloth. Store the ghee in an airtight container. Because it keeps so well, you need not store it in the refrigerator. If you keep it in your kitchen cabinet, away from light and tightly sealed, it will last for months.
This sweet and spicy stew is a fun and unusual take on chili. And if you happen to have leftovers, it tastes even better a day or two later. If you choose to top the stew with grated cheese, as usual I recommend a local variety—hopefully made with goat’s milk or milk from grass-fed cows. Kelp may seem like an unusual ingredient here, but it has several benefits: it makes the beans more digestible, and it also contains flavor-enhancing compounds and loads of minerals and vitamins.
