This batch serves 2 people as a snack or a starter – I have a feeling that next time we make these I will be doubling the recipe. The mint flavor came out quite delicate despite the seemingly large amount of mint leaves in the recipe, possibly because our mint was a little bit on the dry side.

The Ingredients:

• 200 g firm tofu, not pressed
• 1 dl cashew nuts
• 1 dl mint leaves, lightly packed
• 2 cloves garlic
• a 5 cm piece of a lemon grass stalk
• 1 red Thai chili, de-seeded
• 1 to 2 tablespoons water, as needed
• 1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste

I placed half of the tofu, cashew nuts, mint leaves, garlic, lemon grass, the chili, and a splash of water in our mini food processor, and started blending into a coarse paste. The paste didn’t end up completely smooth, just so that there were no larger pieces of lemon grass or chili – I think this could easily be achieved with an immersion blender as well.

Now I crumbled the rest of the tofu, and added that to the spicy paste. I seasoned the dough with salt, and it was ready to be fried.

I heated a tin layer of canola oil in a frying pan, formed the dough into 10 balls, and flattened them lightly. I actually battered two of the croquettes with a gram flour and water mixture (the one that is on the right side of the picture being one of those), but I think the un-battered ones were slightly nicer.

I fried the croquets on high to medium high heat until browned on both sides, and then drained them on kitchen towel. I served these right away with an easy dipping sauce made with lime juice, soy sauce, and a pinch of sugar.

I sprinkled my leftover-lunch-portion of the spicy rutabaga soup with these seeds, and that was the most satisfying meal I’ve had for a long while. This recipe is eminently customizable – for starters: basic soy sauce can be used instead of tamari, any other sweetener instead of agave, and wheat flour and olive oil instead of spelt and canola. The seasoning possibilities are endless, but these are pretty great even when made with just soy sauce and no extras!

Here’s what I used:

• 2 dl sunflower seeds (hulled)
• 2 tablespoons tamari soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
• 1 teaspoon agave syrup
• 1/2 teaspoon hot chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika powder
• pinch of smoked paprika
• 1/2 tablespoon canola oil
• 1 tablespoon spelt flour

First, I toasted the sunflower seeds in a non-stick frying pan on medium high heat until slightly browned. It took me about 10 minutes, and I kept stirring them every now and then all through the toasting process. I’ve found that seeds often start to “smoke” a little when they’re done toasting – maybe it’s the water that evaporates when they’ve reached a certain temperature.

While I was toasting the seeds, I mixed the seasonings together (tamari through canola oil). When the seeds were done, I added the seasoning in the pan, and stirred with a wooden fork until all the liquid had evaporated. Then I sprinkled the spelt flour over the seeds, and fried them for a few more minutes.

When the seeds were all done and nicely covered with the seasoning mixture, I spread them on a piece of baking parchment to cool down.

Soup ingredients:

• olive oil for frying
• 2 onions, chopped
• 6 cloves of garlic, crushed
• half of a medium rutabaga (about 275 g), diced
• 1 carrot, diced
• 1 teaspoon hot chili powder
• 4 teaspoons of ras-el-hanout
  
• 4 dl (about 275 g) dried split fava beans (you can use whole beans, but they take longer to cook)
• enough water to amply cover the vegetables and beans (about 1 – 1 1/2 liters)
• 3 teaspoons vegetable stock powder
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• juice of 1 mandarin
• salt to taste

Harissa yogurt ingredients:

• 1 teaspoon harissa
• 1 1/2 dl soy yogurt
• pinch of salt
• pinch of pepper

About 4 hours before starting to cook the soup I speed soaked the fava beans. Speed soaking means I simply rinsed the beans in cold water, put them in a bowl, poured boiling water on them, and covered the bowl. Of course one could soak the beans properly too, overnight in cold water.

After the beans were soaked, we started by chopping the onions and crushing the garlic. While I diced the rutabaga and the carrot, Anni put some olive oil in a pot over medium-high heat, and fried the onion and the garlic until the onion was translucent. We then added the chopped rutabaga and carrot, and fried them for a minute or two more.

Now we added the chili powder and the ras el hanout, stirred the mix for a while, and then added the beans, water, stock powder, sugar, and vinegar. We covered the pot, and simmered until the beans were soft. This took about one hour.

