Vegetarian jambalaya

I've never been to the Deep South, but just mention the word "jambalaya" to me, and my imagination immediately finds itself in deepest darkest Louisiana - or as deep and dark as Gonzales is, that is. I dont know what it's like, you see, because while my imagination has set foot in the Jambalaya Capital of the World, my foot has not.

Actually, if ever I DO manage to be there (in person, that is) for the Jambalaya Festival, it would be the most pointless exercise in terms of my ability - or rather, inability - to eat this renowned Creole/Cajun dish... the reason being that I'm 99.99% vegetarian and prefer my food not to have been sentient at any point in its lifetime. I guess I could always savour the experience, if not the food...

Anyway, I decided to make jambalaya at home, as the first dish made on the first day of the new year. I had some vegetarian sausages (made of soya) that Pete had kindly bought for me on an impromptu shopping trip. While on the subject of vegetarian sausages and other meat-replacement attempts, do you know just how difficult it is for non-vegetarians to understand that genuine Indian veggies like me do NOT crave for meat substitutes, whether in texture OR taste? The mock-meats and soya/tofu products are all for former carnivores who miss their carne. It's by turns tiring or boring - sometimes both - trying to explain, and even in these enlightened days, I get the occasional baffled "But what do you eat?" question.

Digression aside, the jambalaya recipe that served as the basis of my inspiration was Jag's, posted on his blog, Route 79. Jag's recipes are painstakingly photographed and captioned and believe me, I go there sometimes just to read his recipes and drool a little. (Ok, drool a lot. Dammit, this honesty thing is overrated.) As far as I'm concerned, everything vegetarian he has on his blog is on the list of "my favourite foods", all of them crowding for first position.

I say that Jag's recipe is the basis of mine because I had to make some substitutions and omissions for the usual reasons. For instance, I didnt have celery (mainly because I dont like it!), so I used a little 21-seasoning mix that's strong on celery seed, as a substitute. I didnt use chicken or prawns or chorizo sausage either. What I followed were the actual cooking instructions from Jag's recipe. A good thing too, because the rice was cooked to perfection. Not dry, not mushy, not clumpy - just perfect.

Recipe for: Jambalaya



Ingredients:

1 cup vegetarian sausages cut into 1-cm rounds
2 medium onions, sliced into long thin pieces
1 large green (or any other colour) bell pepper, sliced long and thin
1/2 tsp celery seed (or use 1 celery stick, sliced thin)
1" piece ginger, grated
3 cloves of garlic, chopped or grated
1 chicken or vegetable stock cube
2 medium tomatoes, finely chopped
2 tbsp periperi, tabasco, habanero or any other spicy sauce (or as per taste)
2 cups basmati rice, washed and drained
4 cups boiling water
2 tbsp oil
2 bay leaves
1 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley
2 tbsp chopped spring onions for garnish

Method:

1. Prepare the stock using the stock cube and the 4 cups of boiling water. Stir in whichever spicy sauce you're using. Reserve.



2. Pour 1 tsp oil in a large pan (make sure it's one with a lid that fits correctly) and fry the "sausage" pieces, stirring often, till golden.



Remove from the pan and reserve.



3. Now pour the remaining oil into the pan and add the onions.



4. When they start softening slightly, add the sliced bell peppers.



5. Turn the heat up to high and stir fry till the onions and peppers begin to acquire brown edges.

6. Now add the chopped garlic and ginger and stir fry for a minute or so.



If you're using celery, add it now and stir it all around for a couple of minutes more.

7. Toss in the fried "sausage" pieces and stir it in, making sure the pieces are coated with whatever oil is left in the pan.



8. Then add the drained soaked rice, stirring it in till well distributed.



Pour in the prepared stock and stir, letting the liquid come to a bubbling boil.



9. When the stock is bubbling, add the bay leaves and the chopped tomatoes. Stir them in.



10. Cover the pot and turn the heat down as low as possible. Leave the rice to cook covered and undisturbed for 20 minutes. Do NOT lift the lid or you will lose precious steam and the rice will not cook well.

11. After 20 minutes, turn off the gas and let the jambalaya sit covered for 10 minutes in the pan. Then take off the lid (ahhhh the aroma!),



sprinkle the chopped parsley and spring onions over, and serve the jambalaya hot.

