30-minute vegetarian wok for the two most important persons in my life.

How to make a vegetarian, ethical and nutritious meal from scratch in just 30 minutes for the two most important persons in my life? The answer is a three-letter word and bouncing in a pan.

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I have always loved to cook. Indulging myself by reading cook books, lose myself in books about food history, plan menus, write long shopping lists. Spend hours in the kitchen while making romantic three-course dinners or party dinners for friends or family. I do not live by cooking, but I truly live for cooking. The world may tremble around me, while I ponder on my next dish.

All this time I have spent on food, was suddenly taken away when we had a baby

Now I have to hurry home from work and try to put dinner on the table in 30 minutes. Wok is easily made in 30 minutes if you follow a certain chronology. Put the jasmine rice on first. While the rice is cooking, prepare the greens and the sauce. Everything must be ready when you start to wok. The minute you start woking you need your hands free in order to make your ingredients bounce like the wok was a trampoline.

Then there is the sauce. You come a long way with some stock, soy sauce, chili and garlic. From Gordon Ramsey’s Great Escape Southeast Asia, I have adapted a recipe from Thailand, which has become a staple in our home. I have altered the recipe to make sure I can buy all ingredients from my local store. For instance, the original recipe calls for holy basil, but I do not hesitate using regular basil.

Wok is easily done in 30 minutes as long as you follow a certain chronology.

Wok is a dish that makes it possible to eat well without (much) meat

Norwegian chef Bent Stiansen describes how his teacher during av cooking course in Vietnam gave him 50 gram (2 oz) meat. The teacher thought this was enough to feed a family of four! This amounts to nothing more than an appetizer in the West. Even though most of us has learned about the connection between meat production, particularly cattle, and carbon emissions, surveys show that even people with a higher education refuse to see the consumption of meat as an act to improve the environment. A light in the tunnel though comes from a somewhat unexpected corner: In Norway the army has decided to opt for meat-free Mondays. Their argument: The solider’s health and the environment.

For seven years I was a vegetarian, primarily because of animal welfare. Today I eat organic or free-range meat from small farmers. I try to reduce my meat consumption by eating smaller portions and by having meat-free days. I do not think the majority of us will turn vegetarian or vegan overnight, but I do believe all change has a feeble start.

Low-carb: An ethical conundrum?

Professor in Nutritional Sciences Kaare Norum characterizes the low-carb diet as indecent. It is indecent, he claims, because:

• An area big enough to sustain 20–25 people if corn and root vegetables are cultivated can only sustain one human if meat and milk is produced on the same area.
• It takes 200 times as much water to produce a kilo meat than a kilo potatoes.
• About 80 % of all grain produced worldwide is used as animal fodder.

In Norway the popularity of the low-carb diet has increased the consumption of chickens at the expense of eating bread. In Norway we now throw so much bread that we could fill an 8-lane highway from Oslo to Trondheim, a distance of about 500 kilometers (310 miles). However, there is a decent low-carb diet. The solution is a more balanced diet with plenty of greens where a substantial part of the protein comes from beans.

“The bean diet” has been the natural diet for many throughout the world. Dishes ranging from falafel and hummus in the Middle East to dhal in India and rice and beans in Latin America. They are cheap and nutritious. We have a lot to learn from these food cultures. Beans play a meager part in the Norwegian food culture, with one exception: Yellow pea soup.

30-minute vegetarian wok (for 2 adults and a little one):

a big handful of cashew nuts
1 garlic clove
1 red chili
1 big carrot
a handful of baby corn
6 florets of broccoli
3 tbsp cooking oil
fresh basil or coriander

The sauce:
200 ml vegetable stock
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sweet soy sauce (kecap manis)
1 tbsp (palm)sugar
1,5 tsp maizena diluted with 2 tbsp water

Preparation:
1. Toast the nuts in a dry frying pan (or a wok) on medium heat, then put aside.
2. Peel the garlic and chili and mash in a mortar into a paste. Leave out the seeds from the chili if you want it less spicy.
3. Peel the carrot and cut thinly. Divide the baby corn lengthwise. Wash the broccoli and divide into small florets. Place all vegetables on a plate, separating them. This is because they need different cooking time.
4. Mix together the ingredients for the sauce, except the maizena.

