- Oh, isn't that going to be bland?
Hi, I'm Beryl.
And the theme for today's video is, Naturally Vegan Foods.
so vegan foods that don't use any alternatives
to non-vegan ingredients, if that makes sense.
Today's video is sponsored by Vessi,
and the artist today is Claudia Melchor,
who is also the artist
for this month's Patreon Postcard Club.
She's actually an architect, and an illustrator,
who is originally from Spain.
I absolutely love the color.
It felt like the right way to start 2022.
And another way to start, if you haven't subscribed,
please feel free to join us on this channel.
It is a very fun place to be.
Today, we'll be looking at dishes
from Hong Kong, Peru, and Lebanon.
And there is a part two.
I'm just experimenting with slightly shorter videos
to see how that all goes.
And the next episode includes dishes
from Nigeria, Italy, and Algeria.
Okay, let's get cooking.
(bright music)
- My name is Sylvia.
I am born and raised in Hong Kong.
I'm going to be talking about pumpkin,
and fermented black beans stir fry,
or in Cantonese 豆豉炒南瓜 (dau si chaau naanm gwa)
I'm not vegan, but this is my favorite dish.
It's just large chunks of really, really soft,
sweet pumpkin, coated in black bean sauce.
It's really savory.
It's really funky.
And it goes really well with white rice.
You know,
this dish is basically just two ingredients.
It comes together so quickly.
And if you're open to trying out new flavors,
like fermented foods,
I think you can make a really, really delicious meal,
out of just plant-based products.
Fermented black bean sauce with garlic
is a very common flavor in Cantonese cooking.
I don't think in Hong Kong,
we really think of eating soy based products
as eating a substitute for meat or dairy.
We just really like how it tastes.
And so it's its own thing.
I actually went to England for university for four years.
And before I came home,
my grandma would always ask me on call.
She'd be like,
"What dish do you want to have the most?"
I always, always say,
"I want the pumpkin dish."
I mean, I'm not vegan.
And I wanted over drunken chicken.
I wanted over braised pork.
I know black bean sauce can look kind of intimidating,
but it's one of the easiest things to use.
Yeah, once you have a jar of black bean sauce at home,
I think you'll keep reaching for it.
And you're going to want to try other recipes that use it.
Thank you so much.
- This was my first time cooking
with a fermented black bean sauce, and it smells so good.
Whoa.
I can smell that.
And also, yes, this incredibly simple to make.
In 2022, I've decided I'm going to blow on my food
before I just throw it into my mouth.
Whoa.
That's absolutely phenomenal.
So this is butternut squash.
It has kind of like a little bit of a sweetness,
so paired with this black bean sauce.
Um hmmm.
Okay.
There are a few sauces that I love in order:
Kewpie mayo, I mean, I think that's a sauce.
The second, Maggi Hot and Sweet.
And I'm going to, you know, top three now,
I'm adding this fermented black bean and garlic.
You could put this on literally anything.
And I think you would then have
just like a one ingredient meal.
I mean, I guess the sauce is the second ingredient,
but it would be outstanding.
I'm just the type of person who likes cooking things
that are easy, and delicious.
I'm crazy, I know.
It's just who I am.
I can't help it.
I think experimenting with sauces is like the toe dip
into a culture that we should all be doing
a little bit more often
because you can use the sauces on ingredients
that you're familiar with, to try something new.
Like I know butternut squash, I love butternut squash.
But I did not know fermented black bean paste
with garlic sauce.
And now I am obsessed.
Also just to say,
and I don't know what this means,
but I'm just going to say it.
This doesn't feel like what I think of
when I think about a vegan dish.
And maybe that's because you're not replacing anything.
This isn't trying to be anything other than what it is.
And there's something nice about that.
We're gonna do a quick word from our sponsor Vessi.
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Fair, but these are also great for hiking,
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They're made from something called Dyma-tex.
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I have worn them on a bunch of hikes this past week,
even in the snow, and my feet stayed dry.
I'm converted.
If you're interested in the shoe,
I have a code, which is Beryl,
and it'll give you $25 off a pair.
The link is in my description below.
- Hi, my name is Nicolas, but I usually go by Nico.
I live in Michigan, in the U.S.,
but I'm originally from Lima, Peru.
Today, I want to talk about a dish
called mushroom ceviche,
which is a common vegan alternative to regular ceviche
that's usually made with fish.
Ceviche is the national dish of Peru,
and it's a dish that has a lot of history in the country.
It was created thousands of years ago,
by ancient Peruvians.
And it's now probably the most popular dish in the country.
This dish consists of chopped mushrooms,
marinated in lime juice with hot peppers.
And it has really good memories attached to it,
because my mom is allergic to fish, and seafood,
but she used to love ceviche
when she didn't have the allergies.
So she would always make this dish for herself,
and for me, and for everyone else in the family.
It has a lot of different flavors, and textures,
that feel very complete.
I think people that are not vegan
should definitely give this dish, and other vegan dishes,
a try,
because food is more than just food.
It's an experience.
