Pea Schnitzel with potato mash and marinated carrots

Collecting fresh pea pods from the field was one of my favourite childhood pastimes in the summer. Now I still think of those times fondly and am always happy to see the new season pods to appear in the shops and markets. Still, the self picked field ones were the juiciest and tastiest ever. This dish is basically built around the idea of summer peas, although my Schnitzel are made from dried pea crush. I served them with potato mash and marinated carrots that were just the perfect side for such a summer feast with thyme flavour running through. I only rarely marinate vegetables, which is a shame, as they are so good and I should be doing more of it.

Here are the instructions how to make the marinated carrots and pea Schnitzel.

Marinated carrots:

3 large carrots

1 garlic clove

1 tbsp maple syrup

1 tbsp olive oil

Sprinkle of salt

Few twigs of fresh thyme

Peel the carrots and cut them into about 6 cm long and 3-4 mm thick slices. Heat some olive oil in a pan and quickly fry the carrots in the pan. Stir them there for a couple of minutes only. Add the finely chopped garlic to the pan, stir and let cool.

Mix the marinade of maple syrup, olive oil, salt and fresh thyme and pour it onto the carrots. Close them into an airtight container and let rest in the fridge for at least 2 hours.

Pea Schnitzel:

1 cup dried pea crush

1 tbsp vegetable stock powder

2 onions

2 garlic cloves

Olive oil

3 wedges of queens squash or other squash

Few twigs of fresh thyme

Salt

Ground black pepper

1 egg

4-6 tbsp breadcrumbs

Vegetable oil for frying

Cook the pea crush in water with the added vegetable stock powder for about 10 minutes. Drain any liquid off and let cool.

Chop the onion and garlic and cook in olive oil until the onions are lightly browned and softened. Add them to the peas once cooled.

Grate the squash wedges and add to the pea mix.

Season with thyme, salt and pepper.

Then also add the egg and breadcrumbs. The mixture should hold together even without the egg, so you could try to veganise the recipe.

Heat vegetable oil in a pan, shape Schnitzel from the mix and fry them on both sides until properly fried and coloured.

Serve with potato mash, fresh peas and the marinated carrots and enjoy!

This is my own Eat Your Greens contribution for this month due to the dried peas in the Schnitzel and the fresh ones in the serving. I'm hosting the event this month and Shaheen is my co-host and we hope to see many green veggie recipes from you, so please share!

Your VegHog

Roasted potatoes and carrots with tofu cutlets

Sunday is the perfect day to enjoy a vegan half roast dish and half fresh dish. I combined some tofu cutlets with roasted potatoes, roasted carrots, steamed garden peas and fresh pea shoots and tomatoes. It was a good and colourful combination and went down well. Here is how I made it.

Ingredients

500 g potatoes

Olive oil

Smoked paprika

Salt

2 large carrots

Olive oil

Salt

2 spelt and hazelnut tofu cutlets

1 onion

1 garlic clove

Olive oil

Fresh garden peas

Pea shoots

Tomatoes

Method

Brush the potatoes with olive oil and sprinkle smoked paprika and salt on the top. Roast in the oven until nicely roasted.

Peel and slice the carrots and roast them in the same fashion as the potatoes.

Pan fry the tofu cutlets (or an alternative vegan Schnitzel). Also fry onion rings and finely chopped garlic in the pan.

Remove the fresh garden peas from their pods and steam them.

Serve the components together with fresh pea shoots and tomatoes and enjoy!

Your VegHog

Pea and carrot pilaf

Time for a solid weekday cooking with ingredients I happened to had and had to cook in order not to waste them. Cooking is a creative process and I also hate to throw vegetables out, so I always try to utilise everything and make up dishes, if need be. It's a good thing to do especially before the weekend, as there will probably be some eating out or fancier dishes then. I had these great fresh garden peas in the pods and thought they would be a good ingredient for a vegan rice pilaf type of a dish. So then I created this pea and carrot pilaf.

I'm sharing this recipe with Shaheen's vegetarian cooking challenge Eat Your Greens for this month. She is a fellow vegetarian blogger and has a wonderful blog called A2K - A Seasonal Veg Table. Do check it out, if you don't know it yet! I realised that September is drawing to a close (!) and that I should quickly post a greenish dish to participate. So here's my pilaf recipe, have a look how I made it.  

