13Plant forward proteins

Beans, peas and lentils all belong to one plant family, the legumes. What a cook eats from these plants is the seed, and sometimes the pod that holds it. Seeds carry more protein and more carbohydrate, in the form of starch and fiber, than most other vegetables do.

Dried legumes are cheap and they are good for you. Cooking them well takes planning, because most of them must soak for hours before they go on the stove. Soybeans stand apart: their protein has been judged as useful to the body as protein from animals. Soybeans also give the kitchen tofu and tempeh, and wheat gives seitan, three foods that can take the place of meat on a plate.

13.1 Tofu, tempeh and seitan

Tofu recipes → Seitan recipes →

Tofu: what it is

Tofu, also called bean curd, starts as soymilk. The soymilk is set into curds, or cultured, and then formed into a cake. The result is soft and creamy white, a little like a fresh cheese.

Tofu is a staple food in Japan and China, and more American kitchens use it every year. It costs little, it is easy to digest, and it gives good protein with little fat or sodium and no cholesterol. On its own it tastes of very little, but it soaks up the flavors cooked with it.

Tofu is old. It was probably first made in China in the second century A.D. Buddhist priests took it to Japan in the eighth century, and Western travelers came across it in the 17th century. Japanese tofu is said to be the best, perhaps because the Yamato region near Kyoto grows such fine soybeans. Japanese cooks make tofu the star of a great many dishes, while Chinese cooks more often add it to a dish than build the dish around it.

Cotton tofu and silken tofu

There are two main kinds.

Cotton tofu, also called traditional tofu, is the kind you see most. The soymilk is set, today usually with calcium sulfate. The curds go into a mold with holes, lined with cloth, and a weight presses the liquid out. The cloth leaves a rough pattern on the outside of the block. Cotton tofu comes in three styles, each drier and firmer than the one before:

• Soft: scramble it like eggs, or blend it into a smooth spread.
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• Firm and extra firm: solid enough to grill or sauté, and good at taking up marinades and rubs.
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Silken tofu is made more the way yogurt is made. It forms no curds and gives off no whey, so it is smooth like a custard and milder than cotton tofu. Blend it into dips, spreads or smoothies. Nothing has been pressed out of it, so it breaks apart easily: do not cook it hot or for long. Drained, it thickens into a spread close to mascarpone or cream cheese.

Pick the style that suits the dish.

Cooking with tofu

Tofu can be eaten fresh, added to soups, broths and noodle dishes, tossed into cold salads, or puréed into a spread. It can also be sautéed, grilled or deep-fried. see chapter 8: Dry heat: sauté, grill, roast, fry

To firm up a block before it goes into a hot dish:

• Take the tofu out of its packing liquid.
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• Wrap it in paper towels and let it drain for 15 to 20 minutes.
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• Cut it into ¼-inch cubes.
• Simmer the cubes in water for 10 to 15 minutes so they firm a little, then drain them.
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• Fold them gently into the finished sauce at the end and simmer about 5 minutes, just long enough for the flavors to blend.
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For a stir-fry, toss 1-inch cubes of firm tofu with a pinch of chili flakes, a little soy sauce and a splash of rice wine vinegar, and leave them at least 10 minutes. Stir-fry the vegetables in a hot wok first, then add the tofu with the sauces and toss without breaking the cubes. The dish is cooked within about 5 minutes.

Tofu also works crumbled and baked. Drained and crumbled, a block can be mixed with cooked rice, sautéed vegetables, peanuts and soy sauce, then baked covered at 350°F for 20 minutes. Soft silken tofu can be the base of a hot dip: blended with artichoke hearts, roasted red pepper, cheese and garlic, it bakes at 375°F for about forty minutes, until brown and bubbling.

Storing tofu

Fresh tofu is sold packed in water. Keep it in the refrigerator, still in water, until you use it. Pour off the water and add fresh every day, and it will keep for a week.

Tofu freezes for several months, though thawing changes its texture a little. You can use that change. Thaw firm tofu under a weight, such as a sheet pan with a #10 can on top. It comes out denser and firmer, good for grilling. Pour off the liquid before you use it.

