Roast Potatoes

More Potatoes!

"He had never seen so many things he liked to eat on one table: roast beef, roast chicken, pork chops and lamb chops, bacon and steak, boiled potatoes, roast potatoes, fries, Yorkshire pudding, peas, carrots, gravy, ketchup, and, for some strange reason, peppermint humbugs" (Sorcerer's Stone 123).

According to Dinah Bucholz' book, back when potatoes were first introduced in Britain, people thought they were poisonous. Realizing they were not poison and a cheap source of food, one man boiled them until they were unrecognizable and fed them to poorhouse residents. Maybe this is where the British practice of boiling everything to mush began :) But the recipe for Roast Potatoes with Garlic and Rosemary in The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook is quite delicious!

You Will Need:
6 red potatoes (about 2 lbs), scrubbed and chopped into 1/2" (ish) pieces
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tsp salt
1 tsp dried rosemary
2 cloves garlic, minced (my garlic was icky, so i used a bit of garlic powder instead)
black pepper, to taste

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
2. Combine diced potatoes with the oil, salt, rosemary, garlic, and black pepper in a bowl. Mix together, making sure to coat the potatoes thoroughly and evenly.

3. Spread the potatoes in a large, shallow roasting pan  or rimmed baking sheet.
4. Roast the potatoes for about 45 minutes, until the potatoes are slightly crisp around the edges and soft in the middle. Halfway through baking, remove the pan briefly and toss the potatoes again and then replace in the oven to continue roasting.

These potatoes are super easy and super flavorful. They would be an excellent side dish with a lot of entrees. Enjoy!

Boiled Potatoes

Finally we've returned! Last week kind of ran away from me, but we're back and ready to cook! We're entering a brief smorgasbord of potatoes; in case you forgot the sentence we're still working through:

"He had never seen so many things he liked to eat on one table: roast beef, roast chicken, pork chops and lamb chops, sausages, bacon and steak, boiled potatoes, roast potatoes, fries, Yorkshire pudding, peas, carrots, gravy, ketchup, and, for some strange reason, peppermint humbugs" (Sorcerer's Stone 123).

And we're finally returning to Dinah Bucholz' book, The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook! We'll be making her "Boiled Potatoes with Herbed Vinaigrette." Note that I halved the recipe but included the measurements for a full recipe, so my photos will look different than your process.

You Will Need:

3 pounds small New Potatoes

1/4 cup olive oil

2 Tbs tarragon vinegar (or other kind you have available; I used balsamic)

salt to taste

black pepper to taste

2 Tbs chopped fresh dill (or half as much if you use dried)

1. Scrub the potatoes and place them in a large pot, and fill with enough water to cover the potatoes.

2. Bring the water to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer and cook until the potatoes can be easily pierced with a fork.

3. Drain the potatoes and place in a large mixing bowl. At this point, I cut most of my potatoes in half because they were pretty huge.

4. Add the oil, vinegar, and spices, and toss to combine.

5. Serve warm and enjoy!

Having grown up in a family where potatoes were served almost every night, and nine times out of ten they were mashed or baked, I'm always looking for new ways to prepare potatoes. I will definitely add this recipe to my repertoire-- it tastes both unexpected and delicious!

Steak

The next two items in the very long sentence we're working through are sausages and bacon. But we've already dealt with both of those. Although I have to comment that grammatically, "bacon and steak" is listed as one item (you may have noticed the same issue with pork chops and lamb chops). Commas are important people! This isn't even an Oxford comma debatable situation! Unless the Brits serve bacon and steak as one unknown-to-me entree (which is entirely possible), this is just poor grammar. Sorry J.K. English-nerd rant over.

We will treat steak as a single entity:

"He had never seen so many things he liked to eat on one table: roast beef, roast chicken, pork chops and lamb chops, sausages, bacon and steak, boiled potatoes, roast potatoes, fries, Yorkshire pudding, peas, carrots, gravy, ketchup, and, for some strange reason, peppermint humbugs" (Sorcerer's Stone 123).

I can only recall ever eating one single bite of steak in my life. This of course, is positively sinful to all the carnivores I know. What can I say? It wasn't for me. There are a couple options when looking for vegetarian steak recipes, so I decided to try one for the king of steaks: vegetarian filet mignon. 

