Elaine Louie - The Occasional Vegetarian: 100 Delicious Dishes That Put Vegetables at the Center of the Plate

Dedication

For Anna

Contents

V egetarians were once an orthodox group, but in recent years their tribe has become rife with heresies and schisms. Most controversial are the occasional vegetarians, and there are many of them nowadays. Some are convinced that they will live longer if they eat somewhat less meat. Others are reformed carnivores who claim to be trying to give up meat altogether, but still backslide from time to time. Often it is the aroma of frying bacon that leads them astray from the path of righteousness. Then there are the mixed marriages: a devotee of charcuterie who marries a vegan. At home he is chaste; when he is away from his wife and out on the road, lock up your rillettes.

You can condemn these pilgrims adrift in the land of the meatless, or you can forgive them. Either way, you might as well put something on the stove, because theyre going to be hungry again come dinnertime. No matter what kind of eater you are, you ought to get a thrill when vegetables are on the table. Elaine Louie is no vegetarian, but she swoons when she comes across a really delicious meatless recipe. Sometimes she swoons so much that she starts to talk about how good the dish would taste with a little ham thrown in. But like most of us, she tries to keep the faith. When food tastes great, after all, everybodys a believer.

T he Occasional Vegetarian is an ode to vegetables, to their beauty, their versatility, and their ability not just to delight us, but also to fill and satisfy us. Other writers, especially Michael Pollan, have written about the dilemmas of eating meat or not. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of books that explore the benefits of vegetarianism.

This book is a celebration of vegetarian dishes, of the seasons, and of the Union Square Greenmarket in Manhattan. The dishes come from more than ninety chefs, cookbook authors, and talented home cooks, and all of the recipes are designed for the home cook.

Nearly all of the chefs and cooks buy much of their produce from local purveyors, many of whom are at the Greenmarket. There, throughout the year, the vegetables (and fruits) beckon. In spring, there are asparagus, big, fat, and fleshy, and some that are pencil thin. In July, the corn begins to show up, sweet, tender, and best cooked in no more than three minutes. One of the most popular farmers said, Three minutes? I cook it in two. Sometimes, he said, he just eats it raw. As people pick their corn, they usually fall into three different camps: eaters of white, yellow, or bicolor corn. I just ask which is the sweetest that day, and whatever the farmer answers, I buy.

Come August, the tomatoes, bright red ones straight from the fields of New Jersey, and an array of heirloom species make their debut. Each year, the variety of heirloom tomatoes seems to increase: pink ones, green ones, purple ones, orange ones. Windfall Farms sells the tiny, dime-sized, intensely sweet Matts Wild Cherry on the vines. Other farms have the deeply flavored, tender, red Brandywine, which should be eaten soon after bringing it home or its skin begins to split.

In the fall, the squashes arrive, the perenially popular curvy, hourglass-figured butternut, whose color gives new meaning to the word beige , and the yellow delicata, striped in green. Autumn is also the time of mushrooms, the foraged kind including chanterelles and hen of the woods, and the cultivated ones like cremini, shiitake, and the great ruffly oysters. Potatoes abound: fingerlings, Yukons, russets, and the aptly named purple Peruvians, whose skin and flesh are indeed purple. There are brussels sprouts on the stem, and cabbages ranging from pale green to dark green to purple. There are mounds of apples as well. The Honeycrisp, which does not lose its shape and turn into applesauce when cooked, makes its appearance in two vegetable dishes in this book: nestled alongside brussels sprouts in Carmen Quagliatas recipe for Roasted Brussels Sprouts, Butternut Squash, and Apple with Candied Walnuts or tucked beneath cabbage in Didier Elenas recipe for Fall Vegetable Cookpot: Braised Red and Green Cabbage.

In this book, vegetables are whipped into flans, baked into tortes, and tucked into crusts. They can fill spring rolls, taco shells, and soft tortillas. They can be crunchy or meltingly soft.

From twenty-five cuisines around the world, ranging from China to India, Mexico to Brazil, Egypt to Lebanon, and throughout the United States, these recipes have as their commonality savory flavors and a gustatory memory. You remember the dishes, and want to eat some of them again and again.

Some of the dishes are startlingly simple. Lois Freedman, the president of Jean-Georges Management and formerly a cook working with Jean-Georges Vongerichten at the four-star Lafayette, makes a corn pudding that is no more than grating fresh corn into a cast-iron pan, putting it in the oven, and after it thickens and forms a pale golden crust, taking it out of the oven and seasoning it with a little salt, pepper, butter, and a squeeze of lime juice. Thats it. It is incredibly sweet and fresh.

Eli Zabar, the restaurateur, shares his egg salad recipe, and it, too, has a purity of flavor. He discovered in 1975 that if he halved the amount of egg whites, he could make an egg salad that was rich, creamy, and, he said, In the good sense of the word, eggy.

Daniel Humm, the executive chef of the four-star Eleven Madison Park, offers grilled circles of watermelon topped by cylinders of red, green, yellow, and orange tomatoes and drizzled with aged, thick, sweet balsamic vinegar.

Other recipes are more complex, like the braised cabbage balls from Didier Elena, the executive chef of Adour Alain Ducasse. The slivered cabbage has to be simmered. Leaves for wrapping have to be blanched. Then the balls are rolled and popped into the oven. The upside of the dish? The braising can be done the day before. The rolling and final cooking can be done the day of, and the presentation is beautiful: Each person gets two little balls, one red, one green, flavored by juniper berries, fleur de sel, pepper, lime zest, and a scant bit of broth. They are tender and aromatic.

Some of these dishes are vegan. Ayinde Howell, a thirty-four-year-old cook who was born to vegan restaurateurs in Tacoma, Washington, proves that through the alchemy of heat, tofu can be fried to look like browned bits of meat, which becomes the filling of a terrific enchilada, enlivened by onions, garlic, cumin, chile, sweet red bell peppers, and tomatoes.

Many of the recipes were inspired by the chefs mothers or grandmothers home cooking. One of John Frasers favorite dishes is a homey Greek dish of green beans braised with tomatoes. He eats it at home, but wont serve it at his restaurant, Dovetail.

Its ugly, he explained when I asked him why. Braised green beans are not bright, sparkling green. They turn dull and lose their vividness, shading into a dark olive. But what they lose in luster, they gain in flavor.

Many of the dishes are seasonal. All of them, however, are relatively inexpensive. And someespecially cabbage and potatoesare the food that often fed the poor, whether in China or in Africa. But the food of the poor does not necessarily taste poor.

Marcus Samuelssons Ethiopian dish of warmed cabbage and beans in spiced butter is so tasty, so subtly and brilliantly spiced, that after I first ate it with him and his wife, Maya, for breakfast, I ate it the next day with rice, again for breakfast. Then on the following day, I ate it yet again.

In the year and a half of writing this book, I became much more of a temporary vegetarian than I had been. Previously, I, like many of us, probably called myself a temporary vegetarian on the days I ate only a salad for lunch or a plate of pesto for dinner. At the same time, I was primarily a happy carnivore who ate meat once a day, if only a ham and cheese croissant. Now Im a very satisfied temporary vegetarian who can skip meat for an entire day and often part of the following day.