Tempeh

Tempeh is chewy and chunky, with a nutty, yeasty taste, which makes it a good stand-in for meat.

• Slice it or cut it into cubes, and marinate it before grilling or sautéing. see chapter 8: Dry heat: sauté, grill, roast, fry
• Crumble it into soups and stews in place of ground beef, pork or poultry.
• Always cook it before eating, because of the live culture used to make it. Cooking also softens its strong taste.

Tempeh is sold fresh or frozen. It keeps about a week in the refrigerator and for several months in the freezer.

Seitan

Seitan (said SAY-tan) is sometimes called wheat meat. It is made from gluten, the protein in wheat that does not dissolve in water. Buddhist monks have eaten it for centuries. It is firm and chewy and has little taste of its own.

To make it, mix wheat gluten or wheat flour with water into a dough. Rinse the dough again and again to wash out the starch and bran. Then simmer the spongy pieces in a broth made with soy sauce or tamari, ginger, garlic and kombu, a seaweed. The simmering makes the seitan tender and fills it with the flavor of the broth. see chapter 9: Moist heat: poach, simmer, steam

Because seitan takes on the taste of what it cooks in, you can steer it:

• Herbs that go with poultry, such as thyme and sage, make it taste more like chicken.
• Dark soy sauce and meaty mushrooms make it taste more like red meat.

Seitan is already fully cooked, so add it near the end of cooking. It is sold in the refrigerated case in uneven chunks; once a pack is open, eat it within a few days. Seitan also comes as a powdered mix.

13.2 Beans, lentils and peas: cooking legumes

Plant Forward Proteins recipes →

Sort, wash and soak

A dried legume is a hard, dry seed. Soaking and cooking it puts the rules of starch and protein cooking to work, gelatinization above all. see chapter 7: Starch gelatinization

Before anything else, pick through the dried legumes and throw out anything that does not belong. Then wash them.

Soft water is best, for soaking and for cooking. Use 2½ to 3 cups of water for each cup of dried legumes. If the only water you have is very hard, stir in ⅛ teaspoon of baking soda for each cup of beans.

There are two ways to soak:

• The long soak. Cover the legumes with cold water and leave them overnight.
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• The quick soak. Bring the legumes and water to a boil with no lid and boil for 2 minutes. Take the pan off the heat, put the lid on, and let them stand for one hour.
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Plan ahead. In a teaching kitchen with a three-hour class, the beans have to be soaked before the class begins.

Cooking the soaked legumes

Pour off the soaking water. Cook the legumes in fresh water, or in broth if the recipe asks for it.

• Salt. Season the cooking water with ½ teaspoon of salt for each cup of dried legumes.
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• Fat. Beans foam as they boil. One tablespoon of fat for each cup of legumes keeps the foam down.
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Without a pressure saucepan, boil legumes gently until they are soft. see chapter 9: Moist heat: poach, simmer, steam

Using a pressure saucepan

Rules for a pressure saucepan:

• Fill the pan only partly with water, and always add 1 tablespoon of fat to keep the foam down.
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• Cook at 15 pounds of pressure. Start timing only when the pan reaches that pressure.
• Bring the pan up to pressure slowly, and let the pressure fall slowly too. Do not cool the pan under running water.
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How long each legume takes

Cooking times for some common legumes:

Cooking times by legume.

Frozen shelled edamame, which are young green soybeans, need no soaking at all. Put them in a skillet with a little boiling water and a pinch of salt, cover, and cook for about 2 minutes to thaw them. Take off the lid and cook about 2 minutes more, until the water is gone and the beans are hot.

Salt, acid and the cooking liquid

Not every recipe salts at the start. A lentil soup can leave out the salt and the vinegar while the lentils cook. Both go in at the end, to taste, once the lentils are soft. When salt and acid go into legumes is worth noticing in any recipe.

Keep the cooking liquid. For pinto beans, strain the beans, boil the liquid down until only 3 or 4 tablespoons are left, and pour it back over them. For hummus, thin the chickpea purée with a few spoonfuls of the liquid until it is as smooth as you want.

