I’ll wager that when most people in the UK (and probably in North America too) think of Thai food, their minds are filled with images of a rainbow of curries, pad thai, papaya salad, and pad see ew. These are the dishes that for some reason or another are quintessentially…
Snacks and Sides
Thai Spicy Fried Cashews (Yam Met Mamuang Himaphan)
The first time I tried this cashew snack was during the 2012 nationwide vegetarian festival in Thailand. I purchased them from a street vendor who, in partnership with his wife, prepared and packaged tiny containers of this morish snack at home. I returned the next day to buy more and…
Burmese Tohu – soy free tofu from Myanmar
More akin to polenta than tofu, Burmese tofu (to hpu or tohu) is a sturdy non-coagulated cousin of soya tofu that is made from gram or besan flour. This variation of traditional bean curd isn’t subject to the same fragility, with no need for pressing nor draining, and it’s not going…
Vegan Cashew Cheese & King Oysters
This is based on a dish I sampled at Wild Rice in Vancouver and, while mine pales in comparison to theirs, it’s not half bad. The non dairy cheese pairs well with the simplicity of seared king oyster mushrooms (eryngii mushrooms) that are lightly sprinkled with flakes of sea salt….
Tempe Manis: something to change your mind about tempeh
It was Tami from Vegan Appetite who first brought to my attention the difference deep frying makes to the flavour of tempeh, but my recent trip to Indonesia took the love up a few notches. If you’ve ever been unsure about tempeh, this could just be the recipe to change…
Soft tofu as centrepiece, not just an ingredient
There’s this weird thing about soft tofu in the West whereby it tends to be used only as an ingredient in a more complicated dish. We see it as a component of vegan pies, smoothies, puddings, and batters, but rarely do we use it as the centrepiece of a meal….
Ridiculously Easy Marmite and “Cheese” Mini Palmiers
This is by no means a prolific recipe but it’s easy, it’s good, and it serves as a good base concept for other filling ideas. While palmiers are traditionally made with a sugar coating, I had a spare sheet of puff pastry laying around and wasn’t keen on the idea…
Celebrating a [non] Summer with Mango Lime Dressed Salad
One of the most notable things about the British psyche is its obsession with the weather. It’s not an idle chit-chat conversation point, either, but a topic of great interest. Being American, it took time to grow accustomed to weather talk being a highlight of an exchange as opposed to…
Sweet Potato Mash with Fresh Garlic Oil
People hear the word “oil” and panic, but when it comes to comfort food I opt for excess with fat (and come on, it’s not like it’s a fatty burger or anything). I should add I don’t engage in comfort eating all that often and I consider things like this…
Eurovision (My Christmas) and Vegan Liptauer Style Cheese
I’m not a fan of Christmas (generally referred to by me as the c-word) . I want to enjoy good food and friends all year, sans guilt (I’m a recovering Catholic so I already have enough of that), so I traded Christmas in for a concerted effort to both eat…
Dairy Free Cream of Asparagus Soup
When I was five my parents moved the family from a cookie cutter 3 bed/2.5 bath home to a custom built house on land gifted to my father by my grandparents. The land was mainly forest, with a few acres dedicated to growing fruit and vegetables. My parents and grandpa…
Pan Seared Lemony Tofu Slices with Fresh Herbs and Za’atar
I begin every post here in my head with the same basic sentiment: this is one of my favourite something-or-other. Alas, the dairy version of this mock halloumi was a dish I did love pre-vegan; thin slices of briny halloumi fried and doused with lemon juice and freshly grated black…