You Will Need:

6oz silken tofu (usually half a box)

3/4 cup cold water

1 1/2 Tbs ketchup

1 Tbs olive oil

1 1/2 Tbs Braggs (or soy sauce)

1/2 Tbs steak sauce

1 tsp Worcestershire Sauce (which, heads up, isn't technically vegan, but they do make vegan versions)

1/4 tsp black pepper

1/2 tsp Italian seasoning

1/4 tsp powdered sage

1 Tbs Nutritional yeast

2 Tbs beef-style vegetarian boullion

1 1/2 Tbs cornmeal (I didn't have any, so I used soy flour... hopefully the grainy-ness of cornmeal isn't essential to the recipe!)

1 1/2 cups Vital Wheat Gluten Flour

For the Broth, You Will Need:

1 1/2 Tbs oil

2 Tbs soy sauce

1/2 tsp black pepper

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp onion powder

1. Combine all the ingredients (except the cornmeal and the gluten flour) in a blender and blend until smooth.

2. Whisk the gluten flour and cornmeal together in a bowl. Pour the contents of the blender into the bowl and mix together. Knead the dough for a few minutes and form into a firm ball. You may need to add more gluten flour, as the dough should be soft but not sticky. Note: I probably added a full 1/2 cup, so no worries!

3. Cover the bowl with a towel and let sit for 1 hour.

4. Mix the broth ingredient in a medium-large pot.

5. Flour the counter surface with gluten flour (flour your rolling pin too), and roll out your dough. It kind of just gets to a certain thickness where it won't flatten anymore.

6. If you have a biscuit cutter, cut 6 little filets. Or if you're like me, just cut the dough into 6 pieces :)

7. Place the steaks in the cold broth (it will be tight) and bring the contents to a slow simmer. Cook on low, turning occasionally, for 75 minutes. Heads up: the steaks will expand A LOT, so turning them will get more and more difficult.

8. Allow the steaks to cool for about 10 minutes, then place the steaks and broth in an air-tight container to store in the fridge.

9. Serve the steaks with a spoonful of broth on top.

The verdict? A little salty, but very tasty! My carnivore father's opinion? "...tastes like turkey." Oh well, enjoy it anyway!

Lamb Chops

"He had never seen so many things he liked to eat on one table: roast beef, roast chicken, pork chops and lamb chops, sausages, bacon and steak, boiled potatoes, roast potatoes, fries, Yorkshire pudding, peas, carrots, gravy, ketchup, and, for some strange reason, peppermint humbugs" (Sorcerer's Stone 123).

Lamb is one of those foods that is served completely differently depending on your chosen country and culture. One assumes that at Hogwarts, it would be served with mint jelly, the traditional British garnish for lamb. However I'm not sure if that applies with lamb chops, or just with roast lamb... Regardless, I am not British. I have never had lamb with mint jelly. I am Greek. Lamb in my house was usually cooked as souvlaki, which is kind of like shish kabobs with a red sauce. But as a vegetarian... I don't eat lamb at all. 

The recipe I found for vegetarian "lamb chops" is from Vegan Appetite, and it is delicious.

You Will Need:

2 cups Vital Wheat Gluten

1/4 cup white wheat flour (I didn't have wheat flour, so I just used an extra 1/4 cup white flour)
1/8 cup white flour
1/8 cup soy flour
1/4 cup minute tapioca (I used tapioca starch)
1 Tbsp Bryanna's Chicken Powder (I didn't use this officially; I just added a dash of most of the ingredients (check the site for list)... I didn't have any beet sugar or soymilk powder though)
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp rosemary
1/2 tsp fried parsley
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 Tbsp Better Than Boullion Vegetable paste
1 1/2 cup cold water
1/2 Tbs tamari or soy sauce
1 tsp Kitchen bouquet (this is a browning/seasoning sauce, and I couldn't find it anywhere, so I skipped it. Consequently my lamb is a little pale.)

For the broth, You Will Need:
8 cups water
2 Tbs Tamari or soy sauce
1/4 cup nutritional yeast (which I found out is sometimes called "nooch")
1 onion, peeled and sliced
3 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced
1 Tbs Bryanna's Chicken powder (again, I just added a dash of each ingredient)
1 boulion cube (or the equivalent of Better Than Boullion Paste)
1 tsp dried rosemary
1 tsp dried parsley
1 tsp sugar

1. In a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients (up to and including the garlic).

2. In another small bowl, combine the rest of the ingredients (the wet ones).

3. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ones, mix together, and knead a few minutes. Form the dough into two loaves.

4. Combine all the broth ingredients in a medium-large pot.

5. Place the two seitan loaves into the cold broth, and bring to a simmer, and cook for 90 minutes, stirring occasionally.