Many legume dishes add a second protein food to go with the beans. Hopping John cooks black-eyed peas with rice and a little ham. A soybean casserole bakes the beans in a milk sauce with bacon. A Spanish bean salad tosses chickpeas with Cheddar cheese.

How much a cup of dried beans makes

Dried beans swell a great deal. One cup of dried legumes gives about 2¼ cups once cooked, or as much as 3 cups; a pound (2 cups) of dried beans makes 6 cups.

Kinds of dried bean

Dried beans: what each is like, what it is good in, and what can replace it.

Keeping cooked beans safe

A big pot of bean soup or chili is hard to cool. Cooked food must fall from 60°C down to 20°C (140°F down to 68°F) in two hours or less. It then has four hours more to get from 20°C down to 4°C (68°F down to 40°F). A pot of 4 liters (1 gallon) or more of soup or stew can take a day or longer to get cold in a cooler. To cool it fast, spread it in shallow pans no more than 5 cm (2 in.) deep, leave them uncovered and unstacked, or stir the pot in a bath of ice water.

Hold cooked beans hot at 60°C (140°F) or hotter. To reheat them, bring them to at least 74°C (165°F) for 15 seconds within two hours, on the stove or in the oven, and only then put them in the hot holding unit. Reheat leftovers only once. Throw out potentially hazardous foods not used within three days of being made.

13.3 Pods and seeds

Corn, okra and the legumes are grouped together because the part a cook uses is the seed. With some, only the seed is eaten. With others, the pod that holds the seeds is eaten too.

The legume family

A legume has a pod with two seams and a single row of seeds inside. There are hundreds of kinds of beans. Some are grown for a pod you can eat, some for fresh seeds you shell out of the pod, and some only for the dried seed.

Fresh beans with pods you eat

Green beans are picked young, before the seeds inside grow large. They go by many names: string beans, runner beans and snap beans. You eat the whole pod except the stem.

• Green beans and yellow wax beans are the everyday kinds.
• Haricot vert is a long, thin French bean. It is tender and has a strong flavor.
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If the pod has a string along its seams, pull it off before you cook. Leave the beans whole, slice them on a slant, or cut them along their length into thin strips, which is called French cut. see chapter 4: Sticks: julienne and batonnet

Steam, sauté or microwave fresh beans, or add them to soups and stews. Cooked beans can also be chilled and served as a salad. They go with many flavors, from garlic and olive oil to coconut milk. see chapter 9: Steaming vegetables

Buying. Look for a bright color and no brown or soft spots. Large pods can be tough or bitter. Fresh beans are best from April to December. Most kinds are also sold frozen or canned, some pickled or seasoned.

Shelling beans

Shelling beans are grown for the seeds, not the pod. The pods are tough and are not usually eaten. Flageolets, lima beans and fava beans, also called broad beans, are shelling beans.

Shelling peas

The common fresh shelling peas are green garden peas, also called English peas, and the small French petit pois. Peas lose flavor quickly once picked, so most are sold frozen or canned.

Their taste is sweet and delicate. Steaming them just until tender shows it best. Peas can also be braised with a rich meat such as ham, added to soups, or used in salads and as a garnish. see chapter 10: The basic steps

Buying. Choose small pods that look full and feel moist. The season peaks in April and May.

Edamame and soybeans

Edamame is the Japanese name for fresh green soybeans. Picked before they ripen, they have a fuzzy, pale green pod and a sweet, tender seed. Steam them in the pod, chill them, then pop the beans out and eat them as a snack. They are often served in sushi restaurants. They are very high in protein and fiber.

Soybeans left to ripen are another matter. Cooked like other dried beans, mature soybeans turn very tough, bitter and hard to digest. They are better made into oil, tofu, soy sauce and other foods.

Pea pods you eat whole

• Snow peas, also called Chinese pea pods, are flat, with only a few tiny peas inside. Remove the string along the seam: hold the leafy stem and pull it from one end to the other. Eat snow peas raw, steam or blanch them lightly, or stir-fry them.
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• Sugar snap peas were bred in the late 1970s by crossing the garden pea with the snow pea. The pods are plump and juicy and full of small, tender peas. Eat the whole pod. Do not shell them before cooking.

