Food

Ways of cooking vegan food

Cucina vegana | Enjoy Food & Wine
Written by EFW Staff

Different ways of cooking vegan, tools and management of the kitchen

Not only recipes, the vegan cuisine foresees also a certain management of the kitchen regarding the cooking methods and the tools to use while cooking. Let’s discover them together!

Ways of cooking vegan food

Posate legno | Enjoy Food & Wine

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The most important way of cooking vegetables are:

nishimè. It is a way of cooking over very low flame, without using oil but only little water;

vegetables seared with oil, water or without neither oil nor water. With oil or nitukè: it is better to use few drops of dark sesame oil. Heat the oil and sear the vegetables over high flame, cover for 3-5 minutes and decrease the flame. With water: the same cooking way of the oil, just with a abundant quantity of water. Without neither oil or water: heat the pot, place the vegetables and sauté for one or two minutes, cover and cook for other more minutes;

• boiling in hot and cold water. Hot water: heat a great quantity of water and once it reaches the boiling point add the vegetables, a type at a time. Cold water: place different layers of vegetables and cover with cold water, boil without blending and cook from 5 to 15 minutes over high flame;

tempura, it is a way of cooking coming from Japan. Foods are battered in water and flour and fried with abundant oil;

a steam. Perfect for vegetables like carrots, onions, radish, chards, cauliflowers, broccoli, pumpkin and cabbage;

roasted;

pressure, perfect to avoid the dispersion of the vitamins of the vegetables;

grilled, advisable for courgettes, eggplants, onions, mushrooms, carrots and cucumbers.

The vegan cuisine is always in compliance with the seasons, thus it is important to choose seasonal vegetables. This allows to vary your own diet.

Type of heat

If you don’t love raw cooking, for sustainable reasons, the vegan diet advise to cook with the wood stove, with gas oven, methane, preferring a long cooking over low flame. A useful alternative is the solar oven.

Tools

Mortaio suribachi | Enjoy Food & Wine

Not only vegan cooking methods, but also specific tools. The pots should be made of cast iron, terracotta or stainless steel.
Other precious tools are the Japan knife Usuba, useful to cut the vegetables, the wood cutting board, the cocotte made of cast iron or glazed ceramic and the suribachi. It is a mortar made of hard terracotta or ceramic, perfect to prepare the gomasio, a natural food coming from Japan made of toasted sesame seeds and salt. It is a suitable tool also to make sauces, vegetable creams and to melt the miso, a seasoning derived from the yellow soy seeds.
It is better to avoid plastic containers preferring other materials such as glass and steel and use wood cutlery.

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About the author

EFW Staff