Basic 'chicken' seitan

If you haven't made seitan before, I recommend you read my introduction to the process here. 

 

The basic proportions for making seitan are 1/4 cup of water to 1/2 cup flour.  However, this is somewhat excessively basic and the following recipe is a more appropriate basic 'chicken' recipe. 

 

Before we go any further, and at the risk of shattering all your hopes and illusions, seitan doesn’t taste remotely like chicken. I say this as someone who hasn’t eat chicken for well over a decade, but for all that, I say it with some certainty. I don’t want anyone to be disappointed.

 

This is the one to use if you are copying a tofu recipe: add the seasoning suggested for the marinade (if any) to the dry ingredients.  This 'chicken' can also be used to replace beans and chickpeas in various recipes or even to replace the meat in a well-flavoured chicken dish.  However, I wouldn't recommend serving a slab of it on a plate, with roast potatoes, two veg and gravy!

Serves  2

Ingredients

        1/3 cup  vital wheat gluten

        2 tbsp gram flour

        2 tsp nutritional yeast

1/2 tsp mushroom 'stock' powder

        1/4 tsp onion powder

        1/4 tsp garlic granules

       

1/4 cup water

1 tbsp soya sauce

 

Method:

• In a bowl, mix vital wheat gluten, gram flour, nutritional yeast, mushroom stock powder, salt, onion powder and garlic granules.
• In a small jug, mix the water and soya sauce and add them to the bowl.  Combine everything into a soft dough, starting with a knife or spatula and ending with your hand. If the mix seems a little bit dry, add some more water, a teaspoonful at a time. If too wet, carefully add some more vital wheat gluten.  Use the dough to clean your bowl thoroughly, otherwise the dried seitan will need to be soaked off.
• Put the dough on a board and flatten it down. You will be cutting it into bite-sized chunks, so it wants to be a suitable thickness.
• Put the trivet into your pressure cooker, along with ½ cup water. Place the seitan on the trivet, and bring up to pressure for 5 minutes. Let the pressure go down naturally.
• When you can take the lid off, take out the seitan and cut it up – or tear it for a more ‛organic’ appearance.
• If you want to, you can now fry the chunks in some oil so that they are crisp on the outside. On odds, I think I prefer them soft.

The seitan can now be added to your recipes and, simmered for as long as suits you.  Because it's completely cooked, it only needs reheating; however, it is robust and doesn't start to dissolve - I've often simmered it for about 20 minutes.  It is also quite happy to be shoved around by the spoon without collapsing.  I've seen recipes for tofu kebabs and this seitan, suitably flavoured, should also be a success in this context, too.

 You will find many more recipes for seitan here

Spaghetti 'Bolognese'

 

When I was a little girl, one of our favourite meals was ‘spaghetti mince’; my father had been in Italy during the Second World War and had brought back a taste for their food. This was about the only ‘foreign’ food we ever ate. The spaghetti had to be bought from a speciality shop – an ‘Italian Warehouseman’ – and came in long lengths, which were doubled over and wrapped in blue paper so that each strand must have been about a metre long!  Usually, Mum patiently bent it into the boiling water, but when she was in a hurry, she guiltily broke it into more convenient lengths.

 

Over the years, the name changed to ‘Spaghetti Bolognese’ and garlic was included and a sprinkling of mixed herbs.  Eventually, my mother started to try different recipes, which included bacon or chicken livers or whatever the recipe writers of the day considered appropriate.  I suspect very few resembled 'classic' spaghetti Bolognese - if there ever was such a thing.  Parmesan cheese was sprinkled over the top, sparingly, from a shiny, green cardboard container.

 

By the 80s, spaghetti Bolognese had become a standard in most households and, for that matter, it was about the first meal most people learnt to make on leaving home. The recipe varied greatly and I doubt that many citizens of Bologna would have recognised it.

 

‘Spag bol’, as it was disrespectfully known, was, of course, one of my first attempts at cooking - an effort to reproduce a favourite, which I had seen cooked many times. My own recipe became firmly established when I created a vegetarian version, and I’ve used it ever since. I got the idea for using carrot and the dash of hot sauce/chilli flakes, when I ate spaghetti Bolognese in the Portofino restaurant in Lancaster. The recipe always goes down well, and because of its familiarity, many meat eaters enjoy it. Dressed up with some freshly grated Parmesan cheese – or, if you want to be really trendy, slivers of Parmesan – it’s certainly good enough for the proverbial dinner party, as long as your guests are used to eating spaghetti, that is!