Buying. Pea pods should be firm, crisp and bright green, with no brown spots and no shriveling. They are sold all year and are at their best in March and April.

Dried beans, lentils and peas

People around the world have dried legumes to keep them for thousands of years. For drying, the plants stay in the field until the seeds are fully ripe and starting to dry. Then they are picked, shelled, and dried quickly in currents of warm air.

Shape tells the three groups apart:

• Beans are oval or shaped like a kidney.
• Lentils are small, flat discs.
• Peas are round.

Some legumes are sold split. The skin has been taken off, and the seed falls into its two halves.

Most dried beans need soaking. Soaking puts water back into the bean and softens it, so it cooks in less time. Lentils and split peas usually need no soaking, and they are done sooner than beans. Once soaked, beans usually simmer or bake in liquid until soft.

In most recipes one bean can stand in for another. Think about color, how starchy each bean is, and flavor before you swap.

Dried beans and peas are sold loose in bulk or in plastic bags of 1 pound (450 grams). Many are also sold already cooked, in cans or frozen. Some are fermented, or made into flour, oil or bean curd.

Storing. Keep dried legumes somewhere cool and dry. Do not refrigerate them. A dry storeroom should be kept between 10°C and 15°C (50°F and 59°F), with shelves at least 15 cm (6 in.) off the floor, and stock rotated first in, first out. see chapter 2: Dry storage

Sprouts. Mung beans are often sprouted. Raw sprouts of any kind, bean sprouts included, are a potentially hazardous food.

Corn

Sweet corn is in fact a grain, from a kind of grass. Its kernels are seeds, like peas. They are white or yellow and sit on a hard cob that cannot be eaten. Fine threads called silks wrap the cob, and thin leaves called husks cover it all.

Shuck the ears before cooking: pull off the husks and silks. For grilling or roasting you can leave the husks on. Shucked corn can be boiled, steamed, grilled or microwaved, and the kernels can be cut from the cob before or after cooking. see chapter 8: Fitting the method to the food

Buying. Choose ears picked recently, with small, firm kernels. Avoid ears with mold or rot at the tip, or with brown silks. Summer is the best season. Corn on the cob is also sold frozen, and loose kernels are sold canned or frozen.

Okra

Okra came to African and Arab cooking first. Enslaved people and French settlers brought it to the United States. Today it is part of Creole, Cajun, southern and southwestern cooking. Its taste is mild, a little like asparagus.

Okra is not eaten raw. Boil, steam, pickle or deep-fry it. Long cooking makes it turn thick and gluey, which is why cooks use it to thicken gumbo and stews.

Some diners dislike the slimy texture. To keep it down, do not wash okra until just before you cook it, and trim only the stem end. Cook it in stainless steel; other metals turn it dark.

Buying. Choose small to medium pods, 1½ to 2 inches (3.75 to 5 cm) long, deep green with no soft spots. Pale pods with stiff tips are often tough. Okra is in season from June to September and is easy to find frozen.

Storing fresh pods and seeds

Most fresh produce is kept in the refrigerator, between 2°C and 4°C (36°F and 39°F), so it stays fresh. Moisture on vegetables softens them and starts rot.

13.4 Cooking without meat

Plant Forward Proteins recipes →

More than taking the meat away

A meatless main course needs as much thought as any other: "it is not necessarily enough to simply remove the meat from the center of the plate." A plate of side dishes, a starch and a few vegetables, is not a full meal either.

People have eaten little or no meat for thousands of years. Some did it for religion or belief, some for health or the environment, and some because meat was hard to get. The Greek thinker Pythagoras taught that all living things are related, and refused to eat animals. The word "vegetarian" came into wide use in 1847, when England's Vegetarian Society took it up.

