Eggless Meringues

Internet – the modern day village where masses gather to entertain, and to be entertained, and where Facebook along with blogs comprise message boards and news booths at the central marketplace – has been buzzing about aquafaba for some time. Although I’ve stayed away from the latest feeds for the best part of the summer, whenever I’ve connected online, recipes for this new culinary obsession have popped up on my screen.

Finally, I gave it a try, too.

It wasn’t that I craved for eggless meringues. After all, I belong to the tribe that has never understood the thrill behind veggie-burgers, mock pork-chops or imitation chicken nuggets. I mean, if you are a vegetarian, why would you enjoy dishes that echo values associated with meat? To some extent, I have the same attitude towards veganized meringues, macaroons, pavlovas and marshmallows that look pretty but simply mimic egg-based classics.

Ethics aside, I didn’t taste the meringues because of my sugar free lifestyle, but my husband indulged in them while oohing and aahing. You have to rely on his word here.

There hasn’t been scientific research or formal chemical analysis about cooked chickpea liquid, showing why it is such a competitive emulsifier, and leavening and foaming agent. It looks like someone figured out (accidentally?) in a home laboratory that the high protein content of aquafaba behaves in a similar manner than egg-whites, and to some degree, egg yolks, too.

To get aquafaba you boil whole chickpeas (after soaking them in plenty of water overnight) until they become tender, and then collect the water. When the liquid cools down it forms jelly like consistency that turns into white, hard foam when you whisk it. Add sugar, a pinch of vanilla and a squeeze of lemon; pipe the mixture on a baking tray, and slowly dehydrate it in the oven; and – voilà! – there is your batch of meringues. If you are looking for an egg-replacer, you won’t find a better one. And, no, aquafaba doesn’t taste like chickpeas.

I added beet-juice to the part of the foam but my hopes of getting pink meringues burnt when our oven over-heated. Have you ever tried to keep a wood oven around 100 C (212 F) for two hours? It’s a laborious job!

Do you see the small cracks on the meringues? They are caused by too high temperature.

Eggless Meringues

(The recipe makes about 30-40 small pieces)

3/4 cup (187 ml) aquafaba
1/2 - 3/4 cup (125 - 187 ml) caster sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla sugar
1/2 tsp lemon juice

Whip the aquafaba with an electric mixer until it becomes white and light, and forms soft peaks. A balloon whisk of a stand mixer works best. Blender isn’t suitable because the blades spin too fast and don’t aerate the foam.

Add the sugar gradually towards the end of whisking along with the vanilla and lemon. Keep processing until the mixture becomes glossy and so hard that you can turn the bowl upside down without spilling the contents.

Pipe or spoon the mixture on a baking tray.

Bake in 100 C (212 F) for 1 ½ to 2 hours until the meringues are completely dry.

Store the meringues in an airtight container. If they become moist and sticky, re-dehydrate them again in the oven.

Tips:

I pressure-cooked 400 grams (500 ml / 2 cups) chickpeas in 1 liter / 4 cups of water until only half of it was left. The chickpeas were butter-soft and the aquafaba was concentrated.

The aquafaba becomes even stronger when you refrigerate the chickpeas for a day in the same liquid you cooked them in.

You can directly use the liquid from canned chickpeas, too.

Thank you.

Lunch Wraps

Like all patterns of behavior, you can change food habits, too.

Last October I went cold turkey on sugar. I didn’t intend to quit sweets permanently, but wanted to experiment what – if any – short-term benefits reduction of glucose has on my health. Little did I know how much it would affect my cooking, eating and well-being!

Up until I was 40, I had a healthy relationship with sugar, and honored a sweet treat usually on Sundays during a feast in the temple ashram. When my interest in cooking developed, I found desserts to please most people: serving a knock-out cake or fudge would patch whatever shortcoming the main course might’ve had. When I started to organize cookery courses, baking pies and cobblers along with preparing candies and puddings became everyone’s favorite class. To the degree I enjoyed inhaling the scent of caramel, cardamom and butter in the kitchen – who wouldn’t – my tongue acquired more and more sweet taste, and sooner than I realized, I was buying ice-cream, chocolate bars and vegan gummy bears from the shop – something I hadn’t done since my teens.

