Spicy fried edamame & tofu with eggplant & soba noodles

November 1, 2015

We've been giving Community a good workout lately and having some very successful meals. It was our go-to book again for a healthy Sunday night dinner, with Cindy picking out this soba, edamame and eggplant salad. We made a few changes to the recipe, first adding in some tofu to make sure we had lots of leftovers for lunch, and second switching the edamame out for broad beans because that's all we could find at the shops.

There are a few processes involved in making the dish - you've got noodles to cook, eggplant to roast and a frying pan full of tofu and beans to manage - but everything can be done while the eggplant is roasting and it all comes together easily in the end. The pay-off is a massive saucepan of delicious noodly salad, with a mildly spicy sauce and a nice mix of textures from the tofu, beans and eggplant. This version of the recipe makes a lot of food, so it's probably worth rescaling things a bit unless you want to eat it every day for a week.

Spicy fried edamame and tofu with eggplant and soba noodles
(adapted from a recipe in Hetty McKinnon's Community)

4-5 eggplants (1.5kg)
4 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper

350g soba noodles

4 tablespoons sunflower oil
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 long red chillies, seeded and sliced finely
1 tablespoon minced ginger
300g frozen podded edamame (or broad) beans
500g firm tofu, cut into 2cm cubes
5 tablespoons tamari
3 tablespoons vegetarian oyster sauce
1.5 tablespoon sesame oil
2 tablespoons black sesame seeds

Pre-heat the oven to 200°C.

Partially peel the eggplants, leaving a stripe pattern, and then cut it all up into 2cm cubes. Spread the cubes across a couple of baking trays, drizzle over the olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast them for 25 minutes or so, until they're tender. If the eggplant is done early, you can just kill the heat and leave the trays in the oven so it all stays warm.

While the eggplant is baking, bring a large pot of salted water to the boil and cook the soba noodles for 3-4 minutes, stirring constantly. Drain and refresh with cold water.

Heat the sunflower oil in a large frying pan over high heat. Stir-fry the chilli, garlic and ginger for a minute and then add in the edamame and tofu, stir-frying for another 2-3 minutes (a bit more if you want to get the tofu to go a little golden). Stir in the tamari, sesame oil, oyster sauce and cook for another minute, thickening the sauce up a bit.

Combine the noodles, eggplant and the tofu/bean mix in a large bowl and toss gently. Serve with a sprinkling of the sesame seeds on top.

Almond Feta

November 1, 2015

Last weekend our friend Natalie invited us to skip the World Vegan Day crowds and eat breakfast nachos at her place. It was an excellent decision - we layered up plates with corn chips and scrambled tofu, black beans, potatoes, avocado and cashew cheese, met her cat, hung out in the shed and did newspaper quizzes. I brought over a watermelon salad as a fresh dessert we could pick at with forks.

The big innovation here is that I made my own vegan almond-based feta. I've had a few vegan feta recipes stowed away for years and I based this on the one at In The Mood For Noodles. Since it was intended for dessert, I skipped the garlic and the marinating in herb oil and relied on just the lemon juice and salt for flavour. I cut some corners, reducing the soaking time and the water involved in the original, but making sure that I got a smooth grind on those almonds. 

I was very pleased with the results, though you can see that this baked feta gets a little golden around the edges. (It turns out that I should have baked it at 200°F, not 200°C! Whoops.) It remains a bit softer and more fragile than dairy feta but it captures the  smoothness, whiteness, and tang of its namesake.

Almond Feta
(adapted from a recipe found on In The Mood For Noodles,
where it's credited to Vegetarian Times)

1 cup whole or flaked blanched almonds
juice of 1 lemon
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon salt

Place the almonds in a bowl and cover them with lots of water. Allow them to soak for 5-24 hours. Drain the almonds and rinse them briefly with fresh cold water.

Place the almonds in a blender or spice grinder and add the remaining ingredients plus 1/4 cup water. Blend everything thoroughly until it's as smooth as possible.

Place a sieve over a bowl and line the sieve with two layers of clean Chux wipes or cheesecloth. Scoop in the almond mixture, then pull up the fabric corners to parcel up the cheese and tie the cloth ends together with string or a rubber band. Refrigerate the bowl-sieve-cheese parcel setup for 12 hours, to allow some moisture to drip off.

