Plant-based Protein Exploration: Sept 14 2024

This vegetarian dinner turned out to be an exploration in #plantbasedprotein with local ingredients - other than a small use of egg white in the pasta, all the savoury course were vegan otherwise.

We kicked off the meal with choose-your-own tofu adventure - we made 2 styles of tofu (traditional soya bean and adzuki bean using the cornstarch method) served with traditional sides plus horseradish (instead of wasabi) and shiitakes with sesame oil. I felt that most North Americans have never experienced homemade tofu, so we decided to have some fun with it. We served a salad next - I have enjoyed working with the combination of corn and tomatoes of recent, this time with a corn and house cashew ricotta crema. We proceeded with our Chips and Dips course. Pairing Belinda’s excellent toum pita crisps and local crudités, we made Zou Zou NYC and Zach Newman inspired dips, including the black garlic oil on freshly made hummus. The others were wood fired eggplant and peppers with sumac and smoked carrot & roasted squash with rose harissa. Course 4 was a Taiwanese style steamed and toasted daikon and mushroom bun. As I picked up a ton of tomatoes from Fonlar Farm, and we made vegan ricotta and Parmesan (good, but needed more hooch), we made #manicotti stuffed with ricotta, pine nuts, quinoa and rapini, topped with a house tomato sauce. The side salad was a selection of house lettuce and local bitter radishes. The savoury menu closed with a lions mane mushroom steak with fresh mash and local carrots. The dessert closer was a lemon curd tart served with roasted plum’s courtesy of a friend’s bountiful harvest. Our take home treat was sorghum cookies.

One thing that we were happy to figure out is how we found ways to include plant based protein in every savoury course. The @kin_vineyards skin fermented Chardonnay paired well with smoky flavours in our dishes. Pretty good for a local #ottawawine. Overall, diners seemed pretty happy. 🙂

And our mistake this week was running out of time to publish the menu. Upon reflection, this is how challenging vegetarian menus can be with protein balance. Often, we aren’t sure how the final plate will come together until right before serving. So while we think we are settled, there are often last minute failures, that when we have a moment we correct and print out the menu during service. But veg items based on their protein and how filling they can be requires constant adjustment. But given our dedication to the dishes, the next round will be easier and the menu prepared. Hopefully. Haha.

#tastetheworld #gardentotable #freshlocal #vegan #vegetarian #privatedining