Within a couple of years an innocent pleasure transformed into sugar addiction. Instead of supplying energy for the body, the constant munching of confections made me chronically fatigue and contributed to all sorts of ailments from brain fog to eczema, hot-waves, insomnia, heartburn, over-weight and other endocrine complications. Finally, when a blood vessel in the wall of an ovarian cyst ruptured and caused me to bleed all September and the beginning of October last year, I was inspired to break up the love affair with sugar and carbohydrates. In fact, I was ready to do anything to alleviate the physical mayhem, hoping that paying a closer attention to nutrient intake would help my hormones to moderate energy reserves and balance out the metabolism.

Of course I had cravings at first. Every afternoon around 4 pm, when the blood glucose levels hit rock bottom, the mind knitted hypotheses to refute my new found sugar-free lifestyle, and statements like “you are seduced by righteous eating” and “you have orthorexia nervosa or abnormal attachment to health food”, and “eating is a social experience you are ruining by your fanatic attitude” ambushed my determination. At the same time, there were results that counteracted these arguments: the eczema I had battled with for six years cleared out; I regained a normal sleep rhythm; and all premenopausal symptoms such as hot flashes, heartburn, irregular periods and moodiness ceased. When I figured out, in two or three weeks, how to maintain a steady energy level by increasing fats and proteins in the morning, and consuming highly concentrated nutrients from items like raw beets, avocadoes and cruciferous greens on each meal, I no longer hankered after creamy tarts and pastries. My body started to burn fat instead of sugar and, as a bonus, I lost 12 kg (26lb) within six months. It seems that by replacing excess sugar and carbohydrates with more substantial elements, the body will gradually burn its fat supplies, and find its ideal state.

From the point of view of food-blogging, I’m facing identity crises. The most viewed posts on this site have been infused with sugar. Some of you may wonder if I’ve become a food-fascist that will  torment you by condemning all syrup-dripping desserts by uploading only vitamin-laced recipes from the platform of entitlement!

I haven’t worked it out yet how to proceed or whether I will ever cook with sugar again. Probably when time goes by, I might start adding a teaspoon of sweetness to cancel overly sour ingredients like tamarind or tomatoes, but for now I’m happy to stick to recipes that don’t require even that. My objective is to be stronger and more active in my 50’s than I ever was in my 40’s and, somehow or other, I hope this blog will reflect the mood, too.

Letting something go is never one dimensional. Omitting sugar from the diet bound me to fresh foods – salads, sprouts and all kinds of greens, and fruits – which I hardly ate before. In some ways I think I have been “a carbohydrian” or “a protenian” rather than a vegetarian, because grains and pulses covered my plate in a larger extent than vegetables. Now I find myself thinking of food in a different way, and couldn’t imagine a meal without an uncooked component that gives the instant burst of vitality. Instead of eating cooked beans and lentils daily, I prefer them three or four times a week in small portions. Unlike before, I can well skip rice and bread.

I’m developing new recipes every day. Here is one of them:

Butterbeans, cashews and oven dried cherry tomatoes wrapped in lettuce leaves

Ingredients:
250 - 500 ml (1 - 2 cups) butterbeans + water for soaking and cooking
Lettuce leaves
A bunch of watercress
A bunch of sage leaves
Oven dried tomatoes (recipe here)
2 Tbsp olive oil
¼ tsp hing powder
¼ tsp cayenne powder
250 ml (1 cup) cashew nuts
1 Tbsp desiccated coconut
½ tsp freshly ground black pepper
½ tsp dry roasted jeera (powder)
½ tsp amchoor powder (green mango powder)
1 tsp kala namak powder
1 ½ tsp Himalayan salt

Method:

Sort, wash and soak the beans overnight. Cook them in a pot or pressure cooker until they are soft but not mushy. Drain and set aside.

Wash the lettuce, watercress and sage. Set aside to dry.

Heat up the olive oil over a moderate heat and add the hing and cayenne powder, immediately followed by the cashews. Roast the nuts until they are light golden on all sides.

Add the coconut and toast until they change the hue and become fragrant.

Add the beans, tomatoes and sage leaves. Sprinkle everything with black pepper, jeera, amchoor and kala namak powder, and salt. Remove the pan from the stove.

Place a spoonful of beans in the middle of each lettuce leaves, and add a couple of stalks of watercress. Wrap up the leaves and secure them with cocktail sticks.

If you cook the beans and roast the tomatoes in advance, it takes only couple of minutes to assemble a quick lunch or snack.

I sprinkled the tomatoes with olive oil, cayenne powder and Himalayan salt before roasting them. You can use other spices and herbs for variety.

Thank you.