 

The most pleasing sauce is made with the tiny brown lentils, (those which become red lentils when split), but any whole lentils will do and it’s fine made with split ones, too, although the resemblance to the ‘real thing’ is considerably less.  I have used  the sauce, or something very similar, in a number of iterations, such as lasagne.

 

You can make this recipe gluten free, using the appropriate pasta. 

 

Serves 2

 

Ingredients

 

1/2 cup whole lentils

2 tbsp olive oil

1 onion

2 garlic cloves

1 carrot

1/2 green/red pepper

4 fresh OR 400 g/14 oz can chopped tomatoes

1/2 tsp sage

1/2 tsp basil

1/2 tsp oregano

1/4 tsp cinnamon

a good shake of hot sauce OR 1/4 tsp chilli flakes

1/2 tsp salt

pepper

 

25 mm (1 in) column spaghetti

 

Method:

• Cook the lentils as usual.
• Heat the olive oil in a saucepan. Dice the onion and garlic and fry until starting to brown.  This will add more colour to the sauce.
• Dice the carrot and add. Cook until it’s slightly softened  Now add he diced pepper.
• Dice the tomatoes and mix in the sage, basil, oregano, cinnamon and chilli (sauce). If you’re using fresh tomatoes and the sauce seems too thick, it can be thinned by the judicious addition of a little wine. This also improves the taste. Water can be substituted in extremis.
• Now add the salt.  When everything is mixed together and heated through, add the lentils. Cook gently for ten minutes or so to let all the flavours combine. Taste and check the seasoning – the hot sauce should just give it a slight ‘lift’. If the tomatoes have produced too much liquid, simmer a little longer, with the lid off. The sauce should be fairly thick, when it’s ready.
• While the sauce is simmering, cook the spaghetti. Check that it's cooked to your taste, and toss it in olive oil and cracked black pepper. If people are to help themselves, it’s easier to put the spaghetti and sauce into separate dishes. Freshly grated - or shaved - Parmesan cheese is the ideal accompaniment; have a small bowl of 'Parmegan' for vegans. 

Note:

• Italians don't serve their pasta and sauce separately and you might prefer to tip the spaghetti into the sauce before serving it.  Remember to save some pasta water in case the sauce looks too dry.  The only issue with serving it this way, if you are giving it to guests, is that it's really difficult not to flick bits of sauce around while dishing up the food!
• In heavy weather, however, it's probably worth mixing it first and serving in bowls.  You might want to break the pasta into shorter lengths, too. 

Variations:

• Use linguine, fettucine or another long past, instead of the spaghetti
• If you’re fortunate enough to be in the land of cheap red wine, a dollop in the sauce improves it immensely.
•  In really hot weather, when appetites are failing, the sauce is still quite delicious without the lentils.  
• Use a cup of mixed, finely chopped nuts, instead of the lentils. They will not need water, of course and you would add them after frying the vegetables. 

 

You will find more pasta, main-course recipes here.

Chickpeas and wild rice with tomatoes

CHICKPEAS AND WILD RICE WITH TOMATOES

 

This is one of those really great recipes.  It tastes wonderful, but it’s simple, inexpensive, easy to cook and uses food that you - or at any rate I - always have to hand.  To me, it’s so delicious that it’s fit for a celebration or to give to guests. I love it, and every time I make it, I only wish that I’d made twice as much!  

 

If you don't have wild rice on board, or it's beyond your budget, substitute your normal brown.  It will still make a lovely meal.

 

serves 2

 

Ingredients

 

1 onion, chopped

2 tbsp olive oil (preferably from a jar of sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil)

1/2 cup rice

1/4 cup wild rice

2½ cups water

1/2 cup chickpeas, soaked

1 tsp Annie's Mixed Herbs or a handful of chopped parsley

 1/2 tsp (heaped) Annie's Seasoned Salt

400 g/14 oz can tomatoes*

1 garlic clove

 cracked black pepper

 

Method:

• Heat the oil in the pressure cooker and add the chopped onion. Cook for a few minutes until softened and transparent.
• Add the rice and wild rice and cook for a further 5 minutes, stirring frequently until the grains of rice become opaque.
• Pour in the water and bring to the boil. Add the chickpeas and the dried mixed herbs (if you're using fresh parsley, keep this until the end). Stir well and put the lid on the pressure cooker. Bring up to pressure and cook for 15 minutes.
• Reduce pressure at room temperature. Add the salt. Dice the garlic and add to the pan.
• Drain the tomatoes and put the juice aside for another recipe. Add the tomatoes to the pressure cooker and chop them very roughly with your spoon – they should stay in big chunks.
• Season generously with pepper, check the salt and reheat, with the lid on, over a low flame. 
• If you are using fresh parsley, chop this finely and mix it through before serving.