Woking:
5. Place the oil in the wok or a frying pan. When hot, add the garlic- and chili paste and fry for about 30 seconds.
6. Add the broccoli and carrots and wok for 1 minute continuously shaking the pan, Add the baby corn and wok for another minute.
7. Add the stock and boil for about 2-3 minutes until the vegetables are al dente and the sauce reduced a bit.
8. Add the maizena while stirring until the sauce has thickens a bit.
9. Take the wok off the heat, add the basil/coriander and the reserved cashew nuts.

More vegetarian dishes

Pasta salad with slow-roasted tomatoes and aubergine
Greek salad, tzatziki and cheeze saganaki

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Greek salad and tzatziki

Sometimes the best part about traveling is coming home. Home to look at photographs and recreate the food you enjoyed. The Acropolis, tzatziki, Greek salad, saganaki and the bluest sea. My Greek holiday memory.

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Acropolis, Athens

Doors, Crete

View towards Lycabettus Hills, Athens

Cat at the Acropolis and the fish market in Athens

The fish market, Athens

Baklava made the old-fashioned way at Rethymnon, Crete

Sea, Crete

Balos, Crete

Colours of Greece

A meal in Athens

Arriving in Athens is like coming to a city which is half European and half Middle Eastern. The unfamiliar alphabet, the crazy traffic, the heat and the music reminds me of faraway places. Still, Athens is Europe and a very vibrant city in all its complexity. Athens is marble, trees lining the streets with oranges, thick yogurt and barbecued octopus, crowded street cafés, tavernas empty in the day, the scent of dried oregano and thyme, mezedes and ouzo, tourists and thin cats, honey and feta cheese, history’s greatness and today’s blues, the Acropolis and Lycabettus hills. Of all things great about Athens, the most endearing to me is the ever-presence of Acropolis.The enlighted democratic castle on the hill.

The Greek kitchen may not be as refined as the French, but it is based on fresh produce and honest flavours. Here I make three small dishes (mezedez) I have eaten several times in Greece. Greek salad and tzatziki, feta cheese with honey and sesame seeds.

Saganaki with feta cheese and honey

Saganaki with cheese and honey is the Greek equivalent of the French chevre with honey. The Greek have many types of cheese suitable for frying or grilling. Cheeses that keep their shape despite the heat. Feta cheese is like onion. Eaten raw it is a rather harsh acquaintance, but the heat changes its character. The onion becomes sweet and soft. The feta cheese softer and amendable.

Such fried cheeses are called saganaki. Saganaki is the name of all dishes prepared in a small frying pan and its name derives from sagani which is a two-handled frying pan.

Saganaki with honey and feta cheese

Tzatziki

A tzatziki should be thick and creamy. To do so remove the water from the cucumber and use a thick greek type of yoghurt. This tzatziki has a mild garlic flavour, but I still would not recommend any kissing the day after, unless it is with the one you share the dip with.

How to make and eat Greek salad (salata horiatiki)

“For me, there is no other salad that can even compare to Horiatiki in freshness, vibrancy, combination of flavors and utter simplicity which is, ultimately, the main characteristic of all traditional Greek food.” Magda, a Greek expat living in the Netherlands

Outside Greece (and on tourist menus) it is known as Greek salad. In Greece it is called horiatiki. Horiatiki means in the peasant’s manner and refers to the rather rustic character of the salad with its big chunks. There are rules as how to make the horiatiki salad, and how to eat it. According to My little expat kitchen, written by a Greek living in Holland, a genuine horiatiki should include:

fresh tomatoes cut into wedges, peeled cucumber, green paprika cut into rings, red onion cut into rings, kalamata olives with the pit still in, feta cheese in one piece, dried oregano, olive oil and red wine vinegar.

If you look beyond the fact that I use red paprika (because it is the only organic paprika in my store), I pretty much make the real deal. Horiatiki is always eaten with bread. And if you want to eat the salad like a Greek, you should soak up the remaining liquid with your bread. This is called papara, and is only done when you are with friends or familiy. And remember, mezedes is food to be shared.

Red onion is part of horiatiki

Makes about 3-4:

Horiatiki (Greek salad)

4-5 tomatoes
1 cucumber
1 green paprika
1 small red onion
1 handful of kalamata olives
3 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp dried oregano
One piece of feta cheese

1. Peel the cucumber. Slice lengthwise and then cut into slices. Slice the tomatoes into wedges and the red onion and paprika into rings.
2. Toss everything well in a bowl with the olive oil and vinegar.
3. Place the feta cheese on top of the salad and sprinkle with the oregano and drizzle with olive oil.