Bok Choy, Spinach, Broad beans & Piquant paneer

Cruciferous vegetables – like cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, brussels sprouts, collard greens, kale and radish – are one of the dominant food crops worldwide. Today they are perhaps more popular than ever: not so much because people crave for vitamin A or C, soluble fiber and phytochemicals, but because modern scientific research shows that Brassica vegetable consumption correlates with lower cancer rates. There isn’t another food group that would match for nourishment across the variety of nutritional categories.

Although I’ve always eaten my “cole crops” with gusto, I became interested in their anti-estrogenic properties after battling with hormone imbalance for years. Estrogen is a fat-making hormone that, in excess, blocks fat-burning hormones needed for a healthy metabolism. As a result, every morsel of food (whether a carbohydrate, sugar, fat or protein) turns into a layer of lard around the belly, hips and tights to protect the organs underneath, especially the ovaries. The liver is a powerhouse through which all hormones are processed, and cruciferous vegetables – especially when eaten raw – help the liver to break down the chemicals, and to detoxify. Sulfur, which is ample in all cabbage family, plays a major role in this process.

Bok Choy or Chinese cabbage’s medicinal value was known to the Ming Dynasty naturalist Li Shizhen (1518 – 1593) who popularized it outside the Yangtze River Delta region, making it a Manchurian staple long before it spread to Japan and around the world.

Unlike regular cabbage, broccoli, mustard greens or rutabaga, bok choy has a very mild scent and flavor. It cooks in a couple of minutes which makes it an attractive alternative for those who can’t afford spending much time in the kitchen. If you make the paneer and clean the beans beforehand, my today’s recipe takes less than ten minutes to assemble.

Before you jump to the recipe, let me say that soy sauce (that I’ve used to boost the paneer) is high sodium food. Many brands that manufacture soy sauce or tamari in a non-traditional way enhance their product with table salt (NaCl) and monosodium glutamate (MSG) – two culprits that cause water retention and joint pain when consumed. Studies have shown that MSG triples the output of insulin, and we all know what effect table salt has for blood pressure and cardiovascular health table salt has no nutritional value. Most boxed and canned foods, gravies, TV dinners and condiments are laced with them because they give that extra punch and make a meal taste just a little bit too good to be true. People who eat them regularly loose appetite for natural flavors found in whole foods.

I don’t generally promote any soy-derived products because they are too processed and heavy for my yogic lifestyle, but occasionally I use Bragg Amino Acids for the flavor. It is a seasoning made from non-GMO soy beans and purified water and is without added MSG, preservatives, coloring, alcohol, gluten or salt. If you would like to substitute it with soy sauce, you will have to adjust (probably lessen) the amount in the recipe.

On the side I’ve served beetroot yogurt: A little bit grated beets, yogurt, black pepper and Himalayan salt.

Bok Choy, spinach, broad beans and piquant paneer (serves 2 - 4)

Ingredients

For the broad beans:

125 ml (1/2 cup) fresh broad beans (removed from the pods)

Boiling water for parboiling

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For the tomato sauce:

2 tomatoes

1 red chili pepper (fresh), seeded

½ tsp jeera seeds

1 tsp coriander seeds

2 Tbsp Bragg liquid aminos

(Extra whey if needed)

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For the paneer:

450 g/16 oz shortly pressed and diced paneer (from 3 liters/12 cups milk + 1 lemon)

2 Tbsp ghee, butter or oil

¼ tsp hing powder

(The tomato sauce from above)

½ tsp kala namak powder

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For the greens:

1 large bok choy (coarsely chopped)

500 ml (2 cups) baby spinach

1 Tbsp ghee, butter or oil

A good pinch of hing powder

1 Tbsp finely grated ginger

1 green chili, slit

½ tsp Himalayan salt

Method:

Prepare the beans first by parboiling them for a minute to loosen the exterior coating. Then drain and rinse them under cold water, and cut a slit on the outer layer and slip the bean out with your fingers. Discard the skins. Set the beans aside.

Make the tomato sauce by peeling the tomatoes and removing their stems. Combine the tomatoes with the chili and spices in an electric spice mill or food processor to make fine paste. Add the soy sauce and set aside.

Heat up the ghee, butter or oil in a non-stick skillet over a medium heat and add the hing powder. Toss it once or twice with a spatula, and add the paneer dices. Fry them, tossing and turning, until they are golden brown on all sides. Then pour in the tomato sauce. Let the paneer cook in the sauce until the sauce becomes very thick and dry, sticking to the paneer. If you want more sauce, add a little bit whey from cheese making to achieve the desired consistency. Finally, add the kala namak powder and turn off the heat.

