Monday, 27 September 2010

Black Bean Stirfry Vegetables

food painting for the vegetarian cookbook by Fiona Morgan
Fresh. Quick. Versatile. Easy.

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Food painting artwork

30 x 30cm ink on paper. The paper is no ordinary paper, it is textured Hahnemuhle 300 gsm 100% alpha cellulose which is acid-free fibre of vegetable origin. 

Salted soybeans, not black turtle beans are the beans in black bean sauce. Try as I might I just couldn't find any Chinese art or stories in praise of the soybean. This seems somewhat odd to me as I did find that this sauce goes back at least to the Han Dynasty, which is the BC years. Although the soybean is a staple food in China, I guess it's not considered auspicious enough to become the subject of any charms, amulets or paintings. In fact, I had to search under the Japanese name of edamame to find any useful images of the plant at all. 

What's all this got to do with this painting? Well now there is a Chinese style painting celebrating soy beans. Perhaps Chinese style meets street art style would be more accurate?

By the way, all the food painting artwork is available to own in the Official Art Store.

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The meatless meals recipe

A quick and easy stirfry for when you want a giant al dente vegetable fix. Did you know we've been eating this dish for over 2000 years? Here's today's version:
3 tablespoons sesame oil
125g firm tofu, cut into bite size pieces
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 pinches white pepper
1 1/2 tablespoons sherry
1/2 red capsicum, cut into strips
1 to 1 1/2 cups chopped vegetable such as carrot, mushroom, corn, green beans, snowpeas, zucchini, broccoli
6 spring onions, chopped
1-3 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons minced ginger
3 tablespoons Chinese black bean sauce
1/2 cup cashews or almonds

Heat the oil and fry the tofu with the salt, pepper and sherry until golden and firm.
Add all the veges, garlic, ginger and spring onions.
Stir fry for a few minutes.
Add the black bean sauce and nuts.
Cook for 5-10 minutes until vegetables are done, sauce is heated through and flavours have developed.

Serve on rice.

For 2.

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More vegetarian cookbook goodies

Need help with conversions? Download this handy dandy pdf of cooking conversion charts for every cooking measuring system I could find. It should make your life easier.

Want to check out more vegetarian dinner recipes? They're all in the Table of Contents.
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1 comment:

  1. This stir fry looks delicious! I can't wait to try it!

    ReplyDelete

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