Wednesday 3 October 2012

Poor Man's Summery Salad (VeganMoFo #2)



I love mint. I love it lots. I did a search for "mint" on my food tracking app and the first, like 20 entries were all chocolate. While the mint-chocolate combination is godly, mint is just so damn underused in salads. It's all just toppings and garnishing. Fuck that.

We have a lot of mint in our garden; it's more "controlling the spread" more than growing,  so I thought I'd have a go at making it the base leafy green of a fresh summery salad. 

The results were good, but it could be better. If I was making this properly I'd have liked to make it sweeter, with much more tomato, some fennel/pomegranate/stone fruits and definitely more citrus (blood oranges would've been perfect). Red onions too. Also, it needed some textural variation, some toasted nuts wouldn't have gone astray. 

But this particular joint was just thrown together using what I had lying around before I shot off to work, so that is my excuse and YOU'RE NOT MY REAL DAD. And also no plated-up-all-pretty shots.


Poor Man's Summery Salad

Serves 2

Ingredients

150g mint leaves
150g white radish
200g zucchini
200g carrots
100g beetroot
1 pink lady apple
150g cauliflower
150g tomatoes

1 large navel orange or 1/2 cup (125mL) orange juice
1 medium lemon or 2 tbsp lemon juice
2-3 tsp balsamic vinegar
2-3 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp mustard
salt and pepper to taste 

Shred all the salad ingredients except for the mint and cauliflower. To shred the mint, gather it up in a bunch and slice finely with a large knife. Break the cauliflower into tiny florets, and shred the remaining stalks (DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT THROWING THEM OUT, OK). 

For the vinaigrette, juice the orange and lemon. If you want, add the pulp of the orange and some its zest to the salad. Add all the ingredients together and whisk.
  
FULL SHREDDED CUZ

Tuesday 2 October 2012

Chocolate Chantilly (And Hello VeganMoFo)

A wild, chocolatty Instagram appears!


So this blog was pretty much born because I wanted to do Vegan MoFo this year...and October is like crazy busy for me, so it wasn't my brightest moment? But anyway.

I've been getting into Heston Blumenthal this week, and his style of highly scientific cooking. As a (about to graduate) chemist, you guys can't appreciate how exciting this is to me. In one of the segments of his show Kitchen Chemistry he mentioned Hervé This and his method of making what he called 'chocolate chantilly', or VEGAN MOUSSE MADE FROM CHOCOLATE AND WATER IN 5 GODDAMN MINUTES!

I made this and let me tell you, this method works and is pretty much a miracle.


Chocolate Chantilly (adapted from Heston Blumenthal / Hervé This)



Serves 1

 
Prep
You'll need a mixing bowl set in a bowl of ice water ready, and also a whisk. 

Ingredients
50g dark chocolate (min 70% cocoa) -- I used Lindt 85% dark chocolate
3 tbsp (45mL) water


Break the chocolate into pieces and heat very slowly in a saucepan with the water. Stir, and once it's melted, pour into the cold mixing bowl. Now whisk furiously until it's fluffy, and be careful not to over do it. If you do go too far, you can just put it back into the pan and start again, though. God bless science!

Sighted: chocolate chantilly topped with cocoa nibs moments before it vanished down my gullet