Tzatziki

½ cucumber
1 garlic clove
a little squeeze of lemon
300 g / 10 oz Greek yoghurt
salt and pepper
olive oil

1. Grate the cucumber and leave in a sieve. Most recipes will tell you to salt the cucumber and leave it in the sieve to drain for quite a while, but I prefer to squeeze the water out of the cucumber with the back of a tablespoon for about 5 minutes.
2. Mix the cucumber with grated garlic, the yoghurt and season with salt, pepper and a squeeze of lemon. Drizzle with olive oil.

Saganaki with feta cheese and honey

I ate this saganaki every day two years ago at a restaurant next to the hotel where we stayed in Ambelokipi, Athens.

2 tbsp sesame seeds
1 piece of feta cheese
1 egg
4 tbsp flour
2 tbsp cooking oil
3 tbsp honey
1 tsp white wine vinegar

1. Toast the sesame seeds in a frying pan until golden brown. This will release a more nutty flavour. Remove the seeds and add the cooking oil.
2. Whisk the egg in a little plate. Place the flour in another plate. Dip the cheese first in the egg, then in the flour, making sure it is well coated. Fry on medium heat for about 5 minutes until golden.
3. Heat the honey and the vinegar in a small pan and pour on top of the cheese. Sprinkle with the sesame seeds.

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The post Athens + Greek salad appeared first on Nordic Diner.

Pasta with slow-roasted vegetables.

I have always loved pasta. Spaghetti was the first dinner I made myself from scratch. The dish was something I had learned at school: spaghetti with minced beef in a sauce made of onions and tomato paste. Pasta is truly easy food. It is food kids can make. And do not care about making your own pasta – even Italians think it is ok to use dry pasta.

In this dish I serve pasta with typical Italian vegetables, tomatoes and zucchini, slow-roasted in the oven. If you haven’t tried zucchini I hope you will try them. Baking the vegetables on slow heat is a drying process that removes the water and intensifies the taste. Just think of the difference between natural tomatoes and sun-dried tomatoes.

I also add bacon and mushroom because these are two of my favourite ingredients, but you can easily skip the bacon for a veggie-option. If you are lactose intolerant, leave out the cream. This dish is still delicious thanks to the slow-roasted vegetables packed with flavours.

Summer pasta with slow-roasted vegetables.

Pasta with slow-roasted vegetables (makes 3)

1 big zucchini, ends trimmed
200 g / 7 oz cherry tomatoes
400 g / 14 oz mushrooms e.g. brown button mushroom (aromasjampinjong)
300 ml / 10 oz sour cream (sæterrømme) or heavy cream (kremfløte)
200 g / 7 oz bacon, cut in small chunks (optional)
parmesan
parsley
salt and pepper
4 tbsp olive oil

1. Wash the vegetables except the mushrooms. Line a wide baking tray with parchment paper. Preheat the oven to 150C/300F/Gas 2.

2. Cut the zucchini in thin slices and place on the baking tray along with the tomatoes. Add olive oil, salt and pepper and rub into the vegetables with your hands. Spread the vegetables evenly on the tray (so they get into touch with the tray, not each other). Roast in the oven for 1 hour. If the zucchini look dry, add some more oil.

3. The mushrooms should not be cut thinly, if they are small, cut them in two. If they are medium sized cut them in three. In a frying pan, place the mushrooms and bacon and fry for about 25 minutes on medium-low heat until the bacon is crisp and the mushrooms have a nice brown colour. Stir occasionally. Season with salt and pepper.

4. Meanwhile, boil your favorite pasta according to package instructions. When the bacon and mushrooms are done, remove half of them and place in the tray with the slow-roasted vegetables. Add sour cream (or heavy cream) to the pan and leave to boil until slightly thickened. Season once again.

5. Place the pasta in serving bowls, then add the creamy bacon and mushrooms. Finish with the slow-roasted vegetables, lots of parmesan and a scattering of parsley. Drizzle with olive or chili oil.

Music: Summertime Sadness by Lana Del Rey

More pasta dishes?

Pasta Bolognese
Quick pasta with spinach and pimenton

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