Note:

• If you're somewhere that tomatoes are affordable, this is a good meal to use them, so that you don't have to store the juice.  Peel them first, if you want to and cut them in quarters or eighths, depending on how big they are.  I can't suggest how many to use, but cut up, they would measure a generous cup and a half.
• Fresh parsley truly enhances this dish.

You will find many more rice recipes here

Chickpea and wild rice pilaf

Depending on the type, it is not always as easy to get dry rice, with the separate grains that is best for a pilaf with brown rice, but I much prefer it to white. However, if you use brown basmati rice, you will get perfect results.

 

In this recipe, I use 30% wild rice. I’m sure you could use 100%, but suspect that it would be a little overpowering, to say nothing of being wildly extravagant. This pilaf usually seems popular and to me, has an "authentic" taste (although I doubt it has!). Don’t be put off by the long list of ingredients: it’s actually very straightforward to make and even good enough for entertaining!

 

Serves 2

 

Ingredients

 

8 dried apricots

6 dates

2 tbsp raisins

1 onion

2 garlic cloves

1/2 cup brown (basmati) rice

1/4 cup wild rice

6 cardamom pods

1/2 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp coriander

1/2 tsp cinnamon/1 ½ cups water

3 tbsp pine nuts

1/4 cup boiling water

1 red pepper, chopped

1/2 tsp dried mint

1/2 cup chickpeas, soaked and cooked

salt and pepper

 

Method:

• Slice the apricots and chop the dates. Put them in a bowl with the raisins and pour over 1/4 cup boiling water. This will make them plump up.
• Slice the onion and then cut the slices in half; chop the garlic.
• Put them into a saucepan, together with the rice, seeds from the cardamom pods, cumin, coriander and cinnamon.
• Pour in the water. (If your lid doesn’t fit very well, add an extra 1/2 cup.)/Bring to the boil and then turn down the heat; leave it simmering for 40 minutes. Toast the pine nuts in a dry frying pan, under a grill, or on a tray in the oven. Keep an eye on them : they burn very easily.
• When the rice is almost cooked, add the dried fruit and any liquid, along with the red pepper, mint and drained chickpeas. If it all looks too dry, add a little more water.
• Cook until everything is heated through and the flavours have combined.
• Serve sprinkled with the pine nuts.

Variations:

• Instead of pine nuts, you could use either chopped cashews or almonds. If you can’t afford any of them, the pilaf will still taste fine.
• If you can lay hands on a bunch of flat-leaved parsley, add a generous amount of this, roughly chopped, right at the end of the cooking time. Don’t be tempted to substitute fresh coriander – it will tend to overpower the rather delicate flavour of this pilaf.
• Use the chickpeas to make falafel (either the 'real way', with ground soaked chickpeas, or the phoney way, with cooked ones) and serve these on top of the pilaf, perhaps with some yoghurt or tahini sauce.

You will find many more rice recipes here

West Indian rice and beans

This is real voyaging on a small income food: dirt cheap and from food you have in the lockers.  It's filling and easy to cook.  I love kidney beans, but when I was voyaging, found myself cooking them too often as Chilli sin carne, but this recipe makes a pleasant change and is particularly good in areas where fresh vegetables are limited.  You can also use black beans - they are very popular in the West Indies.  

 

Don't be put off by the amount of thyme - it is meant to season the food quite strongly.  Cream of coconut - like a hard slab of butter - isn't always easy to obtain.  Use coconut milk or cream instead.

Serves 2

 

Ingredients

 

1/2 cup kidney or black beans, soaked and cooked

1/2 cup rice

1 cup water

2 tbsp oil

1 onion

1 garlic clove

1 1/2 tsp thyme

salt and pepper

 

Method:

• Cook the beans.  Drain black beans carefully so that the meal doesn't turn out grey! Put the rice in the water, add salt and cook in the usual way.
• About ten minutes before the rice is cooked, heat the oil in a saucepan and add the chopped onion and diced garlic. Cook them until they’re softened then add the thyme.  
• When the rice is cooked, turn it out of the pan onto the vegetables and add the beans, salt and pepper.
• Carefully combine everything, ensuring that the rice and beans don’t get mashed. Cover and cook until everything is piping hot.
• Serve with a green vegetable.