 

Ingredients

1 cup fresh garden peas

1 romano pepper

2 carrots

1 onion

2 garlic cloves

200 g rice (mix of brown basmati, red camargue and wild rice)

2 tbsp vegetable stock powder

Ground cumin

Thyme

Salt

Ground black pepper

Method

Remove the peas from the pods.

Chop the romano pepper, carrots, onion and garlic finely and start cooking them in olive oil.

After a while, add the rice and peas followed by vegetable stock powder and water to cover it all.

Let simmer until the rice is done.

Season to taste and serve.

So easy and good, enjoy!

Your VegHog

Pasta with pea shoot and baby leaf pesto and sundried tomatoes

The weather in England today is so nicely warm and sunny. People in the Nordic countries are celebrating Midsummer in not so warm conditions, but I wish you all a nice Midsummer nevertheless.

Pasta with pesto is pretty much perfect summer food for me. Throw a tomato and mozzarella salad on the side and it can be close to heaven. Pesto is so incredible as it can be made from so many different summer greens, and this time I chose to use pea shoots and baby leaves. I added some sundried tomatoes, fresh basil, hazelnuts and vegetarian pasta cheese to the dish and here's my recipe.

Pea shoot and baby leaf pesto:

90 g mixed baby leaves and pea shoots

1 garlic clove

4-6 tbsp olive oil

10 g pine nuts

Other ingredients:

10 sundried tomatoes

1 tsp olive oil

Fresh basil

Handful of hazelnuts

Vegetarian pasta cheese

Amori pasta

Method:

First make the pea shoot and baby leaf pesto by puréeing all the ingredients together. Then the pesto can wait in the fridge for the rest to be made.

Cut the sundried tomatoes into smaller pieces and soak them in water for about 10 minutes.

Cut the hazelnuts in halves and roast them in the oven until the flavour are released.

Briefly cook the sundried tomatoes in olive oil in a pan and add the basil and hazelnuts.

Make shavings from the vegetarian pasta cheese.

Cook the pasta until it's al dente and then mix it with the tomatoes, nuts and pesto. 

This is how my summerly pesto pasta dish is done and I want to share it with two cooking challenges. Firstly due to its greenness, I'm sharing this recipe with this month's Eat Your Greens challenge by Shaheen from A2K - A Seasonal Veg Table. 

I also want to add this to this month's Pasta Please challenge, which is a cooking challenge by Jacqueline from Tinned Tomatoes and hosted this month by BakingQueen74.

Have a nice weekend everyone!

Your VegHog

Summer pea risotto

Risottos are so lovely, I really adore them, and so many different vegetarian ones are possible to make. Now I made a different one again, as I recently purchased organic brown risotto rice and also fresh peas. I love fresh summer peas as they are, when they come directly from the pods. Therefore I didn't cook them too much in this dish either, but you can do so, if you prefer. This is extremely easy to veganise by substituting the butter with margarine and leaving out the cheese.

Ingredients

500 ml vegetable stock

1 shallot

2 garlic cloves

2 baby peppers

1 tbsp olive oil

6 baby plum tomatoes

25 g butter

100 ml dry white wine

1 cup brown risotto rice

1 cup fresh peas

10 fresh basil leaves

Salt & pepper to taste

25 g mature cheddar

Method

Warm up the vegetable stock and chop the vegetables.

Heat olive oil in a pan and cook the shallot and garlic until soft. Add the peppers and after a while the tomatoes. Let cook for a while and then add the butter and risotto rice.

Pour in the wine and let it evaporate and absorb and then add a few ladles of vegetable stock. Let simmer under the lid, stir often and keep adding more vegetable stock whenever needed.

Season and add the peas towards the end when the rice starts to be cooked enough. Also stir in the grated cheese.

All done, enjoy!

Your VegHog

Yellow pea soup

Pea soup is an age old warming recipe and a Finnish and Scandinavian favourite too. Today I made the pea soup slightly differently by using yellow split peas instead of green ones. (Here I have published my basic pea soup recipe.) This one was also a very tasty variation and it's vegan as are most of my soups. I don't feel that a cream addition is needed as you can get vegan vegetable soups creamy anyway. Also if you want to save some money, this is a good cheap eat full of protein.

Ingredients

500 g dried yellow split peas

2 large onions

1 tbsp vegetable stock powder

2 tsp salt

1 tsp white pepper

2 tsp ground mustard seeds

Method

Soak the dried peas overnight.