Who eats what

Diners who call themselves vegetarian do not all eat the same way. Know the terms:

• Vegan: eats no meat, fish or poultry, and nothing else that comes from an animal. That rules out milk, cheese, eggs, honey and gelatin. Also called a strict or pure vegetarian.
• Raw foodist: usually a vegan who eats plant foods raw or only slightly warm. Raw foodists hold that heating food past 47°C (116°F) ruins its enzymes and nutrients.
• Fruitarian: eats only fruit, nuts, seeds and other plant foods that can be gathered without harming the plant.
• Ovo-vegetarian: eats eggs, but no dairy foods.
• Lacto-vegetarian: eats dairy foods, but no eggs.
• Lacto-ovo-vegetarian: eats plant foods, dairy foods and eggs. This is the most common pattern, and most people mean it when they say vegetarian. Some will still refuse cheese made with rennet, an enzyme from animals, or eggs from factory farms.
• Demi-vegetarian: a vegetarian who also eats fish.
• Macrobiotic: a diet built on brown rice, whole grains and vegetables, from a Japanese teacher in the 1920s, based on balancing yin and yang. Fruit, nuts, refined sugar and refined foods are avoided; fish is eaten now and then.
• Flexitarian: not a true vegetarian diet. Mostly plants, with lean fish and some poultry from time to time.

Feeding a vegetarian well

A diet of plants needs planning to give enough protein, minerals, vitamins and energy. The American Dietetic Association holds that eating a mix of plant foods across a day can supply every essential amino acid. Soy protein counts as fully as protein from animals.

• Calcium comes from greens and from vegetables of the cabbage family, from soy products with calcium added, and from dairy foods for those who eat them.
• Iron from plants is not taken up by the body as well as iron from meat.
• Vitamin B12 has no natural plant source. Vegetarians get it from fortified foods, supplements or dairy.
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• Fatty acids found in oily fish can be short. Nuts, seeds such as flax, canola oil and soy foods help.

Vegetarians who eat eggs and dairy find it easier to meet their needs. Beans, whole grains, vegetables and fruit are high in fiber and fill people up quickly, which matters on a low-fat diet where calories can run short.

Building the plate

Vegetarian cooking follows the same rules as any other cooking. Balance the flavors, choose good ingredients, and prepare them with skill. Only the ingredients change.

Think about how each ingredient feels in the mouth. A ripe avocado, for example, is rich and creamy, close to a soft cream cheese.

Ways to put a vegetarian dish on a menu:

• Start with what you already serve. Soups, salads, pasta and stir-fried vegetables often need little or no change.
• Put grains and beans in the center. They fill a diner up in a way a plate of steamed vegetables may not. Chewy grains such as bulgur, barley and millet add the bite that plant dishes can lack.
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• Use meaty vegetables. Eggplant, mushrooms (portabellas above all), okra, sweet potatoes and parsnips have body. Breaded eggplant slices fried in a pan, or a whole grilled portabella cap, can take the place of a piece of chicken or beef. see chapter 8: Dry heat: sauté, grill, roast, fry
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• Mix colors. Pair black beans with red rice, or yellow lentils with black-eyed peas.
• Mix textures. Set a crisp risotto cake or fried zucchini beside something soft, such as mashed sweet potatoes.
• Layer flavors. Use more than one cooking method in a dish. Sun-dried tomatoes stirred into a fresh tomato sauce give it depth.
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• Look to cuisines where meatless food is normal: Indian, Mexican, Asian, South American and Middle Eastern.

The vegetarian pantry

Without stock made from meat, a vegetarian dish can taste thin. Stock up on these instead:

• Fresh and dried mushrooms, to give stocks, soups and stews more body.
• Kombu, a dried sea kelp, for a briny taste close to fish stock.
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• Soy sauce, miso and wine reductions, to give vegetable broth a savory taste and a darker color.
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• Nut oils such as sesame, hazelnut and walnut, to stand in for the richness of butter or meat stock.
• Olives and dried fruit for strong flavor, and toasted seeds and nuts for crunch.
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Some swaps for animal ingredients:

Plant swaps for animal ingredients, by use.

Baking without eggs is hard, because eggs do so many jobs in a cake. Quick breads raised with chemical leavening adapt more easily than cakes made by creaming butter and sugar.