Variations:

• A chilli pepper, fresh or dried go well in this recipe - indeed I'd recommend it.
• 1/2 tsp dried chilli flakes also works. 
• If you can't get cream of coconut, substitute a small can of coconut cream (or use dried coconut milk anda little extra water, if you have it).
• Traditionally, a sliced carrot was also added. 
• You could add some allspice for a Jamaican flavour!

You will find many more rice recipes here

Special rice

This is a way of cooking rice so that it looks attractive, when you’ve worked a bit harder at the main course and want the rice to complement your efforts. It’s not difficult, but worth the extra few minutes it takes to make it.  Obviously, the ingredients aren't going to combine that well with your Spanish stew, but it will pretty much go with any recipe that originates east of Italy.  It was intended as a sort of Indian pulao.

Serves 2

 

Ingredients

 

knob of butter OR 2 tsp olive oil

1/2 cup rice

1/4 tsp turmeric

1¼ cups water

2 tbsp raisins

1/4 tsp dried, minced garlic

1 tbsp dried onion OR 1/4 onion, sliced

1 cardamom pod

2 cloves

 

Method:

• Melt the butter in a saucepan and gently fry the rice and turmeric for a couple of minutes.
• Add the water and while it’s coming to the boil, add the raisins, garlic, onion and spices.
• When the water has boiled, stir, cover and simmer for 35 minutes.
• By now most of the water should be absorbed. Take the rice off the heat and leave it for a further 5 – 10 minutes to finish cooking.
• Remove the cardamom and cloves before serving.

You will find many more rice recipes here

Rice and black-eyed peas with Swiss chard - Lobhia saag pulao

 

This recipe is very freely adapted from one of Vegan Richa’s. For a ‘real’ curry, there are no weird and wonderful spices and there aren’t too many of them, either, which made me feel that the recipe might be tackled by a cook who likes curry, but doesn’t want to faff around too much. It’s a one-pot meal and Swiss chard, if bought very fresh and looked after with loving care, will last for 4 or 5 days, which will take you well into a thousand-mile passage. Spinach would also go very well in this recipe.

 

Black-eyed peas are quite popular in Indian cuisine and have the advantage that they don’t need soaking. They also need the same time to cook as brown basmati rice, so make a perfect match. This is a very pleasant curry, even following my method rather than making it the ‘right way’, which involves a blender and thus some awkward washing up.

Serves 2

Ingredients

1 tbsp of oil or ghee

1 medium onion, sliced

1 green chilli pepper, chopped

1 tsp ginger paste or chopped ginger

3 cloves garlic, diced

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp garam masala

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground cardamom (seeds if you don’t have ground)

2 medium tomatoes, chopped

3 or 4 large leaves of Swiss chard

1/2 cup brown basmati rice

1/2 cup dried black-eyed peas

2½ cups water

salt

1/2 tsp kasuri methi/dried fenugreek leaves

Method:

• Heat the oil in the pressure cooker over medium heat. Add the onion, chilli, ginger and garlic, sprinkle over the salt and mix it in.
• Cook until the onion is translucent.
• Now add the garam masala, cinnamon, and cardamom, lower the heat and cook until the spices smell fragrant.
• Stir in the chopped tomatoes and cook for several minutes until they become juicy. Loosely cover and add a tablespoon of water if the mix seems to be getting to dry: it very much depends on your tomatoes.
• In the meantime, dice the chard. Don’t worry that there won’t be any texture after it has been cooked: the original recipe calls for it to be blended.
• Now add the black-eyed peas to the pressure cooker, together with the rice and the water.
• Put on the lid, bring up to pressure and cook for 10 minutes, let the pressure reduce naturally.
• Taste the mixture: you will probably need more salt. If it seems very wet, let it simmer over a low heat until some of the water evaporates. The amount of moisture will depend on both the tomatoes and the greens.
• Add the dried fenugreek, if you’re using it.
• Serve hot, maybe with roti if you’re really hungry!

