The roasted flavours and umami ingredients such as mushrooms, tomatoes and soy sauce are the secret of intense flavours in plant-based cuisine.
This sentence comes from my trainer and great chef Sebastian Copien and contains so much added value! Once you have understood that the roasting technique on the one hand and the ingredients with a lot of glutamic acid on the other hand produce exactly the same intense, savoury flavours as in "conventional cooking with meat", completely new possibilities for plant-based cooking suddenly open up!
Who invented it?
Ingredients for 3-4 people
- 3 tbsp virgin coconut oil
- ½ small celery root, finely diced
- 2 tbsp basic seasoning paste or vegetable stock powder
- 200 g carrots, finely diced
- 1 large onion, peeled and finely diced
- 2 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely diced
- 5 cm medium hot red chilli pepper, deseeded and finely diced
- 100 g oyster mushrooms, broken into 2 cm pieces
- 150 g king oyster mushrooms, broken into 2 cm pieces
- 2 tbsp dried porcini mushrooms, crumbled
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 200 g cherry tomatoes, quartered
- 1 tsp smoked paprika powder
- 2 tbsp light vinegar
- ½ tsp black pepper, freshly ground
- 200g udon noodles
- 240 g Chinese cabbage, cut into fine strips
- 1 tsp maple syrup
- Tamari (soy sauce) to flavour
- 4 tbsp coriander greens or parsley of your choice
- black sesame seeds for decoration
Preparation
Meanwhile, bring 2 litres of water to the boil and add the vinegar.
Add the tomatoes and paprika powder to the vegetable and mushroom mixture and fry for 1 minute. Deglaze with hot vinegar and water to release the roasted flavours and add pepper.
Allow to boil vigorously for 5 minutes.
Add the udon noodles and simmer gently for a further 5 minutes.
Then add half of the Chinese cabbage and simmer gently for another 5 minutes until the udon noodles are cooked but still have a slight bite.
Add the remaining Chinese cabbage and flavour with maple syrup, tamari, vinegar and pepper.
Serve in bowls and garnish with coriander/parsley and black sesame seeds, if desired.
Have fun in culinary Japan and bon appétit!
Your Katinka