A couple notes before we dive in:

My double post format last week inadvertently confused people. SP and I thought it was funny, but since readers were confused, I’m combining the two posts I had planned for this week into one post.

I wanted to be able to take some photos for you today, but the janky apartment building I live in lost power when I rebooted my computer, and the landlord took hours to show up to fix it.

About the Japanese Edition

I have always been simultaneously fascinated and perplexed by Japanese culture. The town I grew up in has a fabulous Japanese cafe where all the meals are cooked by a little Japanese grandma.

When my ex and I moved to California, we first lived with his brother and his roommates, who were all very much into Japanese culture. One of their best friends was a computer programmer at Apple who immigrated from Japan. Once a week he took us all out to a different Japanese restaurant. We spent a lot of time in Japanese Town in San Francisco.

My husband is very much into Japanese culture, knows enough of the language to get by, and watches a lot of Japanese shows. We recently finished all three seasons of Shokugeki No Soma, the first two seasons of Overlord, and we’re currently in the middle of watching Hozuki No Reitesu, Kimi No Todoke, and Great Teacher Onizuka.

I know there are Glibs who know much more about Japanese culture and cuisine than I do, so this post isn’t so much about dishes I have made before, as it is about dishes I want to try. I look forward to reading comments from the community with suggestions!

So without further ado…

If I weren’t vegan…

Donburi

There is something magical about donburi. It could be a whole post in and of itself. Donburi is a perfect one dish meal, much like a Buddha Bowl, and there are so many different varieties of dons that you could eat a new don every day and not get bored.

IMHO nothing tops a good gyudon.

Oyakodon is egg and chicken.

Donburis can easily be adapted to vegan which is something else I love about dons. The mapo tofu don, for example, can be adapted to vegan by omitting the pork. (Great vegetarian mapo tofu don recipe here.)

Karaage

Crispy fried Japanese chicken beats out every other fried chicken I’ve ever had. Soy and ginger come together to create a flavourful chicken dish that’s impossible to quit eating. Karaage goes great on its own, inside a bento box, or topping a donburi.

A great Karaage recipe is available from Japanese Centre.

Beef Teriyaki

Delicious. Beefy. Teriyakiy. And super easy. What’s not to love?

Something I really love about beef teriyaki is it keeps well in the fridge, and you can easily add the leftover beef (if there is such a thing) to a donburi.

This recipe from Rasa Malaysia is not the most authentic, but it’s quick and easy. If you want to go for something more authentic, check out the Japanese Food Report where they go through the process and the glaze.

Fukusazushi

I love wrapping food inside other food, and this is no exception. This dish uses a thin omelette as the wrapper. Wrap up meat and veggies inside eggy goodness, and you have healthy food on the go.

Great recipe here from Japan Centre.

And if you’re interested in seeing how a master makes Japanese omelettes, watch this.

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But since I am vegan…

Ginger Sesame Soba Noodles

I have a thing for soba noodles. I only recently discovered (thanks to the Shokugeki anime) there are many different types of soba, and it’s based on what part of the buckwheat is used.

One of my favorite meals from the little Japanese cafe in my hometown is soba salad. I crave it. I have dreams about it.

I like to take this vegan recipe from This Savory Vegan and put the noodles on a bed of cabbage and top with fried tofu.

Vegan Onigiri

The Japanese are great at finger foods. Onigiri is a brilliant finger food. These are rice balls wrapped with nori and traditionally stuffed with some sort of meat, but this vegan recipe happily omits the meat so I can eat it.

I intend to experiment with creating a peanut tofu onigiri, but til that day comes, this recipe from Green Evi will satisfy any vegan’s onigiri craving.

Daikon Steaks

I have no idea what this is really called in Japanese, but it is delicious. My husband says it’s one of the best dishes I’ve ever made.

1 large daikon, peeled
fresh ginger, chopped
green onions, chopped
1tbsp butter alternative (or just butter if you’re not vegan)

variable ingredients:

The exact amount of these ingredients will vary based on how much broth and sauce you make.

soy sauce
nori
mirin
sake (rice vinegar will work in a pinch)

1. Cut the peeled daikon into 2-3” segments. With paring knife, round the edges of the daikon. This is really important, and it took me a couple attempts at this dish to figure it out. Daikon is mostly water, and as it cooks the middle will shrink, leaving a raised edge around the side, and that will be the part that gets caramelized.

2. Add the daikon to a bowl and cover in a broth of equal parts water and soy sauce. Add ginger and nori. Daikon tends to float, so you may want to keep a spoon on top of the daikon to keep it under the surface so its thoroughly marinated. I marinated for several hours.