Note:

• If you are using spinach, you would want ‘ bunch’. It is usually sold in an unspecified amount, but as it’s not filling and it shrinks away to nothing once you heat it, unless the bunch looks enormous you’re unlikely to have too much.

Variation:

• Try other greens, such as mustard greens or spring cabbage.
• Whole lentils would also work with this recipe, as would mung beans.
• Long grain brown rice should also cook satisfactorily in the same time as the black-eyed beans. If yours seems to take a very long time, I suggest adding it with the water and cooking it for a few minutes, letting the pressure reduce, then adding the beans and spinach to ensure that the rice is cooked through without cooking the beans to a mush.

 

You will find many more rice recipes here

Spicy peanut dip

Blender alert!!

I discovered something similar to this on the Minimalist Baker blog, when I was looking for a 'store-cupboard' ingredients, quick and easy recipe.  The blog suggested a 5-minute, vegan queso. Not having had a lot to do with Mexican food, I thought they were suggesting some sort of quick, vegan cheese; however, it turns out that ‛queso’ is short for ‛chilli con queso’ and is a runny, spicy, cheesy sauce, which is served warm, with tortilla chips. It sounded a bit like fondue! I didn’t want anything that liquid, or anything warm, but the seasonings looked interesting and I was short of time. So I took the recipe and adapted it to end up with a spicy, thick dip, ideal for spreading on crackers.  Indeed, it was quick to make and has proven popular; nor does it taste of peanuts!

 

Assuming conditions aren't too rough to use a blender, this is a great voyaging dip, because everything will be in your lockers.  At the other end of the scale, it's ideal for taking to another boat for sundowners.

Serves 2 to 4 as a dip

Ingredients

1/2 cup hot water

1/2 cup blanched peanuts

1 clove garlic, chopped OR 1/4 tsp garlic granules

1 tbsp nutritional yeast

1/4 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp Kashmiri chilli powder OR 1/4 tsp cayenne

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp smoked paprika

2 tsp harissa

Instructions

• Add water, peanuts, garlic, yeast, cumin, chilli, salt, paprika and harissa to a blender, and blend until creamy. You may need to add a little more water, depending on the required consistency.  
• Taste and adjust flavour as needed, adding more nutritional yeast for cheesiness, salt to taste, cumin or paprika for smokiness, chilli powder or harissa for heat, or garlic for zing. It should have plenty of personality, so don’t be shy. If you don't have any harissa, use extra chilli, cumin and paprika. 
• Serve with crisps, crackers or bread. Garnish with additional harissa and olive oil, if you like
  

Note:

• If you're not in too much of a hurry, you might like to soak the peanuts for a while, to make them easier to blend into a smooth paste.

Carrot Pulao

A lot of dals and curries are made without any additional vegetables apart from garlic, onions and chilli.    While the myriad vegetable side dishes that exist in Indian cooking, are both delicious and fun to make, if I want to have rice, I often don’t want to have another pan to wash up, or have to make smaller portions of each dish, so that I don’t end up with too much food.    I usually make enough for two meals, and eat the leftovers for breakfast (don’t knock it until you’ve tried it!), but I don’t like having the same dinner two nights on the run.    The solution to this issue is to make a pulao that also contains vegetables.

Carrots are an epic voyaging vegetable, particularly if you can buy them from a market or greengrocer, unscrubbed and unrefrigerated.    While no doubt many voyagers would make a carrot and cabbage salad to go with curry, I confess to preferring both carrots and cabbage cooked rather than raw.    Grated carrots and shredded carrots do, however, use less of your precious provisions if you are trying to eke them out over a long passage.

 I came to make this, one night in summer, thinking that I wasn't particularly hungry (I often lose my usually-healthy appetite in very hot weather).  Just as I had opened the recipe, I suddenly realised that I was hungry and decided to add some lentils to the mix.  I put 1/2 cup of lentils into the pan; 10 minutes later I added the rice and 10 minutes after that, the chopped carrot.  Then followed the recipe as shown below.  I have to say it was delicious and satisfying - if not particularly authentic!!