6. Let the loaves and broth cool. Remove a loaf and cut into 1/2" slices. Pan-fry the "lamb chops" in an (olive) oiled skillet, seasoned with pepper and a little salt, until lightly browned.

I plated my "lamb chop" with some of the onions from the broth, but you can use whatever garnish you choose: mint jelly, harissa sauce, greek yohgurt, whatever you fancy!

These "lamb chops" are super tasty, but my carnivore father assures me that they do not taste even remotely like lamb. He suggests using a No-Beef Boullion instead of vegetable flavored, and using more sugar instead of salt. Oh well, it's still yummy! Enjoy!

Pork Chops

"He had never seen so many things he liked to eat on one table: roast beef, roast chicken, pork chops and lamb chops, sausages, bacon and steak, boiled potatoes, roast potatoes, fries, Yorkshire pudding, peas, carrots, gravy, ketchup, and, for some strange reason, peppermint humbugs" (Sorcerer's Stone 123).

Once again I will attempt to make a vegetarian version of a carnivore's staple. I think we can all agree that my last couple attempts were pretty dreadful, mostly due my idiocy in choosing the wrong type of yeast. So today I turn to Veganize It for my pork chop recipe.

You Will Need:

1 cup vital wheat gluten

1 cup water mixed with 1tsp No Chicken Broth Paste

3 Tbs MimicCreme (I couldn't find mimiccreme, but am told it is a not-dairy cream substitute, so I used soy creamer instead)

For the Broth You Will Need:

4 Cups No Chicken Broth (1 tsp of paste to each cup)

1 cup MimicCreme

1/8 cup Tamari (I used soy sauce)

1/2 Tbs No Beef Boullion

1 cup pineapple coconut nectar

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp 5 spice powder

2 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp Shallot powder (I couldn't find shallot powder, so I used onion powder)

4 whole cloves, ground (I used pre-ground cloves)

3 points of a whole-star anise

1 tsp kosher salt (I skipped this since my previous seitans have been so horribly salty)

1 tsp sugar

1 additional cup of water

1. In a bowl, mix together the first 3 ingredients until completely combined.

2. In a medium-large pot, mix together all the broth ingredients and bring to a boil.

3. While your broth comes to a boil, take your ball of seitan dough and squeeze out the excess moisture. This will take awhile. You can use a paper towel to pat some moisture away if you like, but only pat it, otherwise the paper will stick to the dough.

4. On a cutting board, flatten the dough ball into a disk and cut into 6 wedges.

5. Before putting each wedge into the boiling broth, flatten it between your hands a bit. Drop all the pie-pieces into the boiling broth and cover.

6. Reduce the heat to a simmer, and let it cook for a little over an hour, stirring every 10-15 minutes.

7. Take the finished "pork chops" out of the broth using a slotted spoon and drain in a colander.

8. If you aren't going to eat all six chops immediately, pour the broth into a storage container with the remaining chops so they stay juicy and flavorful.

It's been a long time since I've tasted a pork chop, but I these don't taste anything like I remember. But they certainly are delicious anyway! I'd recommend eating them with a nice rice pilaf. Enjoy!

Roast Chicken

"He had never seen so many things he liked to eat on one table: roast beef, roast chicken, prok chops and lamb chops, sausages, bacon and steak, boiled potatoes, roast potatoes, fries, Yorkshire pudding, peas, carrots, gravy, ketchup, and, for some strange reason, peppermint humbugs" (Sorcerer's Stone 123).

We're back again at the glory of the first Hogwarts Feast. Unfortunately, I could not find a recipe for vegetarian roast chicken. There are, however, lots and lots of vegetarian chicken substitutes commercially available. In case you were wondering:

Morningstar is always my go-to for meat substitutes, mostly because it was the most readily available brand when I went vegetarian eleven years ago. They don't have a very "roasted" tasting chicken substitute, but they do have lots of chicken-y options.

Boca is the other most well-known brand of vegetarian-friendly meat products. Their products are very similar to Morningstar's.

Lightlife is another fantastic option, and their products are often no-carb, which is nice for those people who care about that sort of thing. They also have more of a cutlet-style "chicken" available, versus the battered-style "chicken" of Morningstar and Boca.

Gardein is another product line (that I think is a newer brand) that offers many varieties of frozen (and fresh) vegetarian and vegan products. Their "chicken" options are pre-seasoned to create things like "chicken scallopini" or "mandarin chicken." I've only ever used their "Beef tips," but they worked really well.