Anni then proceeded to purée the soup using our immersion blender until it was smooth, and adjusted the taste by adding the olive oil, the mandarin juice, and a pinch of salt.

We garnished our soup bowls with some harissa yogurt – the yogurt was simply made by combining and mixing all the ingredients in a small bowl.

I think that chopped cilantro leaves would be a nice compliment to this curry as well, we just didn’t have any on hand at the time of making.

Here’s what I used (serves 4):

• 1 medium head cauliflower, cut into smaller florets
• 2 onions, finely cubed
• 6 small potatoes, cubed
• 3 dl cooked chick peas
• 1 dl green peas
• 4 dl coconut milk (one can)
• 1 tomato, finely cubed
• 1-2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 and 1/2 teaspoons salt (or to taste)
• 1 teaspoon (muscovado) sugar
• a 3 cm long piece of a ginger root
• 6 cloves garlic
• 3 tablespoons peanut oil

The Spices:

• 2 teaspoons mustard seeds
• 2 teaspoons fennel seeds
• 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
• a pinch of asafoetida powder
• 2 teaspoons dried red chili, crushed
• 1 and 1/2 teaspoons turmeric
• 2 teaspoons coriander powder
• 1 teaspoon Garam Masala powder
• (1/2-1 teaspoon hot chili powder)

First I chopped up all the veggies and pulsed the garlic and the ginger in our mini food processor into a coarse paste. My ingredients made about 3 tablespoons of ginger-garlic paste.

Then I fried the cumin, mustard, and fennel seeds in the peanut oil on high heat until they started to pop, and added a pinch of asafoetida, lowering the heat to medium. Right after asafoetida I stirred in the ginger-garlic paste, the crushed chili, the coriander, and the turmeric powder, and fried for a few seconds more. Now, I added the onions to the pan, and fried them until they were a little soft, for a few minutes.

I poured the potatoes and the cauliflower florets in the frying pan, and stirred to coat with the spice mixture. Then I added the green peas and the chick peas in the pan, stirred again, poured in the coconut milk, and added the salt and the sugar. Now I let the curry simmer for about 15-20 minutes until the potatoes had softened.

Before serving, I stirred in the lemon juice, chili powder, and Garam Masala, and then served the curry over basmati rice, sprinkled with the cubed tomato.

This batch makes 22 small meatballs, and the recipe was inspired by the one on Cake Maker to the Stars.

Here’s what we used:

• 2 dl granulated TSP (in Finnish: tumma soijarouhe)
• 2 dl vegetable stock
• 1 dl diced leek
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/4 teaspoon salt or to taste, depending on the stock
• 1 teaspoon dried chili
• ½ teaspoon dried marjoram
• ½ teaspoon dried thyme
• ½ teaspoon sesame oil
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 tablespoon fried onion
• ½ dl gluten flour
• ½ dl water

I started by setting the oven to 175 degrees Celsius.

To start with the dough, I combined the stock and the soy granules in a bowl, and set aside. I chopped the leek into small bits, sautéed it in olive oil for a couple of minutes, added the chili, marjoram, and thyme, and stirred to mix. By now the soy granules had absorbed all the vegetable stock, so I added them into the frying pan, and sautéed the mixture for a few more minutes. Then I added the sesame seed oil and the soy sauce to the pan. I removed the frying pan from heat, and added the crushed garlic and the store-bought fried onion, stirred them in, and let the mixture cool down a bit.

When the soy granule mixture wasn’t too hot to touch anymore, I added the water and the gluten flour, and kneaded the dough for a couple of minutes. At this point, I tried rolling a meatball in my palm, testing the consistency of the dough. It was still quite soft, but firm enough to roll into balls – just what I was aiming at.

I rolled the dough into 22 small meatballs, which I put on a baking sheet covered with baking parchment. I sprayed them with olive oil on all sides, and put them in the oven for 10 minutes. Then I flipped them over one by one, and baked for another 10 minutes. By then they were nicely browned, and a little crunchy on the surface.

Usually on May Day the weather is still quite cold, so the picnic is more of a symbolic start of the summer, but this year the weather was really nice and warm, in Finnish terms at least. We enjoyed the soy meatballs together with potato salad and smokey tofu spread seasoned with sage, of which we’ll blog about later!

As a side we had oven-baked potato wedges and soy yogurt sauce seasoned with garlic and chives.

