Vegetarian Cooking
Three Basics
by Nora Poulos
For any of the many reasons people choose to
eat vegetarian food - religion, politics, finances, or health - one thing in
common is that everyone prefers food that tastes delicious and provides good
nutrition. There are some basic techniques to vegetarian cooking which will
accomplish that.
There is a range of vegetarianism. From the
vegan to the person who eats meat on rare occasions. Some people consider
themselves basically vegetarian if they never eat red meat, but do eat fish and
chicken once in a while. Other vegetarians eat animal products like eggs and
dairy, but never the animal itself. A vegan is at the far end of the continuum,
rejecting animal products entirely. Vegans won't eat mayonnaise because it's
made using eggs, for example.
Wherever you are on the continuum of
vegetarianism, you want your food to taste good, be satisfying, and provide good
nutrition. Here are some methods for cooking vegetarian to meet those basic
requirements.
To begin, if you are making some dish that is
actually a meat-based recipe, such as chili con carne, stop substituting
textured vegetable protein for the meat and leaving the rest of the recipe
unaltered. The result never tastes quite right, and you've been robbed of the
pleasure of good food: it's neither meat nor properly vegetarian. Furthermore,
you haven't gained in terms of health or economy. Soy is the primary ingredient
of textured vegetable protein, tofu, and tempeh. These are usually high in fat,
high in processing, and fairly high in cost. Not much better than organically
raised meat, if at all. So if chili con carne is what you want, buy organic meat
and enjoy it! Otherwise, cook a delicious soup using red beans that doesn't
pretend it's chili con carne.
The key to good vegetarian soup is to use oil.
Even if you prefer low fat, your body does require fats for healthy metabolism.
And it definitely enhances the quality and flavor of any vegetarian soup when
some of the vegetables (onions in particular) are saut~ed. Use an oil that's
liquid at room temperature, such as olive, vegetable, or grape seed.
The next critical ingredient of vegetarian food
that tastes fabulous is really simple: use sea salt. Although any kind of salt
will enhance the flavor of most foods, sea salt is best. It naturally contains
minerals, while it doesn't contain the nasty chemicals of regular processed
table salt. Important to note~ use salt *during* the cooking instead of waiting
until after serving the food. This makes a difference in the final quality of
the dish because cooking is chemistry. Remember back to your high school
chemistry classes: the order of combining the elements, and the application of
heat to the mixture could make a tremendous difference to the results of the
experiment!
The third tip for vegetarian cooking is
obvious, yet needs emphasis. Use lots of vegetables! You can't over-do
vegetables in your diet - the greater the range and color, the better. Use leafy
veg (lettuce, spinach, and chard), root veg (yams, carrots, potatoes, turnips),
and the stems and seed carriers of veg (for example celery, eggplant, peppers,
zucchini). Buy organic veg if you can because they really do taste better, and
of course they provide better nutrition because they are gown in healthy,
'clean' dirt.
Take any vegetable and bean soup recipe, and
follow these three simple principles: saut~ the veg in the right oil, cook the
beans in sea-salted water, use a variety of organic vegetables, and you'll have
a rich delicious soup. These simple tips make a big difference. Take my word for
it, or do a little test. Use the same list of ingredients, but don't saut~ in
oil, add the salt at the table, and use conventionally grown veg. The result
will be inferior - still nutritious, but bland rather than satisfying, and
that's a shame because the few simple techniques described here can make your
vegetarian cooking consistently terrific.
About the Author:
Articles by Nora Poulous on topics related to
cooking are published in Z Cooking
News the leading resource on-line for information about cooking. Visit the
complete archive of articles here: http://www.zcooking.com
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