While the paneer is cooking in the sauce, heat up 1 Tbsp ghee, butter or oil in another pan or pot. Add the hing powder, grated ginger and chili. Toss the mixture for 20 to 30 seconds with a spatula then add the chopped bok choy stems. Sauté them for a minute or two then add the chopped leaves and the spinach. Sauté the greens for a minute or two, and then add the broad beans and salt. Mix well, and then fold carefully in the tomato sauce infused paneer. Turn off the heat.

Thank you.

Baked Avocados

Looking for a new way to serve avocados? Stuff and bake them. It’s also an excellent way to get rid of leftovers while cleaning the refrigerator and pantry!

For the stuffing, use your favorite ingredients. I made mine from paneer, cooked black beans, roasted pine nuts, sundried tomatoes, fried eggplant cubes, basil, cayenne pepper, black pepper, hing powder, kala namak powder and Himalayan salt. Then my little helper, Heikki (age 8), grated parmesan-type hard cheese suitable for vegetarians on the top, and I baked the avocados in 220 C (428 F) until the cheese melted and looked nice.

Although he was eager to assist in the kitchen, it turned out Heikki disliked avocados. When the table was set, he announced he would prefer his own snacks instead! While we ate, I learnt *all* about football.

Thank you.

Chard rolls

A recent hypothesis put forward by Dr. Chris Lowry, who is a neuroscientist in Bristol University, suggests that a strain of harmless bacteria (Mycobacterium vaccae) in the soil may trigger the release of serotonin which regulates our feelings of well-being. To inhale this naturally occurring antidepressant while repotting herbs in the balcony, weeding out dandelions in the garden, raking leaves in the backyard and hiking in the woods is an exciting idea, and makes more sense than popping Prozac in the mouth.

At the same time, the theory sadly reveals the degree to which we have alienated from our roots and the rest of the creation. When a scientist speculates that it might make kids more joyful and smarter if we introduced outdoor facilities in school environments where they would be exposed to nonpathogenic organisms, I can’t help but being sarcastic. Really? Any cute little piglet could teach us a lesson about the comfort of playing in dirt. Happy as a pig, they say.

Unhappiness is a serious problem in our society and it would be inappropriate to write about it maliciously – especially today, while the headlines talk about the suicide of a loved entertainer who professionally mastered comedy, but privately battled with alcohol and drug abuse, and depression. Tragically, such a conflict of character and position is more common than we dare to think, and reminds us that happiness is not a situation but an experience.

Our mind incessantly chases after pleasure and attempts to eradicate discomfort through the senses, but the soul – the real self who animates the body, and as whom we remain even after the body ceases to be – is of different energy and, thus, unimpressed by any amount of material perfection. Just like a fish cannot thrive out of water, whether it lies in a crystal bowl or on a bed of sand, the self cannot access transcendental bliss – which is the natural state of the soul – until we start developing our consciousness.

Having spent a good part of the summer in the garden, I agree that being in contact with earth and other natural elements contributes to a peace of mind – and there may even be a connection between the scent of compost and our serotonin levels – but as a spiritual person, I refuse to reduce my capacity for fulfillment to a mere biochemical reaction. Isn’t that exactly what so many have unsuccessfully tried to do by using marijuana, amphetamines, and psychedelics?

We want an easy way out from suffering but are reluctant to accept any alternative that requires adjusting our perception, values or way of living – even when it is free and available for everyone. It would be interesting to know how many of us would rather puff, inject or swallow Mycobacterium vaccae in a laboratory than, on a regular basis, pull down the socks, step aside from the paved streets and wander beyond the blocks of concrete where our children could climb trees and explore what is under a rock.

Perhaps we fear the nature – inside and outside of us – because it unveils of what a great biological, psychological, spiritual and devotional symbiosis we are a part of. We have worked so hard to disconnect and unlearn who we really are!

Gardening is great because it displays all aspects and stages of life within a short season and one has to be really stubborn not to sympathize with the relationships and events involved. Watching a seed grow into a sprout and mature plant that gifts a vegetable or fruit is bonding and rewarding.

