| This recipe includes several components -- baja-style tempeh (vegan version of Baja-style fried fish), taco fixings, special taco sauce, and roasted fresh pineapple and red pepper-chipotle. This review is for the tempeh only. (I put together the rest of the meal with ingredients I had on hand but not following the recipe specifically)
I was really impressed by how well the technique for the tempeh worked. First, the tempeh pieces are marinated in a mixture of soy milk, lime juice, cilantro, and hot sauce. The lime juice causes the soy milk to curdle and become thick like butter milk. Next, you drain off the leftover marinade and mix in some flour with the marinade to make a batter to coat the tempeh slices. Then, you coat the tempeh slices in batter, dredge them in panko, and broil them at 500 degrees. The batter was easy to work with and the panko adhered well to the tempeh.
I loved how crunchy and delicious these turned out without frying. I served these with plenty of guacamole and almond yogurt (variation of the cashew sour cream recipe in this book), so this was not a "low fat" dish, but it was nice to save the fat for the "good stuff."
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| I used the microwave option of this recipe and made the "yogurt" version. It was very simple. You make a nut milk in the blender, microwave it for a couple minutes until is starts to thicken, and then add some lemon juice and additional milk if needed to thin it out. The yogurt definately thickened in the microwave, but it was not super thick, so I did not add the additional milk. It thickened up more in the refrigerator to a thin yogurt (not greek yogurt) consistency.
Although I thought the technique was great, I was not so crazy about the final taste. This may just be me because cashew cream recipes seem to have exploded in popularity lately. The yogurt had an unpleasant aftertaste that I have noticed before with cashew recipes. All is not lost, though. I tried this again a few days later with almond milk, and I really liked the result. |
| This review is for the crepes only, not the sauce or filling.
(I used leftover Vietnamese "Fisherman's Soup" without broth, because the broth had all been eaten, for the filling)
These crepes are made of soaked moong dal, brown rice flour, and lite coconut milk. The batter is made in a blender after the moong dal soaks for 30 minutes. They had a great texture - crispy, with a light bite imparted by the brown rice flour - and the taste was rich and buttery without any butter. Note: This is not a flexible, stretchy crepe recipe. These do not roll up well, but they were great folded in half, stuffed with filling, and eaten with a fork and knife.
I used a non-stick crepe pan, and I found that the crepes got crispy without the added cooking oil directed. There was no trouble with sticking. The batter is spread into the crepe pan and the pan is covered to lightly steam the crepes while they cook with heat from the burner. Do watch the timing -- I have an electric stove, and once my pan was well heated, I found the 5 minutes directed to be a bit too much. My crepe did not burn, but it was darker than I prefer. 3 minutes worked better.
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| I love big soup bowls available from Asian restaurants around town -- brothy, full of vegetables, with a little protein (tofu or seitan). The exact ingredients vary by specific cuisine, but almost uniformly these soup bowls make me swoon. I love soups, but these soup bowls are worlds apart from the bean or bean and grain soups I normally pack for lunch. For lunch, I want something relatively hearty and and dense that will fill me up with a fairly small portion. For a soup bowl, I want a big, big bowl, lots of broth, and lots of veggies. This soup totally met my expectations of a soup bowl.
It is very light with no added oil, and it gets a special zing from canned pineapple chunks and juice added to the broth. This soup reminded me very much of soup I had at a local Vietnamese restaurant several months ago. You must serve it hot. The broth was perfect. The amount of sriracha sauce was just right to give depth of flavor without being "spicy." I did forget the sweetener (a tbs of agave or sugar)-- but, for my tastes, it didn't need it. I used all of the suggestions for easier to find North American substitutions, and this still turned out great.
If I could change one thing about this recipe, I would have more broth. But, I'm not complaining -- there was a lot of broth. The broth was so great, though, that I would have liked more. Also, if you are serving this on its own as a meal, keep in mind that it will serve closer to 2-3 rather than the 6 servings listed. |
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