3. Turn a non-stick pan on high and let it get nice and hot. You’ll know it is ready when you add a couple drops of water to the pan and they sputter.

4. Add the daikon in the center of the pan. The water should start to exude from the daikon. Cook until slightly brown on the bottom and flip. When browned on both the top and the bottom, turn the heat down, add the broth, and cook over medium heat until the daikon is cooked throughly. It should be browned on the top and bottom and really soft to the touch. How long this takes will depend on how thick the daikon is.

5. Remove the daikon to the plate. In the pan add butter alternative. I use Earth Balance. Melt the “butter.” Add a quarter cup of soy sauce, a quarter cup of sake, and a quarter cup of mirin. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until thickened. You should have about a quarter cup of sauce. I use a quarter cup of sauce per two daikon steaks. Scale up the sauce based on how many daikon steaks you’re making. The sauce should be salty, creamy, and a little sweet.

6. Drizzle the daikon with the sauce and top with fresh green onions. You can garnish with sesame seeds if you have them.

Marinated Onion Potato

I don’t know what this is actually called. This goes really well with the daikon steaks. The recipe makes one serving. Scale accordingly.

1 large white potato, peeled
1/4 cup of white onion, cut in very thin slivers
1/2 cup of soy sauce
1/4 cup of sake
1 tbsp mirin
1/2 cup of water

butter alternative to taste

1. Mix the soy sauce, sake, mirin, and water into a broth. Add the peeled potato and marinate for at least an hour.

2. Add cool water to a bowl, and add the white onion. Rub the white onion between your finger tips to break up the membrane. This helps remove some of the bite.

3. Heat a small pot of water, and boil the potato until it’s cooked.

4. Remove the potato from the water and put into a bowl. Add the onion and the onion water, 2 tbsp of broth, and mash together with a fork. Add the butter alternative, and continue to mix, and then serve.

Since I am vegan, that means no meat for me, so these 5 Iranian dishes are at the top of my list.

1. Shirazi Salad سالاد شیرازی

I love, love, love this dish.

Named after the Shiraz region in Iran, this is a refreshing, delicious, and vegan, salad made of cucumbers, tomatoes, and onion. Spiced with mint, lemon, and sumac (I order mine from Amazon), it’s perfect for those horrible hot icky summer days that we’re having a lot of here in the States.

The prep for this dish really couldn’t get any easier. You throw all the ingredients into a bowl, stir, chill, and serve. You can find a great recipe at AllRecipes.com.

2. Shirin Polo شیرین پلو

Known as jeweled rice, this is a traditional Iranian sweet rice dish that is bright in colour and is cooked with raisins. Usually served at Nowruz (Persian New Year), weddings, and basically any other special occasion, this is a staple in Iranian cuisine.

It’s a little too sweet for me to have as a main dish, but it goes great as a side.

Shirin Polo is traditionally made with butter (#NotVegan), but simply replace the butter in this recipe from Persian Mama with margarine, and you’ll be good to go.

3. Ashe Reshteh آش رشته

Oh. My. Ashe Reshteh is an Iranian noodle soup and so freakin’ good. I have had dreams about this soup. Made with a variety of beans, noodles, and herbs this soup is hearty, filling, and comforting.

Most recipes call for beef or chicken broth, and yogurt as a garnish, but this vegetarian recipe from ThePersianPot.com can be made vegan by omitting the sour cream.

4. Dal Adas دال عدس

Lentils, anyone? Dal adas is a lentil stew-type dish hailing from southern Iran. I love lentils; I could do a whole post about my favourite lentil dishes. Dal adas features red lentils, tamarind, potatoes, shallots, turmeric, and cardamom. Serve over rice.

The Persian Mama strikes again with another great recipe.

5. Khoresh Bademjan خورش بادمجان

I’m not a huge fan of eggplant, but this dish of eggplant tomato stew is actually really good. Simply omit the yogurt sauce, and this dish is vegan. One of my favourite things about khoresh bademjan is that you can cook it in a crockpot as long as you do the onions and eggplant in a pan first.

This recipe is available over at TheSpruceEats.com.

Featured image: Milad Tower in Tehran.

I’m vegan.

But it pains me to admit this because many vegans (like the ones JP Sears is parodying in this video) give us a bad name. Really, it could be argued that most vegans give vegans a bad name, and there are very few of us who are not pretentious fucks, but I digress.

I have been vegetarian for 4.5 years, and vegan for 2 years because I have a “colicy gallbladder” (according to a recent perambulation through my medical records), and because my electrophysiologist thinks being vegan could reverse my heart problem.

But before all this happened…

I could really cook the fuck out of some #NotVegan food. Especially Iranian food.