Serves 2

Ingredients

1/2 cup brown basmati rice

1 large or 2 small carrots, grated or diced

4 tsp ghee, coconut or vegetable oil

1 tsp mustard seeds

1 tsp cumin seeds

Indian bay leaf (or some diced, salted lime)

20 cashew nuts (or equivalent if yours are broken)

1 small onion, finely chopped/

4 green chillis, slit lengthwise or diced*

1/2 tsp turmeric

salt to taste

Instructions:

• Cook the basmati rice in a cup of salted water. If you are using diced carrots, add these after about ten minutes.
• Add a tsp of ghee or oil to a frying pan and heat it over a high flame.
• Add the mustard seeds, cumin, bay leaf (or lime) and heat until they sizzle and pop.
• Now, add the cashews and fry them for a few minutes.
• Once the cashews turn golden brown, add the chopped onion and green chillis. Reduce the heat and fry until the onion turns translucent.
• If you are using grated carrot, add this and fry for a minute until it shrinks and changes in colour.
• When the carrot is cooked, add turmeric and salt to taste. Mix thoroughly.
• Now add the cooked rice (and cooked, diced carrot).
• Mix again gently, and cook for another minute.

Serve this carrot pilau with dal or curry. You can also serve it for a light meal with yoghurt  or raita, if you like.  Pappadoms also go well.

Note:

• * use fewer chillies if you think four seems a bit excessive.

Sun-dried tomato pesto

 

Blender alert

 

I love sun-dried tomato pesto: it has a rich and intense flavour, softened by the nuts. It makes an excellent spread, is a superb grown-up substitute for tomato ketchup and I like to use it as a base for frying pan pizza. As long as you have a blender, it’s also easy to make, but I'm afraid that in this case, the blender is a necessity.

 

Most pesto recipes, including those based on tomatoes, call for fresh basil, but all too often, this is inappropriate for a voyaging boat. It’s usually relatively expensive, it doesn’t keep well, even if you have a fridge and a ‘bunch’ of basil is not very quantifiable. Moreover, this is only something that is available when you have frequent access to shops. I add a teaspoon of dried basil to this pesto, but if you feel it tastes wrong, you can leave it out altogether! Or add more if you wish. Or even add fresh basil should you be lucky enough to have some. But this is intended as a voyaging recipe that you can make from ingredients that you have in your lockers.  

 

Makes about 1 cup

 

Ingredients

 

1/4 cup sunflower seeds

3/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes, packed in oil, including oil

1 clove garlic, peeled and roughly chopped

1 tbsp nutritional yeast

1 tsp dried basil

1/2 tsp vinegar or lemon juice*

salt and pepper

water

 

Instructions

• I suggest whizzing up the sunflower seeds first. This way you can chop them to the extent that you want. They are unlikely to get pulverised, once you’ve added the tomatoes.
• Once the sunflower seeds are chopped up, add the tomatoes, garlic, nutritional yeast, basil and vinegar. Blend to a chunky consistency. 
• Now carefully separate the blender and taste. Add more vinegar if you think it’s required.  
• Check the saltiness - some sun-dried tomatoes are much saltier than others - and adjust, then add a good grinding of pepper. If the pesto seems too thick - and it probably will - add some water. Blend and check the consistency again (you might be able to do this simply by shaking the goblet), leaving it chunky or making it smooth, as you wish. You may need to add water several times some tomatoes seem denser than others.

Decant it into a glass jar, for preference. Use it more as a condiment than a dip - it’s quite strongly flavoured. However, it would make a brilliant pâté, mashed with some white beans.

 

Notes:

• Theoretically, this should be kept in the fridge, but I’ve found that as all the ingredients keep without refrigeration, so they do when they are combined! However, don’t keep it too long in a warm climate, because the oil may turn rancid.
• Add more garlic if you like it to be more emphatic
• With the sundried tomatoes I normally buy, I need at least 1/4 tsp salt.

Variations:

• Be aware that some sun-dried tomatoes in oil have vinegar already added, so taste them first to make sure you don't overpower your pesto with the taste.
• Try adding a few chilli flakes if you’re fond of them
• Capers would also go well in this pesto
• If you’re feeling wealthy, use pinenuts instead of the sunflower seeds. Or any other nut or seed that takes your fancy.

Tomato chutney

While this is a traditional Indian chutney, it is very adaptable to western ideas and you can use it as a base for a sauce, a dip or for stuffing vegetables. Or even as an extremely inauthentic pizza base! I think it goes very well with Lentil flatbreads for a light lunch or with sundowners. Unlike ‘chutney’ as most British people would think of it, this is not a preserve, although it will keep quite well for several days.

