For the last full week of VeganMoFo, I have given myself a challenge – to randomly choose a page from The Flavor Bible and make a recipe using an interesting or unexpected flavor match from that page. The Flavor Bible is a really interesting book which basically lists multitudes of culinary ingredients, and tells you the flavors that they go with. It uses bold and/or capital letters to emphasize the best flavor matches, and sometimes gives dish recommendations from renowned American chefs. I received the book for Christmas last year, and have enjoyed flipping through it for inspiration.
Today’s flavor match came from page 123, chives! I must admit that, while I told myself I would go with whatever page my finger landed on first, I did have to skip a few, such as the asparagus page (I refuse to eat asparagus in November), and the page that listed only different cuts of beef. Other than those two, I’m staying true to the challenge.
To be honest, there weren’t any truly interesting matches to go with chives. Nothing crazy that I wouldn’t have considered putting with the little oniony guys anyway. So, I chose to match it with the “egg dishes” listing, which was interesting to me because, obviously, I don’t eat eggs! I went the easy route, using tofu instead, but tried to make the dish as eggish as possible.
I was inspired by this recipe, and used the Shiitake Dill Frittata from Vegan Brunch as a guide, making a few changes:
- subbed brown mushrooms for the shiitakes
- subbed a bunch of chives, chopped, for the dill
- added 1/4 tsp garlic powder instead of the fresh garlic called for (only because I was feeling lazy and didn’t want to mince any garlic)
- used kala namak instead of regular salt, for that eggy sulfuric flavor (I make it sound so delicious, huh?)
- added 1/2 cup shredded Daiya cheddar
(I’m not going to post the recipe, but you can see it on Google books right now.)
The frittata looked gorgeous when it came out of the oven, but sadly didn’t hold together completely when I flipped it.
up close and personal
Served with persimmon wedges. The frittata turned out really fantastic, even if it didn’t hold together. It was quite possibly the most “eggy” dish I have had since going vegan, and for a former vegetarian egg and cheese lover, that was a positive quality. I think the melted Daiya gave it that part-cooked part-runny texture that eggs can have, and the mushrooms and chives complemented it perfectly.
Vegan Homemade 