Marinade for 250g firm tofu (serves 2):

• 1 teaspoon caraway seeds, ground
• 4 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 dl white wine
• ½ teaspoon black pepper, ground
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon olive oil

We just pressed the tofu, cut it into slices, dried the slices with a kitchen towel and put them in a plastic container. Then we mixed all the marinade ingredients, poured them over of the tofu, closed the lid of the container, shook it until the marinade was spread evenly, and put the tofu in the fridge overnight.

Next day we heated the oven to 200 degrees Celcius, spread the tofu slices in a single layer in a baking pan, poured the rest of the marinade over them, and baked them together with the potato wedges (see below) until the marinade was absorbed. In our oven this took 30 minutes.

Spicy Crispy Potato Wedges (serves 4):

• 1 kg potatoes, scrubbed and cut in 6 wedges each
• 3 tablespoons canola oil
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon smoked Spanish paprika
• 1 teaspoon paprika powder
• 1 teaspoon red chili flakes
• 3/4 dl dry bread crumbs

Anni first mixed the breadcrumbs with the spices in a big bowl, and then added the potato wedges and the canola oil. Now, she stirred the potatoes until fairly covered with the breadcrumbs, and placed them on a baking sheet covered with baking parchment, the skin side of each wedge facing down. Now, there was some breadcrumbs left in the bowl, which she pressed on the wedges.

Now, we baked the potato wedges in 200 degrees Celcius on the uppermost rack of our oven for 30 minutes, while the tofu stayed on the lower rack of the oven and was cooked in the exact same time.

We made Nasi Lemak one Sunday afternoon – here’s what we used:

Nasi Lemak (two portions)

• 2 and 1/2 dl (1 cup) rice
• 2 and 1/2 dl coconut milk
• 2 and 1/2 dl water
• 1-2 tablespoons crushed ginger
• 1 bay leaf
• salt to taste
• sambal oelek to taste (or some other salty chili paste)

We made this in a rice cooker, which is super easy: We just put all the ingredients in our rice cooker except the sambal oelek, turned it on, and about half an hour later it was ready. We removed the bay leaf, and garnished it with sambal.

In case you don’t have a rice cooker, here are the instructions on how to make it in a regular cooking pot:

Put all the ingredients in a kettle except the sambal oelek. Don’t go overboard with the salt since you’re going to eat it with sambal, which is super salty! Bring to boil, and let it simmer until the rice has absorbed almost all the liquid – maybe 20 minutes or so. Turn the heat low, or with an electric stove, off, and let the rice steam for an additional 10 or 15 minutes. Keep the lid on the kettle all the time, except when checking if the liquid’s all absorbed, of course. Remove the bay leaf from the kettle, and serve. Garnish the rice with sambal oelek.

Possible variations:

• Use two cups of coconut milk instead of one cup water and one cup of coconut milk
• Instead of ginger, use one pandan leaf.

We had our Nasi Lemak (clockwise from bottom right) with stir-fried morning glory, vegan ikan bilis, cucumber, and soy strips marinated in dill and chili. The first three are traditional dishes to have with Nasi Lemak, the fourth isn’t, but all of them tasted great with it, we thought.

I always peel and slice the thicker stems of broccoli and use them in my cooking as well – they have a nice mild taste that reminds me of kohlrabi. I didn’t measure the soy sauce, and soy sauces also vary in how salty they are, so the amount might need a little adjusting.

• 1/2 dl cashew nuts
• 300 g broccoli, in florets, stems peeled and sliced
• 1/2 dl water
• 1 teaspoon chili flakes
• 1 tablespoon light soy sauce
• a squeeze of lemon juice

First, I prepped the broccoli, and heated a non stick frying pan over high heat. Then I toasted the cashews for a few minutes, until they started to brown, and added the broccoli and the water in the pan. Now, I stirred the broccoli for a few minutes until the liquid had more or less evaporated, and then added the chili flakes to the pan. After a minute or so , I added the soy sauce, and stirred until most of the liquid was gone. At this point the broccoli was cooked on the outside and still crispy on the inside.

I removed the pan from heat, added a splash of lemon juice, and enjoyed my simple lunch!

One teaspoon of chili and sichuan pepper each don’t yet make a fiery dish, but it’s enough to enjoy the combination of their flavours. If you prefer more spiciness in your food, don’t hesitate to add more, but take it easy on the sichuan pepper if you’re not familiar with it – if you add it too much it starts to dominate the dish.