Celery thokku

The first I ever heard of celery was when I was giggling my way through Ogden Nash's brilliantly funny, cleverly worded and quite captivating collection of poetry (Candy is Dandy, but Liquor is Quicker). Four lines was all it was, and the poem (like a lot of his other poems) unhesitatingly took up residence in my head. Here it is, in its brief but perfectly descriptive glory:

"Celery, raw
Develops the jaw.
But celery, stewed,
Is more quietly chewed."

Brilliant, or what? (For those who would like to know more about Nash's poetry, click here.)

When I came across the actual vegetable (can't remember exactly when, perhaps it was in Singapore), I discovered that much as I liked the poem, celery wasnt quite to my taste - raw OR stewed. Crunchy, yes. Practically zero calories, yes. Perfect for dieters, yes. But tasty? No. Not to my tastebuds, not really. Its very strong flavour overpowers everything else in the vicinity, if you ask me. If you use it in soup, all you taste is celery (which is okay if it's celery soup you're making, but not otherwise). Even celery SEED (which is in Pete's all-time favourite 21-herb seasoning from Trader Joe's) is strong enough to muscle in on the other 20 herbs in the mix.

So I pretty much gave up on it. Until a couple of days back, when my mother informed me that she had made celery thokku from a recipe that she came across in Hema's blog, Vegetarian Concoctions. (I'd sent amma a link to the yelai vadam recipe I'd seen there, and she went on to browse other recipes.)

Celery thokku? Wow. Talk about innovation, not to mention imagination. Mine would definitely have boggled if anybody had asked me to make something Indian with this vegetable. I did cross-question amma about the edibility of such a thokku, and she gave it the thumbs-up. I was still a bit hesitant to believe her, though. I don't mean to imply that my mother was telling porkies, but the problem is she's an indiscriminate lover of all vegetables, including those I really dislike! So I tend to take her recommendations with a slight pinch of salt.

As it happened, Pete and I went to the Shrewsbury market on Saturday, and there were large bunches of celery marked down to 50p for 5 stalks. This seemed too good to pass up, so I bought a bunch, totally intending to make celery thokku.

Man, those stalks needed some washing to get rid of the bits of remaining soil (they were pre-washed, but still). Then I stringed the ribs (strung them? de-stringed them? de-strung them? whatever) - I'm not sure you need to do that with celery, but I did it anyway. (When I snapped one in half, little bristly bits stuck out from the broken ends. So I grabbed the bits and pulled them, one at a time. And that is how you de-string celery. Thought I'd record it for posterity, just in case.)

I had quite a pile of stringy bits when I was finished, and it seemed like a good idea not to have them in the thokku.

For the recipe, I pretty much followed Hema's instructions, except that I added a couple of cloves of garlic (the last bits of a bulb languishing in my cupboard) - garlic's always good, right? Right.

So here's my verdict: Wow, the celery thokku was surprisingly good! Only gently tasting of celery, great mixed with rice, and perfect as a dip. I spread some on the scones that I made, and it tasted great! I must say that my thokku stayed stubbornly green, unlike Hema's which took on a nice dark colour. Mine was also runny compared to hers... perhaps I should have let it cook down even more. In any case, it was dee-lish! The world (me included) owes a debt of gratitude to Hema and her mother-in-law for this really innovative recipe. :)

So - thank you, ladies! :)

Recipe for: Celery thokku



Ingredients:



5 stalks celery, stringed and chopped
5-7 green chillies (or to taste), chopped
1/4 tsp asafoetida (hing) powder
1 tsp fenugreek seeds
1/2 cup chopped coriander leaves
1" piece ginger, chopped
2 cloves garlic, sliced
1 tsp mustard
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
Salt to taste
1/4 cup gingelly oil (preferably)

Method:

1. Heat 2 tbsp oil in a wide pan. Add the chopped celery and saute it with the coriander leaves for 7 minutes.



Take off the heat and let it cool.



2. Add another tbsp oil in the pan and add the methi (fenugreek) seeds, chopped chillies, ginger and garlic. Cook this for 2-3 minutes, stirring.



3. Grind the cooled celery along with the ginger and garlic mixture, making a smooth paste.



4. Pour the rest of the oil in the pan now, and add the mustard seeds. Once they splutter, add the celery paste.



5. Add salt to taste, turmeric powder and asafoetida powder and mix well. Cook the thokku on a low simmer till the oil leaves the sides of the pan and the mixture cooks down to a thick consistency.

6. Mix the thokku with plain cooked rice, spread it over toast, roll it up in chapaties, use it as a dip.