Soy foods

Soybeans have been used in Asian cooking for centuries. Most are yellow, but there are brown, black and green ones too. The United Soybean Board calls soy the one plant protein equal to animal protein. Soy is made into flour, oil, cheese and a milk.

Soymilk. Dried soybeans are soaked, ground fine and pressed to give a milky liquid. It probably began in China, where it is drunk at breakfast, sweet or savory, or used as a soup base. It tastes a little of beans and nuts and looks like skim milk. It is sold as a liquid or a powder.

• Unopened liquid soymilk in sealed sterile cartons keeps for a year. Once open, refrigerate it and use it within 5 to 7 days, or as the maker says. Soymilk powder keeps a year at room temperature.
• Use soymilk cup for cup in place of dairy milk.
• It can separate when it gets too hot. Simmer it gently, and add it near the end of cooking.
• Soya milk and other soy protein foods are potentially hazardous foods.

Miso (said MEE-so) is a thick, salty paste. Soybeans are soaked, steamed and crushed, then mixed with water, rice or barley, and salt. A living mold culture called koji is added, and the paste ferments and ages, often for as long as a year.

• White miso (shiro miso) is pale and creamy, mild and a little sweet, because it holds a lot of rice.
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• Dark or red miso has more soybeans and ages longer, so it is stronger and saltier.
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Use miso in cold or warm dishes, but never boil it. Its live enzymes and bacteria die at high heat. A little goes a long way: about 1 teaspoon (5 mL) a portion can season a plain broth. It is so salty that it keeps in the refrigerator without limit.

Plant-based meat

Textured soy protein is soy with the fat taken out, dried, and then pressed into granules or chunks or pushed through a die into shapes. Manufacturers use it to stretch meat and to make meat replacements.

• Soak the granules in liquid before cooking. They take on a texture close to meat.
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• Simmer larger pieces after soaking. A little vinegar or lemon juice in the liquid makes them take up water faster.
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• Dry and tightly sealed, it keeps up to a year at room temperature. Once soaked, refrigerate it and use it within a few days.

Ready-made meat look-alikes are made from soy, wheat, grains or other plants to look and feel like nuggets, burgers, sausages, hot dogs, ground meat, bacon, cold cuts, even pastrami. Their texture comes closer to meat than their flavor does. Seasoning helps: sage, for example, makes a stuffing taste more like turkey.

Cook them as you would the meat they copy: steam, sauté, simmer, grill or bake. Most are already fully cooked and need only heating and crisping, so follow the maker's directions and do not overcook them. Reheated food must reach 74°C (165°F) and stay there for at least 15 seconds.

Plant milks made from almonds, hazelnuts, oats and rice can replace stock or dairy in soups, sauces and custards. They have less fat and more carbohydrate than dairy milk, and no cholesterol.

Dishes that show the ideas

• A bean burrito. Drained canned black beans and kidney beans simmer for 10 minutes with garlic, chile powder, salt and a little water. Off the heat, stir in salsa and mash the beans partly with a fork. About ⅓ cup goes into each warm tortilla, with cheese, tomato, lettuce, green onion and sour cream.
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• A bulgur and mushroom burger. Soak fine bulgur in boiling water for about 20 minutes and press it dry. Soften mushrooms and onions with balsamic vinegar, pulse them in a food processor with toasted pecans, then add the bulgur and an egg to bind. Shape eight patties and pan-fry them about 4 minutes a side. Because of the egg, a vegan cannot eat it.
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• A portabella burger. Brush the caps and onion slices with oil and season them. Cook the caps in a hot skillet about 4 minutes, in two batches so the pan is not crowded. Fill them with golden onions and roasted red pepper and serve on buns spread with mashed avocado.
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• A store-bought patty. Sauté eggplant slices about 3 minutes a side, then cook meatless patties in the same pan about 3 minutes a side, until heated through.
• A quinoa salad. Rinse the quinoa, stir it in hot oil for a minute, cook it in stock, cool it flat on a sheet pan, then dress it with lemon, oil and vinegar and add almonds and dates. Leave out the Parmesan to make it vegan. Chill it for at least 15 minutes before serving.
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