On the next day fill a large saucepan with the peas and water and boil them first 15 minutes heavily and then moderately for several hours, at least about four hours. In the beginning of the boiling, remove the foam from the top. By the end of the cooking the peas really need to get very soft, almost melting into the water.

Chop the onions and add them to the soup after the heavy boiling phase. By the end of this all the onions will almost have disappeared, but they give the soup a nice flavour. Also add some vegetable stock powder to the saucepan.

You can let the soup boil under the lid for most of the time, and just stir occasionally once you have found the right temperature. You also might need to add more water later.

Towards the end, season the soup with salt, white pepper and ground mustard seeds.

Enjoy warm, and this is quite nice with Scandinavian style crisp bread as well.

Your VegHog

Lentil and pea burgers

No month goes by without veggie burger time for me and it's here again today! Sometimes it's almost like no week goes by without veggie burger time, especially now in this slightly colder season. This could be a good recipe, if you are planning cosy weekend evenings in. Have a lovely weekend all anyway!

In these burgers I combined red lentils with ground dried peas and pepper, and this is a really good and easy basic veggie burger recipe.

Makes a batch of about 15 burgers.

1 cup red lentils

1 cup ground dried peas

1 vegetable stock cube

1 pointy yellow romano pepper

1 large red onion

2 garlic cloves

1 tsp parsley

1 tsp salt

½ tsp ground black pepper

2 eggs

1 ½ cups spelt flour

Vegetable oil for frying

Ciabatta rolls

Tomatoes

New onions of the season

Gem lettuce

Rinse the lentils and cook them in water with added vegetable stock cube until they are soft. Add the ground dried peas just before the end, in order to cook them also for a couple of minutes. Drain the lentils and peas well and let them cool.

Chop the romano pepper, onion and garlic very finely.

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and shape burgers from the mix. Add more flour, if needed for the firm texture. I normally add a couple of tablespoons of the mix and shape the burgers on the hot pan.

Heat vegetable oil in a large pan and fry the burgers on both sides until golden brown.

After the frying place them on kitchen roll to get rid of excess oil.

Serve as burgers with ciabatta rolls, tomato slices, new onions and gem lettuce.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

The VegHog's pea and leek burgers

I posted the basic burger bun recipe yesterday and will continue with filling those buns today. This time I made the veggie burger patties from dried ground peas. The texture of the peas is not fully pulverised, but small crunchy bits, so it binds well into a burger patty and is easy to handle. The ground peas are also rich in protein and full of pea taste.

Here are the simple steps how to make my pea and leek burgers.

Ingredients

1 cup dried ground peas

1 large leek

15 g butter

4 tbsp flour

1 tsp salt

½ tsp ground black pepper

1 tsp parsley

½ tsp paprika

Vegetable oil for frying

Method

Boil three cups of water and set to side. Put the ground peas into the water and leave in the pot under the lid for 30 minutes. Drain them after this and let cool.

Cook the finely chopped leeks in the butter until soft. Season them with salt, pepper, parsley and paprika.

Combine the leeks with the ground peas and add about four tablespoons flour. The amount of the flour depends on the moistness of the dough, add as much as you need for a firm mix. If you have difficulties to make a firm mix, add an egg and little more flour, and that should do the trick.

Shape burger patties of the mix and fry them in vegetable oil on both sides until cooked.

Serve them in the burger buns with tomato slices and watercress.

This post in three parts will continue tomorrow, but there are already spoilers on some photos of what lies ahead. Can you guess what it is? See you later!

Your VegHog

Very green salad

I have been looking into French vegetarian cuisine, because this year lucky me is spending Easter in Paris! Vegetarian meals are not so typical in traditional French cooking, but I'm determined to find the best influences and ideas. I have never been to Paris, and now I want to visit several vegetable markets, and hopefully will be able to find nice vegetarian cafés and restaurants. Any recommendations? I'm definitely going to post some exciting bits from my trip here afterwards, but now to today's recipe.

I recently purchased the wonderful vegetarian French Market Cookbook by Clotilde Dusoulier, where I found this recipe for the Very green salad – Salade toute verte (p.18-19). I was impressed by the freshness of the recipes in this book, and particularly in this one the flavours were nicely balanced. Have also a look at Clotilde's blog here, it's not a vegetarian blog, but many dishes are plant based. 