If I weren’t vegan, I would be cooking these Iranian dishes this week.

1. Tahdig ته دیگ

Tahdig is a must-have for your Iranian meals. Tahdig means “bottom of the pot” and is what happens when you leave rice on the stove for too long. I was told it goes back to when the Persians were cooking over open flame (you know, before non-stick cookware), and the bottom of the pot of rice would always crisp up. They found a way to turn it into a tasty, crispy, crunchy, buttery treat. Tahdig refers specifically to the crispy layer.

I had started typing out my whole process for you guys when I realised I have no pictures, and this is a dish that needs some pictures to accompany it. I happily found a guy on YouTube who does it pretty close to the way I do it.

2. Ghormeh Sabzi قورمه‌ سبزی

This is one of my all time favourite Iranian dishes. I was taught how to make it by an old family friend of ours.

You basically take a fuckload of onions, herbs, kidney beans, and meat, and throw it into a pot, cook until delicious, and serve over rice.

This recipe from MyPersianKitchen.com is closest to the way I was taught.

Get some limu omani and throw them into the pot. Limu omani are little dried Iranian limes. Take a knife or a nut pick and stab some holes into the limu and add into the pot with your stew. They soak up all the meat juice and turn into little exploding flavour grenades in your mouth.

Trigger Warning (or Joy Warning, depending on your perspective): This dish is like… 50% cilantro.

3. Fesenjan خورش فسنجان

Fesenjan is a pomegranate walnut chicken stew. It’s rich and soooo delicious. You basically slow cook chicken with walnuts and pomegranate molasses until the chicken falls apart.

Pomegranate molasses is hard to come by if you don’t have a good Persian Grocery, but it’s fairly easy to make if you can get your hands on pomegranate juice.

On the stove in a non-stick pan add 4 cups of pomegranate juice, 1 cup of sugar, and 2/3 cup of lemon juice. Slow cook until reduced down to 1 cup of liquid. With so much lemon juice, this keeps in the fridge for a long time in case you have any left after you make fesenjan.

Fesenjan is one of those dishes that every Iranian family I know has a different method for, and as you cook it more frequently, you’ll discover your own methods. But this recipe from SimplyRecipes.com is a good place to start.

4. Mast-o-khiar ماست و خیار

This is a cucumber and yogurt sauce that bears a remarkable resemblance to tzatziki. Again, this is a recipe that basically every family has a version of.

The spread should be pretty thick with big chunks of cucumbers, a subtle undertone of rose, and a refreshing mintyness that doesn’t hit you right away.

I’m really bad about measuring things. Like OMWC I combine things until they taste right, so my recipe for mast-o-khiar is fairly free form.

In a bowl add plain yogurt, diced cucumber with the seeds removed or it’ll be too watery, a teeny-tiny bit of chopped mint, and a dash of rose water. I like to add 1 part labneh for every 2 parts of yogurt to thicken it up a little bit. Labneh is basically Lebanese cream cheese. If you can’t find it near you, you can make it with this recipe.

If you want a recipe with measurements, this one from Sunset Magazine is surprisingly authentic.

5. Khorake Loobia Sab خوراک لوبیا سبز

While the name of this dish is “green bean stew” beef plays a major role, as do potatoes. Khorake loobia sab doesn’t taste very green-beany. Instead it’s rich, and comforting with incredible umami. Key ingredients are beef, green beans, potatoes, onions, cayenne pepper, and turmeric. You can easily make this dish spicy by using more cayenne pepper or replacing it entirely with a spicier pepper. Khorake loobia sab holds up well to spice.

For best results make sure you get stew beef that has some fat in it. I always hated eating fat, but it adds an essential richness to this dish.

Most recipes call for sour plums to balance it out. You could omit them and replace with a bit of lemon juice, or limu omani.

Get started with this recipe from PersianMama.com.

A couple notes:

I’ve never seen a recipe discuss this for khorake loobia sab or ghormeh sabzi, but you can really improve the quality of a cheap cut of meat for both of these recipes with this technique:

Get a cut of beef roast like something you would use for London Broil. The day before you plan to cook the beef cover it with honey and/or diced onions and stick in a dish to marinate. Both honey and onions contain enzymes which tenderize the meat. It will be so tender that you will be able to slice into the meat with a spoon without overcooking it. Remove the onions and use them in the recipe for some extra beefy-ness.

Most Iranian entrees go well with a  dash of sumac, which can be hard to find. I order mine from Amazon.

Most of these dishes can be made vegan by replacing the meat with a vegan alternative. It would be hard to do mast-o-khiar vegan.

Featured image: Mazandaran Province, Iran