 

Ingredients

 

1 tsp coconut oil, mustard oil or other oil of choice

1/2 tsp mustard seeds

1/2 tsp cumin seeds

1/4 tsp fennel seeds

a generous pinch of asafoetida)

2 tsp finely chopped ginger or ginger paste

3 or 4 cloves finely chopped garlic or 2 tsp garlic paste

1 green chilli chopped

1 small onion, chopped (optional)

1/4 tsp turmeric

1 tsp ground coriander

3 medium tomatoes, chopped

1/4 tsp salt or to taste

1/4 tsp black salt (kala namak)

1/2 tsp Kasmiri chilli powder, to taste

 

Method:

• In a medium pan, add the oil and heat on a medium flame.
• Once hot, add mustard and cumin seeds and let them crackle.
• Add asafoetida and fennel seeds, and mix for a few seconds.
• Add ginger, garlic, green chilli and optional onion and cook on medium, stirring occasionally, until the onion is golden and/or the mixture smells fragrant.
• Add turmeric and ground coriander and mix well.
• Add tomatoes and salt and cook on low-medium heat, covered, until tomatoes are completely softened.
• Adjust salt and spice. Add black salt and chilli powder to taste. Mix well.

You can continue to cook this chutney down to a thicker consistency or add a little water to make it thinner, depending on what you are serving the chutney with. I like to cook it over a low heat, covered, to make a very thick sauce.

Notes:

• For those who don’t have some of the more unusual curry spices on board, you can leave out the mustard seeds and asafoetida. Use ordinary salt in place of the kala namak and 1/4 tsp chilli flakes as a substitute for the Kashmiri chilli (a mild and very red, Indian chilli powder). You could use 1/2 tsp paprika to enhance the colour of the chutney.
• If the pieces of onion or tomato skins seem too intrusive, you could try mashing the chutney, or give it a few seconds in a blender.  Be careful, however: you don't want it to end up as a purée!

Seitan 'English' sausages

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have been working on this recipe for a while, now, determined to get it right.   I think most people enjoy sausages, with mash, or chips or as part of a huge fried breakfast.  What I love about this recipe is that is definitely a voyaging one, which means that you can have sausages half way across the ocean, should you so choose.  Not something many people can boast of, unless they have a freezer. In true voyaging style, the ones in the photo above are served with 'Surprise' peas.  Judging by the rest of the stuff on the table, the sea is pretty smooth!  These sausages are also quite fast to make, especially if you already have some sausage seasoning mixed: once you've cooked the sausages in the pressure cooker, they only need a few minutes in the frying pan to brown them to your taste.  They are quite different from my recipe for chorizo, but, if you are new to seitan, a particularly good one to start with, seeing as how most people like sausages.

 

I am besotted with seitan recipes: the texture is so different from most other vegetarian and vegan foods, it’s cheap and making ‛meat’ with it is so quick.  These ‛English’ sausages are great on their own, in a bun/sandwich or as part of an ‛English’ breakfast.  The seasoning is based on that used in Cumberland sausage and the couscous is to replace the rusk that is always used in British bangers, to keep the juices in the sausage so that they don’t dry out.  In this way they're quite different from Bratwurst or other 100% meat sausages. In the days when I occasionally ate meat, I always found these tricky to cook because of the tendency of the ‛100% meat’ sausage to dry out, especially if they were also low fat.  Of course, the result isn’t as juicy as a good quality meat banger, but I do feel that the addition of couscous keeps it a little more moist.  If you don’t want to use couscous, go for the chorizo sausage recipe instead (link above) instead, and substitute the sausage seasoning for that included in the chorizo recipe.

Instead of the herbs, spices and salt in the recipe, shown in italics, I recommend using 3 tsp Annie's English sausage seasoning, for a more complex flavour (see recipe at the bottom of the page.) There's a generous amount of seasoning, because the seitan otherwise has no flavour. It does in fact, have a slight, indescribable taste, which can be a bit intrusive, and this is why the ingredients include vinegar. Most of the recipes that I’ve seen always insist on ‘apple cider’ vinegar (what other sort of cider is there? Surely the definition of cider is fermented apple juice?), but any vinegar, apart from Balsamic, would work just fine. So no doubt would lemon juice, but vinegar is cheaper.

