Sometimes you want to create a vegetarian version of a familiar

meat based meal. And non-vegetarians who have to cook a meatless or vegetarian meal are often stumped about how to get past the mentality of ‘meat and three veg minus the meat’.



The bad news is that sometimes it’s just not possible. Trying to make a vegetarian version of a baked fish, for example, is just setting yourself up for failure.

This article is a guest post I wrote for the comprehensive vegetarian resource site, Savvy Vegetarian. It contains the secrets of knowing how to make moreish meatless meals.

For those of you dabbling with or newly committed to a plant based diet, you will probably be having this problem. To me, a lot of vegetarian dishes suffer a lack of flavour that doesn’t seem to be fixed with salt. They taste rather one dimensional. They lack depth or fullness in flavour. To be blunt, they are bland.

This can especially be a problem for new vegetarians and flexitarians and I shall explain why. If it just doesn’t taste as satisfying as you expect, then it’s probably missing that wonderful essence known as umami.

Umami?
...
to continue with this article, please head over to Savvy Vegetarian where it is published in full. It's worth your while, even if do I say so myself ;)

Let me make some suggestions:

Ditch the idea of a Western style dish. There are tasty vege sausages, vege burgers, lentil loaves (instead of meatloaf), and meat substitute products such as TVP (use instead of mince) and various mock meats usually gluten based, BUT...

The real variety of meatless meals

is in ethnic cuisines that have a long history of meatless dishes already. Oriental, Indian, Mexican etc. Go cornicopia. 

Explore!!

Each ethnic cuisine has a couple of signature carb bases, usually grains, but I'm counting potato here too. What starch/grain do I feel in the mood for? Potato, rice, pasta, polenta, bread, noodles, barley, wheat, oats, millet, quinoa....noodles, noodles, noodles (ok I have a mild obsession).

Choosing the base usually narrows down the cuisine options. Pasta lends itself easily to an Italian dish, noodles to an Asian dish etc. What cuisine am I in the mood to eat? 

Do I want spicy or creamy or soupy or dry? Baked, fried, stirfried, stewed etc. Answering this sometimes helps narrow down the options.

What do I have in the fridge already? Failing that, what is in season? Handy tip, what's in season is highest in nutrients and is usually the cheapest to buy. Can't go wrong with that combination!

Then it's a matter of putting it all together. Hmm, a potato based dish from South America using capsicums and tomatoes. Hmm, a noodle based dish with lots of bamboo shoots probably means Chinese something. Hmm, rice with a creamyness probably lends itself to an Indian korma which is great to use up all those odds and ends.

And then go searching for inspiration. There are so many recipe sites online it's not funny.

Here's an idea on how to search; modify these terms to suit and head for Google:
cuisine recipe grain other identified ingredients (and sometimes putting vegetarian on the end helps)

For instance:

Chinese recipe noodles bamboo shoots

or 

Chinese recipe noodles bamboo shoots vegetarian

Depending on the cuisine, if you want to use a substitute for meat in a recipe you've found, either tofu (Oriental) or beans (South American, Indian) will work very very well. Sometimes an appropriate cheese is great (Greek, Italian, Indian). I think because the meat is not the centre of many of these dishes, it is a lot easier to replace or remove it than in Western style I-have-a-hunk-of-steak-and-some-unidentified-greenery-on-the-side meals.

Photo courtesy of ehoyer

I found this poem years ago in a book on vegetarianism when I was first reading up all about it.

It struck me as both amusing and rather to the point, as well as being well written.

Teach kids all about the cute animals but miss the bit on killing them for food. Hmm, it is rather a dichotomy, isn't it? Just for the record, I don't have a major problem with eating animals, but I do have a problem with the inherently abusive factory farming of them and the inability most carnivores have of dealing with the idea of killing an animal themselves and eating it.

LEARNING TO BE A DUTIFUL CARNIVORE

By Jane Legge


Dogs and cats and goats and cows,
Ducks and chickens, sheeps and sows
Woven into tales for tots,
Pictured on their walls and pots.
Time for dinner! Come and eat
All your lovely juicy meat.

One day ham from Percy Porker
(In the comics he's a corker):
Then the breast from Mrs. Cluck
Or the wing from Donald Duck.
Liver next from Clara Cow
(No, it doesn't hurt her now).

Yes, that leg's from Peter Rabbit
Chew it well; make that a habit.
Eat the creatures killed for sale,
But never pull the kitty's tail.
Eat the flesh from "filthy hogs"
But never be unkind to dogs.

Grow into double-think-
Kiss the hamster; skin the mink.
Never think of slaughter, dear,
That's why animals are here.
They only come on earth to die,
So eat your meat, and don't ask why.