Quorn is a British-based product that I only recently started seeing for sale in American health-food stores. The only product of theirs that I've tried outside of the UK is their "Turkey roast," and it was pretty delicious; not as great as a Tofurkey, but still pretty great.

Seitan is another great option, but I can't find websites for the brands I buy. Just go to your local Whole Foods and check in the refrigerated tofu section.

So there you go! Not quite the greasy, juicy, gravy-covered joy Harry expected upon seeing roast chicken on the Gryffindor table, but still some pretty good options for us vegetarians!

Roast Beef

We'll be on this next sentence for quite some time, so let's jump right in, shall we?

"He had never seen so many things he like to eat on one table: roast beef, roast chicken, pork chops and lamb chops, sausages, bacon and steak, boiled potatoes, roast potatoes, fries, Yorkshire pudding, peas, carrots, gravy, ketchup, and, for some strange reason, peppermint humbugs" (Sorcerer's Stone 123).

I found a fantastic recipe for Vegan Roast Beef at A Veg*n for Dinner. However, I found out after the fact that I used the wrong kind of yeast (muggle moment; stupid me). So my "roast beef" ended up ridiculously salty. I'm talking dry-up-a-slug salty. So follow this recipe properly, and you'll probably end up with excellent "roast beef."

Since I completely botched this recipe by messing up one ingredient, I recommend you just head to the website sited above for your vegan roast beef recipe. Here's a couple pictures from my process, just to prove I attempted it!

combining wet and dry mixtures

loaves in their broth, ready to go in the oven

finished (but very salty!) "Roast Beef"

Lesson learned today: buy the correct ingredients, and you will have delicious vegan roast beef!

Potatoes

We have reached another paragraph filled with glorious foods. That's right, we've reached the very first Hogwarts feast! This first item initiates Harry's shock at food which magically appears (thanks to the excellent ministrations of the House Elves):

"He's [Dumbledore's] a genius! Best wizard in the world! But he is a bit mad, yes. Potatoes, Harry? Harry's mouth fell open. The dishes in front of him were now piled with food" (Sorcerer's Stone 123).

Potatoes are mentioned over and over throughout the Harry Potter series, but only four times does Ms. Rowling not specify how the potatoes have been prepared. Since this is one of those times, I shall make the executive decision on what kind of potatoes Percy offered to Harry at his first Hogwarts feast. There is one (perhaps among many, I don't know for sure) classically British dish that is never mentioned in any of the seven Harry Potter books: Bubble and Squeak. And since the main ingredient in Bubble and Squeak is potatoes, and since I've never made it before (and since its name is such fun!), today we shall cook Bubble and Squeak! This recipe comes from the Linda Doeser's cookbook, 100 Best Recipes, Vegetarian.

You Will Need:
1 pound unpeeled potatoes (5 or so should equal about a pound)
generous 1/4 cup butter
salt and pepper
8 oz cabbage (a little less than 1/3 a cabbage)
2-3 Tbs water
4 Tbs corn or vegetable oil
1 onion, finely chopped
a heavy-bottomed pan with lid, and a plate at least as big as the lid.

1. Place your potatoes in a pot of lightly salted water and cook 25 minutes or until tender.
2. Drain, cool, peel, and dice the potatoes into a large bowl.

3. Add all but 2 tsp of the butter to the potatoes and mash until no lumps remain. Season with salt and pepper.

4. Meanwhile, shred the cabbage and place in a heavy-bottomed pan with the remaining butter and 2-3 Tbs water. Cover and cook over low heat, shaking the pan occasionally, for 10 minutes or until tender.

5. Mix the cabbage into the mashed potatoes and season with salt and pepper as needed.

6. Heat half the oil in the heavy-bottomed pan and add the onion. Cook , stirring occasionally, about five minutes or until tender. Arrange the onion evenly over the bottom of the pan.

7. Add the potato-cabbage mixture to the pan and press down with a wooden spoon (or your hands, carefully) to make a flat, even cake.

8. Cook over medium heat for 15 minutes, until the bottom is golden brown. It won't burn, I promise. I was nervous too.
9. Place the plate over top of the pan and invert the potato cake onto the plate.
10. Add the rest of the oil evenly to the pan and return the potato cake into the pan to cook the other side for 15 minutes, until golden brown. This is the point where I learned where the name "Bubble and Squeak" comes from! It really does squeak while it cooks! Loudly! Make it and you'll see what I mean!

11. Transfer back to a plate, cut into wedges, and serve.

Enjoy! For a simple cake of potatoes and cabbage, originally developed to use up leftovers, Bubble and Squeak is pretty delicious!