Here is my take on this filling warm and cold spring salad.

For the salad:

500g new potatoes + a sprinkle of salt and vegetable oil for roasting the potatoes

200g asparagus

1 cup of frozen peas

1 large heart of romaine lettuce

½ cup hazelnuts

For the dressing:

Some fresh coriander leaves

1tbsp lemon juice

1tbsp grapeseed oil

1tbsp hazelnut oil

1tsp sea salt

½tsp ground black pepper

Method:

Wash the potatoes, place them in a roasting dish, brush with vegetable oil and sprinkle with sea salt. Roast them at 180C for about 40 minutes until cooked. Toss them a few times during the roasting.

Toast the halved hazelnuts. Put then in an oven dish and bake at 180C for about 10 minutes. Steam the asparagus and peas until tender.

Cut the lettuce and prepare the dressing by just mixing the ingredients together. Add the dressing to the lettuce just before the warm components are done. I decided to serve the peas and asparagus also warm, just like the potatoes.

Then mix all the ingredients together and serve instantly. Bon appétit!

Your VegHog

Pea soup

Pea soup is an old classic in many cultures and it was already eaten in the ancient Greece. There are of course many cultural variations of this dish, but I made a Finnish style pea soup, hernekeitto/hernerokka, because that's the one I know best. However mine is not quite a traditional Finnish one because it is a vegan version. Pea soup is one of the basic food favourites in Finland, traditionally eaten on Thursdays. This style of pea soup is such a warming and savoury dish, the only inconvenience is that it takes a lot of patience to cook and may not be the prettiest thing to look at. On the plus side, a pea soup is a protein bomb and the ingredients are simple and cheap, so this also makes an ideal student grub.

500g green split peas

3 onions

1tbsp vegetable stock powder

2tsp salt

1tsp white pepper

1tsp ground mustard seeds

Soak the dried peas in water overnight. On the next day fill a large saucepan with the peas and water and boil them first 15 minutes heavily and then moderately for ages. My soup took about four hours to get done this time, but such a long time is needed to get the peas almost melting into the water. In the beginning of the boiling, remove the foam from the top. The cooking smell can be interesting in the early phase, but don't let it alienate you, all will be well in the end!

Chop the onions and add them to the soup after the heavy boiling phase. By the end of this all the onions will almost have disappeared, but they give the soup a nice flavour. Also add some vegetable stock powder to the saucepan. You can mainly let the soup boil under the lid and just stir occasionally once you have found the right temperature, which is neither too hot nor too cold. You might need to add some more water later.

At a later stage when the soup is almost done, season it with salt and white pepper. In Finland this soup is usually seasoned with mustard as well, but I've had a great aversion towards mustard since the 1980s as my brother can confirm. If he is reading this, he might be surprised to hear that I took the leap and added some ground mustard seeds to this soup! I actually think it was a good addition and I might use those seeds in other dishes as well, but I still am not ready to eat mustard as a paste.

Your soup is done when it's thick and the peas are very soft. Being such a great winter warmer, this soup is best served warm after outdoor activities in crisp winter air. As this recipe makes quite a big batch of soup, you can also freeze a part of it to be re-heated at a later stage.

Your VegHog

Mozzarella and pea shoot pesto stuffed peppers with new potatoes

A few days ago I posted the recipe for my pea shoot pesto and today I'm showing you what I cooked with it. I combined it with stuffed cheesy peppers and new potatoes and the whole thing is a fairly quick dish.

Ingredients:

500g baby new potatoes

2 yellow peppers

200g mozzarella cheese

Black pepper

Salt

For the pea shoot pesto:

250g pea shoots

1dl frozen peas

1-2 garlic cloves

Toasted pine nuts

Olive oil

Make the pea shoot pesto first by defrosting the peas and chopping the garlic. Then toast the pine nuts briefly in a dry frying pan. Put all ingredients into a bowl and puree them into a fine paste.

Chop the mozzarella into small pieces and mix it with the pesto. Season lightly with salt and black pepper. The rest of the pea shoot pesto can be stored for a few days in the fridge.

Cut the top off the yellow peppers and remove the seeds. Keep the lid. Fill the peppers with the pesto and mozzarella mix and close the lid. Bake them at 180C for about 30 minutes until the peppers are soft. During the baking also boil the new potatoes until tender.

And it's all done!

Your VegHog