Preheat an oven to 200°C (try 90°C next time) and line a loaf tin with baking paper. Retrieve the almond cheese, unwrap it and scoop it into the tin. Fold the baking paper over almond mixture to fashion it roughly into a little rectangle. Bake the feta block for 40 minutes, flipping it over at the 20 minute mark. Allow the cheese to rest for 30 minutes then refrigerate it until firm.

Gas-Light Izakaya in the Gasometer Hotel

Update 15/06/2023: This izakaya is no longer operating at the Gasometer Hotel.

October 31, 2015

The latest incarnation of the Gasometer has been open a year and a half, offering a steady stream of gigs and gastropub meals... except that the kitchen's just been rebranded Gas-Light Izakaya! We stopped in early for dinner before swinging around to the band room for Dan Kelly's album launch.

The menu doesn't pay much mind to special dietary requirements - there are more than enough dishes to sate vegetarians, but vegans and coeliacs are likely to have a tougher time of it.

The fried cauliflower florets ($9) were huge and hard to maneuvre with chopsticks, but had the right balance of crunchiness and tenderness. The accompanying sweet and sour sauce only left us hankering after the spicier version we've made at home.

The jalapeno and cheese korokke ($5, foreground) was also expertly fried, though we were ambivalent about the warm mushy filling (Smith & Daughters has really spoiled us for any other croquette!). We were more taken with the tofu bao ($6 each) and especially their red dragon sauce.

Finally we split the tofu katsu-sando ($16), a neat little sandwich of crumbed tofu, chilli relish and mustard leaves on a soft brioche bun. The accompanying French fries were only so-so, but it's a nice and reasonably priced self-contained meal.

With its nori-laced Caesar salad, fried chicken bao and icecream doughnut sandwich, I reckon that Gas-Light Izakaya is appealing more to local trends than Japanese traditions. The dishes we tried generally delivered on their descriptions, but they're just barely designed with veg*ns in mind. It'll continue to be a convenient food stop for a Gasometer gig, but I don't envisage making extra excuses to visit.

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We've got lots of posts on previous incarnations of this dining room, the most recent from over a year ago. This izakaya incarnation has been blogged only on I'm So Hungree, who was positive.

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Gas-light Izakaya in the Gasometer Hotel
484 Smith St, Collingwood
9416 3335
menu
http://www.thegasometerhotel.com.au/gaslight-izakaya/

Accessibility: The Gasometer has a small step on entry. The tables are crowded in some areas but the booths and tables closest to the entry are relatively spacious. Ordering and payment occurs at a high counter. Male and female toilets on the same level are accessible only when the band room is vacant and are not particularly spacious; alternate toilets are located upstairs, one cubicle each for two genders.

Stagger Lee's

October 31, 2015

Michael and I both had good news at work on Friday, and he insisted that we breakfast somewhere fun to celebrate on Saturday morning. I suggested we check out Stagger Lee's, which our friend Lisa recommended a few months ago as a good spot for vegan options.

With exposed bricks and bulbs, two communal tables and serious, single origin coffee, Stagger Lee's fits the inner-north cafe mould. The menu is annotated with Vs, VG, VGOs and GFs (including the wine list!) but we couldn't see a corresponding legend. The V*s were all over the place, on lemon curd-covered crumpets, granola and bircher bowls with coyo and almond milk, ricotta-spiked avocado with corn and jalapenos, and a herby omelette.

Michael exclaimed over how great the coffee was, then tucked into the vegan version of the green garden ($20), a medley of cashew cheese, broccolini, avocado, fennel, radish, herbs, pomegranate seeds and sprouted lentils. The smoked ocean trout and poached egg of the original version were replaced with a bowl of sauteed mushrooms. Michael loved the salty and slightly astringent freshness of the salad. The mushrooms worked well, too, but perhaps didn't call for the same $20 price tag that the trout does.

