Veganer Speckpfannekuchen mit Salat (german savoury pancakes with smoked tofu and a simple salat)

This dish is as simple as tradtional. I made the recipe for savoury crepes from vegan brunch and sprinkeled some cubed smoked tofu on top. I served this with a some iceberg salat witch a dressing made of vinegar, sugar, salt, pepper and canola oil and half a finely chopped onion, which is the the kind of salat, that's served with fatty things like savoury pancakes or deepfried fish around here. Unfortunenatly I didn't manage to make some pancakes, that didn't break because I used a cheap non-stick pan but these pancakes were absoutely delicious and tasted closer to the non vegan original than I thought they would before I made them.
The german definition of a "Pfannkuchen" is quiet unclear. Some people make them as thick as an omlette and other people make them as thin as crepes or something in between those two ways and everything don't matter if sweet or savoury is called "Pfannkuchen", which literally translates as pancakes because "Pfanne" means pan and "Kuchen" means cake, but hey, there's no real translation for "Pfannkuchen". The pfannkuchen batter is never seweetened as it is often used for sweet and savoury pfannkuchen at one time. The most popular version of savoury pfannkuchen are the version I presented and plain ones, which are rolled up and filled with fried minced meat. The variety of sweet pfannekuchen is much bigger. People around here eat them with jam or nowadays with nutella and more tradiotional versions are plain ones with sugar or with sliced apples or bluberries, which are always fried inside of the batter. The last two one are tradiotionally beeing sprinkeled with a mix of cinnamon and sugar.
Back in 1910 these pfannekuchen made with wheat flour were an ocasional treat as wheat flour was expensive and people made there pfannkuchen with buckwheat flour, which I am also going to try next week. Today I am preparing a vegan bloodpudding, so stay tuned.

Juu's White Asparagus-Spinach-Pasta With Smoked Tofu

Juu's White Asparagus-Spinach-Pasta With Smoked Tofu

Ingredients:

250 g dry pasta

ca. 500 g white asparagus (try it with the green one if you can't get the white kind)

1 hand of frozen spinach

1 onion

2 cloves of garlic

1 piece of smoked tofu ca. 250 g

1/2 cup of deepfried onions

ca. 5 tbs of tahina

1 dash of soymilk

1 tsp of mustard or mustard powder

2 tsp of instant vegetable stock powder

1/2 cup of nutritional yeast

2 tsp onionpowder

pepper and salt for seasoning

1 tbs canolaoil for frying

1. Cook the pasta until al dente.
2. Finely chop the onion and the garlic and cube the smoked tofu.
   
3. Sweat the onions and garil with the canolaoil.
   
4. Carefully peel the asparagus, cut into waltnut siced pieces an roast it with the onions and garlic until golden brown.
   
5. Ad the rest of the ingredients along with some water and simmer until it form a nice and creamy sauce.
   
6. Mix with the cooked pasta, season with salt and pepper and enjoy.
   

Tofu-Schnitzel with german panroasted potatoes and krautsalad

Tofu-Schnitzel with german panroasted Potatoes and Krautsalat



While don't bein satisfied by the kind of vegan Schnitzel, which you can buy in stores here in Germany, I tried to create my own recipe and succeded after 3 trials.
Inspiration came from this blog entry http://justbento.com/handbook/johbisai/poached-frozen-tofu-fried-frozen-tofu-cutlets .
I changed the recipe a bit and converted the orgininal cutlets into breaded "Schnitzel"



Tofu-Schnitzel with german panroasted potatoes and krautsalad

Tofu Schnitzel


Ingredients:

1 piece firm tofu ca. 400 g freezed and defrosted

for the stock:

2 carrots

2 onions

1 bulb of garlic

1 tbs of olive oil

1 tbs tomatopaste

2 bay leaves

1 glas wine or sherry

some salt an pepper for seasoning

2 tsp of aseofetida, hing or whatever you call it

1 small piece of konbu-seaweed or one small bag of instant, vegan dashi-granulees

for the coatig:

1 cup of breadcrumps

1/2 cup of chickpeaflour

2 tsp tomatopaste

some salt and pepper for seasoning

2 tbs of nutritional yeast

1 package of instant, vegan dashi granulees

2 tsp of mustard or mustard powder

some water

the amount of oil, that you need to fill your pan for deepfrying


1. Cut the tofu into slices. You can decide how thick you want them to be.

2. Roughly chop the vegetables and roast thme until they get some nice bruning-marks.

3. Ad hing, tomatopaste and spcies and roast for one minute. Pour in the wine and half a litre of water.

4. Add konbu or dashi.

5.Cook the mixture for 10 minutes, cur down the heat to very low and ad the frozen tofu slices. Poach the slices for 20 minutes.

6. While the tofu is poaching mix all ingredients for the coated (not the breadcrumbs) with some water until it looks like a thin cakedough.

7. Spread each, the coating mixture and the breadcrum on one plate an spread ist nicely.

8. Take the cliced tofu out of your stockpot an try do dry the surfase with some papertowel.

9.Coat the sliced tofu with the coating and the breadcrumbs.

10.Deepfry the tofu-schnitzel on each side until they turn golden brown.

11. Defat the schitzel with some papertowels and you're done.


Bratkartoffeln (german panfried potatoes)

These poatoes called Bratkartoffeln are a tradional staple all over Germany. Everyone likes them and there are lots of recipes for them. Some traditional recipes call for thick cubes of bacon or want you to fry the potatoes in lard but I think, that even the most die-hard-german-omnivores around here would not use lard for these. If you want them to be a bit smoky you could at a bit of liquid somke oder some smoked paprika to them.

Ingredients:

2 hands of medium siced potatoes

2 medium siced oninions

2 tbs of canola oil

salt, pepper and some caraway seeds for seasoning


1. Boil the potatoes along with some salt for 20 minutes or less.

2. Drain the cooked poatoes thruogh a siff and let them cool down to room temperature. (You may want to cook them in advance of use some leftover potatoes to cook this dish in less time.)

3. Peel the cooked potatoes or leave them unpeeled and cut into medium thin slices ( 1 to 0.5 cm).

5. Peel the onions and cut them into very thin rings.

6. In a non-stick or cast-ironpan heat the oil and and the caraway.

7. Ad the slices potatoes an onionrings.

8. Fry until golden brown and try to turn them around as littel as you can because otherwise they may fall a part and you end op with some oily, crunchy,semyfried mashed potatoes and that's not what you want.

9. Season with salt and pepper and arrange one a plate.