Marinated Mushrooms

Either way you take it, mushrooms are great. Some of them taste light enough to have them raw – like champignons – while others require cooking as they’re a bit heavy. Have you ever thought of saving their  natural enzymes while having the best taste? *

There’s one easy procedure to do that – it’s called marinating and it refers to the changes of taste and texture undergone by food during long hours spent in a seasoned acidic liquid. I usually use olive oil, lemon juice and soya sauce and then add dry thyme, garlic or even dates – for a sweet twist. You can think of spices such as ground turmeric, nutmeg or cumin, but just be sure you don’t get all exotic; unless you really master tastes & flavors! My new favorite seasoning for the mushroom marinade is sweet smoked paprika – it just builds up so much taste! (most probably reminiscent of bacon aroma :))

Once you start adding the composition to the mushrooms (if there’s not enough liquid, just add water) you’ll see how they turn tender and shrink.  Leave the marinade overnight in cool place or in the fridge and then add it to your favorite salad.

list of ingredients

• olive oil
• lemon juice
• soya sauce
• optional: dry thyme, crushed garlic, turmeric, nutmeg, cumin, dates

Here are a few ideas for some truly gourmet raw mushroom dishes:

Like any other respectable protein, the mushrooms get along very well with carrots 🙂 Feel free to experiment any dish with these two, along with your favorite greens. Lots of greens.

And this is how the pretty forest mushrooms in the above picture turned out: a dish with shredded cauliflower & carrot, red peppers, turmeric and salvia leaves.

A sample of the smoked paprika marinade, mixed with whole grain brown rice and served with green onions.

And another sample of a different marinade, made out of soya sauce, dates (crushed or paste) and only a bit of lemon. This is how red onions look like after spending some time in this thick liquid.

* special warning

if your mushrooms are picked up from the forest, be sure to check if they require to be cooked over heat. some of them might be poisonous when raw!

Cauliflower forever

Most of the people are simply astonished when they have raw cauliflower. Wow, it’s so great! but…what is it? rice….or cheese? If you’re not familiar with it, you literally have no idea what is that you’re eating. We of course owe it all to the food processor, able to break down the cauliflower into tiny white pieces resembling rice. You can do it by hand as well, but the result will be slightly different.

I haven’t yet discovered a better and faster recipe than the cauliflower rice.  It goes like this: you shred the cauliflower in your food processor and you mix it with peas, corn (both fresh or frozen) pepper (capia or capsicum) and green onion/garlic. In case you want to add some greens, I totally recommend lovage or dill. Make a basic dressing out of olive oil and lemon juice and that’s it. Now you can enjoy the best summer salad!

Another vegetable that goes pretty well with cauliflower is carrot. I’ve used it in this thai version of the cauliflower rice. The whole idea is to make a coconut based dressing, keeping everything else the same. For this you would ideally need coconut cream or milk (I use Renuka or Biona brand as it doesn’t have any additives). You can also add shredded coconut or coconut flakes directly into the salad, but be aware it will draw in all the liquid, so you might have to add some more in a few minutes. The perfect seasoning is curry, mild or hot, and fresh basil. In the picture I’ve served it with sunflower seeds pate spread on bell pepper.

list of ingredients

• cauliflower
• peas
• corn (if not fresh, see that it doesn’t have added  sugar)
• pepper/capsicum
• olive oil
• lemon juice
• salt

optional:

• green onion/garlic
• lovage/dill
• coconut milk or cream
• shredded coconut
• curry
• fresh basil

 

Vegan mayonnaise

Along the time I tried a few types of mayonnaise, some of them  occurring unexpectedly from one dressing or another. Let me tell you about my favorite ones.

The one and only is the avocado mayo,   righteously deserving all its fame and glory. It’s also incredibly easy to prepare: you just crush the avocado (fork/blender) and mix it with cold pressed sunflower oil, mustard, lemon juice and salt. Its best companions are green onions and cucumbers, but I felt that it could also taste nice on kohlrabi (as in the above picture) or in a chickpeas based salad (as in the picture below).

Here I garnished it with peppers, tomatoes, raisins and fresh mint.

It happened that one day I’ve tried a mustard dressing that turned out to be pretty similar to mayonnaise. I simply mixed mustard, olive oil, onion flakes (previously rehydrated) and lemon juice in the food processor (you can also use the immersion  blender). If you’re not happy with the texture, help yourself with some starch flour. At the end I spiced it up with salt, black and red pepper and serve it on a cabbage, carrot and parsnip salad.  Mayo certainly asks for roots!

The third one is a tahini based mayo and it’s slowly turning into a favorite 🙂 You will get an amazing flavor only if by using a good quality balsamic vinegar. Besides that, you need olive oil, salt and ground flaxseeds – so it goes creamy enough and adds up to those omega 3 and fiber levels! Its superdelicious oily taste is again well balanced by pepper – use any type you wish according to your taste.

Again with coleslaw (cabbage, carrot and celeriac) and green garlic on top. I’m sure you can crush it inside the mayo if you’re a true garlic lover!

list of ingredients

1. avocado based mayo

• avocado
• mustard
• sunflower oil (cold pressed)
• lemon juice
• salt

2. mustard based mayo

• mustard
• olive oil
• onion flakes
• salt, pepper
• optional: starch flour

3. tahini based mayo

• tahina
• olive oil
• balsamic vinegar
• ground flaxseeds
• salt, pepper
• optional: garlic

 

 

 

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