It’s not even the harvest that makes horticulture purposeful but the sense of belonging it offers. Getting to know our extended family, in which various kinds of winds, raindrops, sunrays, mineral particles and organic matter share their special talents and wisdom is fun; it may not directly make us self-realized but it helps us to act thoughtfully, considerately, caringly and compassionately. Then, when we carry a basketful of spinach, carrots and herbs to home and cook them for the pleasure of those we love and want to interact affectionately with, we are a step closer to lasting happiness. There will never be a vaccination - Mycobacterium vaccae or anything else – that will supersede a balanced lifestyle and conscious endeavor to evolve as a spirit soul!

Since June we have eaten mainly what our garden has produced: radishes, lettuce, kohlrabi, turnips, spinach, chard, kale, beetroots, carrots, zucchini, beans, peas, cucumbers, tomatoes and herbs. A few days ago I dug up some of the potatoes. Brussels sprouts, broccoli, winter squash, peppers and chili are still developing. These colorful fellows are a real boon! They are so pure and tasty that I don’t want to complicate them with anything else but olive oil and simple spices.

Unfortunately I have lost the paper on which I had scribbled the recipe while making the chard rolls last week. I will give the ingredients here and you will have to figure out the rest if you want to make them. Take the concept and perfect it according to your taste!

Thank you.

(Almost) an instant mung dal crépe

This winter I have fed my addiction to South Indian cuisine by plunging snow white, steamed cakes (known as idli) in spicy broths, like rasam and sambar. Entranced, I have observed how the simple patties, made of rice and lentils (or sometimes semolina), draw multi-layered flavors from the liquid, like sponges, and carry the perfect union of attraction and diversity into the mouth. There must be a genius mind behind such harmony and compatibility! I am astonished by how a couple of humble ingredients create such an interesting character, story and mood.

Another favorite that has been a weekly fair in our home is dosa. Now that I think about it, rice and dal batter has been fermenting in a clay pot in a warm nook of our kitchen every fortnight; and, when I have run out of it, I have made an “instant” batter. Or, almost instant, because there are degrees of “immanency”, which I will explain later. Before that, let’s have a closer look at dosa!

Whether paper-thin or a bit thicker, they look like crépes or pancakes but feature the crispiness of a wafer. They are usually made from urad dal (split, dehusked seeds of black gram, not to be confused with black lentils used in European – especially French – cuisine) and rice that are soaked and, then, ground into a fine paste and fermented in room temperature until the mixture expands and adapts a mildly sour temper. The process increases nutritional value and digestibility, which is necessary because urad dal is one of the heavier lentils containing a large amount of vegetarian protein.

Sometimes mung dal is used instead of urad. There is also a variety of dosa made from wheat or semolina. In my upcoming book, there will be a recipe of both, the traditional urad dal dosa and the semolina one (rava dosa) which is especially fun to make: the batter is plastered onto a hot pan, by hand, as if it were wet cement!

Of the pulses, mung dal is most suitable for all body types or humors; its’ chemical breakdown is faster and, thus, the nutrients are easily absorbed into a blood stream. It has a mild aroma in comparison to other beans. I have found it very good for dosa because it leaves a content but light feeling after eating. It can - but does not have to - be fermented which is helpful when you want to have a substantial but quick meal or snack: after soaking for thirty minutes, you can grind and use it. Of course, it is better if you have a hunch the day before and immerse the lentils and rice in water for overnight and ferment the batter for a day! But, in an emergency, you can safely use the shortcut and even substitute rice with rice flour. That’s the shortest definition of “instant”.

Unlike crépe batter, dosa batter is not poured onto a hot, buttered pan and spread by tilting; it is placed in the center of a dry pan and quickly distributed by doing a circular motion with a flat base of a ladle, leaving small ridges in a spiral. Ghee, butter or oil is sprinkled on the top and sides of the pancake during the frying. Like a charm, the crépe releases itself from the pan when it’s cooked. Usually, dosa is not flipped over but filled directly on the pan, and folded in half or rolled like a wrap, and served immediately with chutney, pickles or as a part of a larger meal.

Potato curry is perhaps the most common way to stuff the pancakes; they go well with coconut chutney. But, I find dosa delicious with any other filling, too! Crépes that envelope fresh, savory cheese is one of our favorites. Sometimes, like the day I was photographing for this post, I crumbled them in a salad, like croutons, as an effort to incorporate energy into a low calorie lunch. For me, this type of side-dish is as creative as it gets, and provokes imagination.

Ps. I forgot to mention in the recipe that it makes 10 to 15 pieces, depending on the size.