Sauce:

• 1 teaspoon toasted and freshly ground sichuan pepper (or to taste)
• 1 teaspoon dried chili flakes (or to taste)
• ½ dl dry sherry
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon fermented black beans
• 3 cloves of garlic, crushed

Stir-Fry Ingredients:

• 350 g broccoli
• 1 red bell pepper
• a quarter of a leek (or maybe 1 small leek, we didn’t have more!)
• ½ kg tofu
• 1 tablespoon canola oil for frying
• 2 teaspoons starch diluted in 4 tablespoons water

First we drained and pressed the tofu. Then we toasted the sichuan peppers over medium heat on a dry frying pan for a couple of minutes, stirring them every now and then so that they would not burn, after which I ground them in a mortar. Next, I mashed the fermented black beans with a fork, and then mixed all the sauce ingredients together: sichuan pepper, chili, sherry, soy sauce, black beans and garlic.

Then we cut all the veggies and the tofu into small pieces. You could also cut them into thin strips, squares, triangles or whatever shape pleases you!

Now, we put a wok over high heat, added the oil, and when the oil was really hot, we added the leek and paprika first, stir-fried them for a minute or so, then added the broccoli, fried it for maybe two minutes or so, then added the tofu, and stir-fried for maybe a minute more. Next, it was time to pour in the sauce, cook and stir for about one minute or so. Then we added the thickener, and stirred it in. We removed the wok from heat, and served the dish with yasmine rice immediately.

Asafoetida, also known as stinking gum, or hajupihka in Finnish, is a very pungent spice, and isn’t to everyone’s liking. We only recently started using it, and I don’t find its fragrance all too repulsive, but Heikki is pretty sensitive about it. So, if you’re unsure, use it sparingly and see if you like it – I think it’s worth a try. Maybe the best bet is to try and not smell your spices while you are frying them, because that’s when the asafoetida odours really can get you – then you probably won’t even notice which part of the delicious curry taste comes from that particular spice component.

While I was cooking the spinach, I started to wonder why it didn’t turn brown like the spinach in Indian restaurants does, and googled my way to a few recipes for Palak Tofu on two of my favorite blogs Mahanandi and Fatfree Vegan. They both have fresh tomatoes in them, which explains the color – maybe I’ll include those next time, but I think that my addition of lemon juice provides some of the fruitiness that would normally come from tomatoes.

The Tofu:

• 300 g firm tofu
• 1/2 dl freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 2 teaspoons brown rice miso

The Spinach Purée:

• 250 g fresh spinach leaves
• 3 tablespoons peanut oil
• 2 onions, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 tablespoons fresh ginger, minced
• 2 teaspoons dried curry leaves
• 1 teaspoon dried ground coriander
• 1 dried crushed chili
• 1/2 teaspoon cumin (jeera)
• 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
• 1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
• 1/4 teaspoon asafoetida (hing) – be careful!
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 dl water
• (1 tablespoon plain, unsweetened soy yogurt)

Heikki prepared the tofu by pressing it and then cutting it in small squares not thicker than half a centimeter. Then he patted the squares to get most of the moisture out. Now, he mixed the lemon juice with the miso paste, and placed the marinade with the tofu in an air tight container and let them sit in the room temperature while we proceeded with the rest of the cooking.

I minced the onions, ginger, and garlic, and heated the peanut oil in a frying pan on medium-low heat. Now, I fried the onions for 10 minutes, until they started to turn golden but not yet brown, and added ginger and garlic to the pan. I fried them for a minute or so, turned up the heat a bit, and then added the rest of the spices (except salt and sugar). I toasted them for a minute or so, stirring all the time.

Meanwhile, Heikki had rinsed and chopped the spinach leaves, and I added them to the pan. I fried them until wilted, and then we placed the spinach mixture in a small bowl and Heikki puréed it with an immersion blender. He poured it back in the pan, added 1 dl of water, the sugar and the salt, and let the mixture simmer on low heat for 15 minutes. Then I added the tofu in the pan, reserving the marinade, and simmered the curry for another 10 minutes. Before serving, I mixed in the soy yogurt, adjusted the saltiness of the dish, and then we enjoyed our Palak Tofu over jasmine rice.