Makes 6 sausages, 2 servings

Ingredients

1/3 cup couscous

1/2 tsp yeast extract or miso

2/3 cup boiling water

 

3/4 tsp crushed black pepper

1/2 tsp thyme

3/4 tsp sage

1/8 - 1/4 tsp cayenne

1/4 tsp freshly ground nutmeg

1 1/2 tsp onion powder

1/2 tsp salt

 

OR 3 tsp Annie's English sausage seasoning  (see below)

 

1/4 cup (60 ml) water

1 tbsp soya sauce

1 tsp vinegar

1 heaped tsp tahini

1 tbsp olive oil or deodorised coconut oil, melted

2 tbsp chickpea flour

1/3 cup vital wheat gluten

• Cut baking parchment into 6 sheets, approximately 200/8" x 150/6".
• Put the couscous in a large bowl.
• Mix the yeast extract/miso in 2/3 cup boiling water and then pour it over the couscous. Cover the bowl and leave it for about ten minutes until the water has been absorbed.   
• Now mix the seasoning into the couscous.
• Add the 1/4 cup of water and mix well.
• Then add the soya sauce, followed by the vinegar, tahini and oil. Mix this all very thoroughly, because once you have added the vital wheat gluten it will be difficult to incorporate the other ingredients evenly.
• Now add the chickpea flour and the vital wheat gluten and quickly mix it in to the rest of the ingredients.  Again do this very thoroughly.   I find a butter knife the best tool.
• Mix as well as you can with your knife and then use your hand, incorporating all the flour that will be trying to stick to the edge of the bowl.  Keep mixing until everything until you have a smooth dough and it stops sticking to your hands. You should end up with a fairly soft mix.
• Place the dough on a board.  (Make sure you clean the bowl really thoroughly, because the gluten sticks as soon as it dries out, making it quite difficult to clean.  Soak it for a while if you've left much behind, before cleaniing.)  Roughly shape it into a rectangle about as long as you want your sausages to be.  (The dough is nowhere near as accommodating as bread dough when it comes to shaping).   
• Cut the dough in half and then thirds so that you have six equal lumps of dough. I usually have to pinch a bit of dough from one or two to get them all more or less the same size.
• Shape the sausages to be best of your ability – the wrapping finishes the job.  Don’t worry about gaps and creases.  The cooking sorts out most of that.  It would be fun to try to make one long sausage, wrap it up in baking paper and then form it into a coil to put onto the trivet.  This would produce and authentic Cumberland sausage shape, which would be fun and impressive, but I’m not sure how well it would work.
• Now put each sausage, centred at the edge of a piece of baking paper and roll it up tightly. This helps make it round.  Twist the paper at either end, until it is squashed against the end of the sausage.  Do this with all six sausages.
   
  
  
   
• Put the trivet into your pressure cooker.  Add about half a cup of water – don’t let it cover the trivet.  Place the sausages onto the trivet – it doesn’t matter if they are stacked – and bring up to pressure; cook for 5 minutes.
• Let the pressure come down naturally.

When they’re cooked, take the sausages out of the pressure cooker and unwrap them.    Put them somewhere where they can cool and dry out a little before storing them.  I find they keep best in my wooden bread bin!  Fry them before using them – the added olive oil gives additional flavour and I enjoy cooking them until they are slightly crisp.

 

 

Serve with mashed or smashed potatoes and vegetables, or any way that you enjoy your sausages.  They will stand up happily to barbecuing or cooking on the beach.

 

Note:

• you can use fine bulgar wheat instead of couscous if you prefer.  Or even soft breadcrumbs if you don't mind making your lovingly baked bread into breadcrumbs! 

Annie’s English Sausage seasoning:

Makes enough for about 60 sausages, or 20 servings

Ingredients

1 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1 tsp ground mace

2 1/2 tbsp salt

2 tbsp black pepper

2 tbsp rubbed sage

2 tsp onion powder

1 1/4 tsp ground ginger

2 1/4 tsp thyme

3/4 tsp cayenne

1 1/2 tsp ground coriander

• If you don’t have ground nutmeg or mace (which don’t keep well ready-ground) grind up about 1/2 a nutmeg in a mortar or blender. Remove 1 1/2 tsp and add to a bowl.
• Take several blades of mace, grind to a powder, remove 1 tsp and add to the nutmeg.
• Now add all the rest of the ingredients and mix thoroughly. Put into a glass jar and keep as cool and dark as feasible.

Add 3 tsp of sausage seasoning to 1/3 cup vital wheat gluten, ie, per 6 sausages.