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Lisa
Messinger's
Cookbook Corner
The
Bold Vegetarian Chef: Adventures in Flavor with Soy,
Beans, Vegetables & Grains
by Ken
Charney (John Wiley & Sons)
  Ken
Charney knows what he's doing. He works for PCC Natural
Markets, the largest chain of natural-food cooperatives
in the country and, before that, was a graduate of
the chef's training program at The Natural Gourmet
Cookery School in New York. These are credentials
lots of vegetarian chefs (many of whom are self taught)
just don't have.
What
that means is that when Charney shows you how to make
spicy tofu chipotle enchiladas, you'll feast on the
flavor of the chipotle, the smoothness of the sauce
and the coolness of the cilantro. Your tofu will be
coated—in an absolutely brilliant maneuver—with
a mixture of miso, chile powder, turmeric, olive oil
and vegetable stock.
When
you prepare marmalade-almond stuffed french toast,
you'll choose between a traditional egg batter and
a vegan version which includes rice milk or soy milk,
flax seeds and vanilla extract. Regarding the mixture,
you'll be told to "be patient with this. Scrape
down the sides several times. The finished product
will be somewhat like egg whites: thick and foamy."
When
you prepare one of his outstanding soups like roasted
vegetable stock, black bean-and-avocado soup or lentil-ginger-coconut
soup, you are treated first to a thoughtful treatise
on "The Inner Workings of Layering a Soup"
with sophisticated tips (too numerous to mention here)
that really work. "While homemade soups are actually
quite simple and not very time consuming, bold, brilliant
recipes require an understanding of how tastes are
developed," Charney explains.
Besides
technique, what Charney also conveys, as per his book's
title, is his boldness: mustard in the mashed potato
topping of his tempeh buckwheat shepherd's pie; chipotle
chile powder in his spicy tofu pineapple rice salad;
shiitake mushrooms and Granny Smith apples in a dazzling
risotto; a berry-ginger Merlot sauce over ice cream;
oranges, dried tart cherries, orange-blossom water,
cinnamon, almonds and mint leaves in a dessert "salad."
Charney is so bold he's knocked down the competition
and left it in the organic dust. His book easily bests
the long-awaited tome from the popular Whole Foods
Market chain, at half the size.
RECIPES
—Crisp
Tempeh with Mango and Hot Pepper
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the Cookbook
Corner table of contents
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