Leaning Vegetarian

Posts Tagged ‘chile’

I have been very lucky in the draw for coworkers. Linda sends me home with cayennes and green beans, and Kathy and her husband go out to a tomato grower each year and bring back lots of tomatoes for anyone who asks. This is the lovely box we got this year and was very welcome especially in this year of tomato blight (I got four, count ‘em, four from eight tomato plants).

I was a little intimidated by the entire crate, especially while recovering from flu, but what’s better for recovery than something fresh, hot and spicy?

Start with eight large tomatoes, and a couple fresh jalapenos, depending on how much heat you like.  I’ll also use a couple rounded teaspoons of kosher salt; add half while cooking and adjust as it cooks down.

I’ve made this recipe before by boiling the tomatoes to remove the tomato skins (throw the jalapenos in while they’re boiling), but I thought it might add a nice note to roast them. So I put them under the broiler for a bit until the skins blackened a bit and split, let them cool, and peeled and cored them.

Remove the stem from the jalapeno, slice lengthwise and remove the seeds (a few left are fine). Put tomatoes and peppers in the blender and blend till smooth, or to your preference. I like these pureed to a smooth red sauce.

Bring to a boil over medium heat, adding half the salt. Turn the heat lower once it’s reached a boil, and let it simmer until it thickens a bit. These tomatoes were quite juicy so I wound up simmering it for much of an hour on low. Check the salt and add more if it needs it.

I might use a bit of this over burritos later in the week, if there’s any left.

This batch of Seitan was a plain gluten and water mixture, simmered in chicken-style flavorings of sage and thyme. Unfortunately I found out what happens when you allow seitan to boil – this batch came out much tougher than the earlier batch we’d made.

The sweet chile sauce was an experiment – mix a couple teaspoons of honey or other sweetener with a teaspoon of chile paste (we used the sambal paste here), a teaspoon of oil, and a chopped clove of garlic. That was still a bit too sweet for our taste, so I added some chopped ginger (later in the week we also added some bok choy). Fry these all together until the honey bubbles, and add some sliced seitan. The same sauce works well for chicken too.

I’d had this sambal when I lived in BC, and found it less fiery than the Sriracha sauce. I tend to forget that this difference is trivial for the rest of the crew here that likes spice but not fire, so my ‘oh, you’ve gotta try this!’ resulted in a number of spectacular dives for the soy milk and yogurt. The consensus was that it was a really tasty chile sauce – in a somewhat smaller quantity.

This dish made up another easy-to-prepare lunch. I’d never popped mustard seeds in a pan before – but I’d caught the Alternative Vegan podcast by Dino* where he emphasized adding the mustard seeds to hot oil to pop and release their full flavor, and thought I’d try it.

I added a half an onion, a large clove of garlic, both chopped, and sauteed those until the onions were soft. Then I added the lentils from the freezer.

Since this is just me eating it, I drizzled a couple good spoonfuls of sambal over the top, and a couple dollops of greek yogurt. If it’s too garlicky (if there is such a thing), well, my officemate is off tomorrow and I have no meetings.

* Lots of good information packed in these podcasts – go listen.