It’s sizzling, almost off the
press,
World Party: Vegetarian
Appetizers, Hors d’oeuvres and Party Plates by Roberta Roberti, author of
Vegetarian
Italian Traditions. If there was any every a doubt of the interest and
growth of being a vegetarian, my visit this week to Natural Products Expo East
has shown how deep our nation’s interest is.
Roberta Roberti graduated from the Natural Gourmet Institute for Health &
Culinary Arts in New York City, was a James Beard Scholarship recipient, and
had a blast doing her internship at the James Beard House. She’s been a
personal chef and magazine editor, and her co-workers never fail to devour
every crumb she brings in. Her first cookbook, Vegetarian Italian: Traditions, is currently available from all
online retailers, but will soon be reissued as a different volume. World Party: Vegetarian Appetizers, Hors
d’oeuvres and Party Plates is her second cookbook. Her food articles can be
found in numerous publications, and she is also a fiction writer and freelance
editor.
Roberta has generously
agreed to write this guest post for
Dining
Dish and share one of her many vegetarian recipes from her forthcoming cookbook
that is focused of the cuisines of the world. You can enjoy other numerous
vegetarian recipes at
www.mizchef.com
“Women go into the food business to pursue a variety of interests. For
me, it’s always been recipe development and writing. That’s what I love to do.
And I turned that interest into articles and cookbooks. My first one is Vegetarian Italian: Traditions. My
latest one is called World Party: Vegetarian
Appetizers, Hors d’oeuvres and Party Plates.
You’re assuming at this point that I’m vegetarian. That would be a good
guess, but wrong. I was a vegetarian for many years, which is when I began
working on Vegetarian Italian. For
health reasons, I began eating meat again, but I still prefer meatless meals
often and decided that my second cookbook would be vegetarian as well. More and
more people around the world are becoming vegetarian, even in places where the
concept was foreign a decade ago. And vegetarians, too, love to entertain and
prepare multicultural food.
And that’s how I came up with my idea—I wanted to bring those interests
together and offer a book that would allow people who prefer meatless food when
entertaining and simultaneously “travel in their minds,” as Nora Pouillon puts
it.
It took years of research—both the academic kind (I read everything I
could get my hands on about cuisines around the world) and the fun kind (I
tried different restaurants, traveled a little, and totally took advantage of
my multicultural friends’ hospitality). Many experiments and false starts
later, I had a collection of recipes that I felt represented a good portion of
the global culinary community.
Many of the recipes were meatless to begin with. The ones that weren’t,
I tweaked and substituted ingredients until I felt that they worked as well as
their meat-based counterparts. Of course, since these recipes come from all
around the world, there was the issue of product availability. While almost
anything can be purchased online now, cost and freshness are still concerns. So,
I also had fun experimenting with substitutes for the American market. For
example, in the Singaporean recipe Chicken Rice, the mushroom typically used is
monkey head mushrooms. But these are not easily found in the U.S. (some
specialty markets do carry them). So I created the recipe using what’s been
described as being close to monkey head mushrooms in taste and texture: prince
(or king) mushrooms, which are commonly available in Asian markets in the U.S.
How had I even learned about monkey head mushrooms? I was having drinks
with a fellow cookbook author at Sardi’s, the famous restaurant in New York
City with the caricatures of famous people on the wall. I’d never been there
and was a little bit in awe of being in this legendary place. My companion, on
the other hand, practically lived there and was very comfortable chatting with
the bartender and other patrons. We struck up a conversation with a cute young
couple having drinks at the bar. They were on their honeymoon, and as we talked
with them, we learned that they were originally from New Zealand and living in
Singapore. Conversation turned to food and they mentioned monkey head mushrooms,
popular in Singapore.
I went home with monkey heads on my mind and was determined to learn
about them. (They also go by the names lion’s mane mushroom, bearded tooth
mushroom, satyr’s beard, bearded hedgehog mushroom, pom pom mushroom, and
bearded tooth fungus. In Chinese cuisine, they’re used for medicinal purposes for
such things as “brain health”—so, good for warding off Alzheimer’s— immunity,
and nerve health, and as an anti-inflammatory.) To this day, I’ve yet to try
them, as they are extremely difficult to find fresh (although you can find them
dried, and my understanding is they’re starting to become more available).
Of course, this book is not just for vegetarians, but anyone who wants
to incorporate meatless dishes into their repertoire. Every party has
vegetarian or vegan guests, and this book provides a resource for any
host/hostess for meatless options.
The recipe I offer you here is a dish popular in Cuba: Ensalada de Aguacate, Papaya y Piña,
which translates to Avocado, Papaya and Pineapple Salad. The combination of
tropical produce is typical of the island nation.
Ensalada de Aguacate, Papaya y
Piña
Avocado, Papaya and Pineapple
Salad
Makes 8 to 10 servings.
The Taíno Indians of the Caribbean called papaya the “fruit of the
gods,” and combined with avocado and pineapple, this dish is a tropical
appetizer truly fit for the gods. Don’t use extra virgin olive oil in this recipe—the
flavor is too strong and will overpower the other ingredients.
3 cups fresh diced pineapple
3 cups diced papaya
2 Has avocados, peeled and diced
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
½ teaspoon salt
Pinch freshly ground black pepper
A few lettuce leaves
Place the pineapple, papaya, and avocado in a large bowl. Whisk
together the oil, vinegar, salt and pepper in a small bowl; pour it over the
salad and gently toss.
Arrange the lettuce leaves on a platter and place the salad neatly on
top. Serve cool but not ice cold.”
World Party: Vegetarian
Appetizers, Hors d’oeuvres and Party Plates will be available at all online retailers this fall.
Twitter
@mizchefcooks Instagram Chefbobi