On a day of celebration, I was compelled to order the Willy Wonka waffles ($16). The waffles themselves were plain and dry, but dressed up to the nines with a scoop of honeycomb icecream, miniature chocolate cone, soda pop jelly, strawberries, freeze dried raspberries, popping candy, chocolate sauce, and a laughable garnish of three green leaves. It was an entertaining one-off.

I'd be more likely to come back to Stagger Lee's to try the fancy little cakes or the croissants, while Michael had a flash of regret when he spotted the veggie breakfast burgers in the display cabinet. (The 'gangsta milkshakes', however, have my side-eye.)

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Stagger Lee's has already won a fan of fellow veg blogger I Spy Plum Pie and numerous omni bloggers, see De-brief Me, A Tale of Two Bougies, A Melbournite, Simple Palates, Seriously, MEL: HOT OR NOT, Gourmet Chick, Brunch Addict, grazing panda, Eatingdiaries, Let's Get Fat Together, Verdict lobster, I'm So Hungree, Occupie Fitzroy, INLOVEWITHBRUNCH, thehangrybitch, Eat. Play. Shop., Never Too Sweet, A Chronicle of Gastronomy, Go to bread, not bed!, Lifes Merit, Vonderwoman in Melbourne, Couchfoodies, Yellow Eggs, Food Fable, Locked Loaded And Caffeinated, Gastronomical Ramblings, confessions of a little piggy, Eat Australia, foodie about town, Melbourne Vita, Hedge To The Downs, hungrycookie and Feed Reid. Reviews are ambivalent on Melbourne Patron, Miss Sage Sugar, Peat & Drift, and Lip's Temptations.

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Stagger Lee's
276 Brunswick St, Fitzroy
9419 5564
menu
http://staggerlees.com.au/

Accessibility: There's a shallow ramp through a wide entry. Tables are somewhat densely packed but there is a wide pathway through the middle. We ordered at our table and paid at a low-ish counter. We didn't visit the toilets.

Kitchen Inn

October 5 and 29, 2015

Since our office move a couple of months back I've been continuing to explore the food options around the neighbourhood (while missing Sonido and Smith & Deli of course). I had a tip-off from a mate that Kitchen Inn had a surprisingly decent range of vegetarian options, so I dropped by to check it out. It's a short menu section with just five dishes, featuring Kitchen Inn's house-made noodles, rice, vegetables and - in all five dishes - vegetarian BBQ pork. Each dish is super affordable - just $8.90, for plates so big you'll struggle to finish them. Vegans will be well served by most of the options (the egg noodle dish is a no-go, obviously), but will need to let the staff know to exclude the egg that comes standard in dishes like the fried kueh teow and fried rice (I failed in the noodle dish on the left below, but excluded the egg successfully from the fried rice on the right).

The fried kueh teow was fantastic - excellent noodles, wok-fried to give them a smoky wok-hei and filled with a generous mix of mock-pork, egg and veggies. The fried rice was good as well - not quite as successful as the noodles, but a fantastically good value lunch, especially with a few scoops of chilli oil on top.

Kitchen Inn is a bit of a madhouse at lunchtime - if you get there at 12pm or later, you're probably going to have to queue for a while and/or share a table. They do offer takeaway if you'd rather just take your mock pork to the park or your desk. Kitchen Inn has quickly found its way into my regular lunch rotation - I'm keen to work my way through all the veggie noodle dishes on the menu.

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There are broadly positive reviews on Easy Food Hacks, Eat and Be Merry for Tomorrow We Die(t), Let's Get Fat Together, Kimba's Kitchen, Asian Restaurants in Melbourne, What's My Next Meal?, The Hangry Bitch, Gastronomic Gems, Arrow Foodie, Strawbeari3, Consider the Sauce, Oh Denny and Lip's Temptations, while Sweet and Sour Fork, Wandering Mint and The Bonding Tool had mixed experiences. Yellow Eggs was really unimpressed (on both visits!), as was New International Students.

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Kitchen Inn
469 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne
9328 2562
menu
facebook page

Accessibility: There's a small lip on the door. The interior is very crowded, with people and tables - there are outdoor tables as well that are a bit simpler to nab a seat at. You order and pay at a high counter and they bring the food out. I haven't visited the toilets.