And trying out different flavors, textures,
is something very important,
that will probably broaden your horizon.
And dishes like this one
pack a lot of different flavors,
compared to traditional meat dishes.
And I think a lot of people
would appreciate trying different things.
- So this is mushroom ceviche, from Peru.
And I'm not trying to throw shade to my mom,
but when I told her I was making this, she said,
"Oh, isn't that going to be bland?"
I don't think it's going to be bland.
First of all, that pepper sauce was very potent,
Potent?
Powerful.
It smelled like a lot of pepper sauce.
And secondly, mushrooms just like,
they just taste like whatever you want them to taste like.
Ooh, maybe I put a little extra lime juice in there.
Ooh, ooh, ooh, whoa, (laughs).
Sorry.
A lot just happened.
It was sour, and spicy,
and my mouth is like literally watering so much right now.
Wait, this is, this is for my mom.
So if you're not my mom, just hold on a second.
Mom, this is not blend.
It is fabulous.
This is a lot more approachable for ceviche at home
than me going out and getting fish.
Okay, I'm gonna try it with a sweet potato.
What an interesting combination.
Mmm, mmmm..
God, I love sweet potato.
I think that we should do a potato episode.
So if there are recipes that you have, that we should do,
please leave them in the comments,
and then we'll go through them.
The potato is kind of like
balancing out some of the sourness from all the lime juice.
I don't feel like I'm missing the fish in this dish,
which is something that I think a lot about
when I make vegetarian dishes.
I'm always like, did you miss the meat?
Hey, do you miss the meat?
And if people are like,
"No, like I don't miss the meat,"
I'm like, aha, see?
And then this one, like I don't miss the fish.
I think this is delicious.
And it's beautiful.
And it feels like an ode to mushrooms,
in the most lovely way.
Two very enthusiastic thumbs up.
- Hi Beryl, how is it going?
My name is Charbel Sebaaly.
I am 19 years old and I'm born and raised in Lebanon.
The dish I would like to talk about
is called hindbeh b'zeit, which is sauteed dandelion leaves,
and olive oil, with garlic onion, and some spices.
Farm grown dandelion leaves, when cooked,
they tend to be chewy, with their stalks remaining crunchy.
Even though these leaves don't have that much flavor
on their own.
Now, vegan food, and veganism in general,
are highly stigmatized and Lebanon.
As a matter of fact,
this dish is one of the very few inherently vegan dishes
in Lebanese cuisine.
And this dish breaks the stigma,
because the use of any animal products in it,
will ruin its taste.
The dish would taste bad.
And one of the reasons why I like this dish,
besides its flavor,
is because it's associated with happiness,
for a lot of Lebanese people,
because this is the crucial part of Lebanese mezze.
And when we talk about mezze,
we always remember those happy memories
that we had as children at family conventions,
such as weddings, first communions, baptisms.
And so also part of the reason
why I wanted to talk about this dish,
is because it is associated with our happiness, yes.
But right now,
Lebanon is going through a really, really rough patch,
and having this dish around,
it's a reminder of the good times that we used to have,
a glimpse of hope, telling us that, yes,
we are going through a rough time,
but it's gonna go away.
And those good times are coming back.
- Lebanese dandelion greens with caramelized onions,
and pinch of cumin.
Two things happen today:
Number one,
I learned that I had been cutting onions wrong.
Maybe, you know, the YouTube creator, Ethan Chlebowski.
He has a whole video about why you should cut onions
root to stem, the way I did in this video.
I'm leaving a link to it.
It's one of those things that I guess the more you cook,
the more you learn.
I've learned something.
I've also never had dandelion greens.
Was that a good segue?
I don't know.
Dandelion greens always seem to me like Whole Foods
kind of shopping, you know what I mean?
And I did buy these at Whole Foods.
So, I guess I was kind of right.
These aren't hot.
Why was I blowing on them?
It's because I'm scarred from past burns.
Well, that is a very different flavor of green
than I've ever had.
It's kind of bitter still,
but then the sweet onions
add this like big thing of sweetness.
It's kind of reminding me of the Polish dish that we made
for the Christmas episode,
which was caramelized onions with boiled cabbage.
I mean, it's not the same,
but just that the onions are helping balance out something
that's a bit more sour.
Also the recipe I followed really wanted me
to salt the water.
And apparently another thing I'm learning,
when you sold the water,
it should be like the ocean, like that salty.
I didn't realize that.
I kind of was always like,
oh, just salt the water, la di da di da.
No, it's more like, salt the water.
Okay.
Sometimes there's something to be said
about really tasting vegetables,
if that makes any sense.
You know, sometimes you put so many sauces on top of things
that you don't have a true taste of what the vegetables are.
And so while this is bitter,
there's something really beautiful about that.
'Cause I'm like, yeah, I'm eating a dandelion green.
And that's some foraging stuff, you know?
I like it.
If you can't find dandelion greens, like, you know,
this is just a blanched vegetable with caramelized onions.
And so you could make this with pretty much anything
that you wanted to blanche.
I imagine you could do it with kale.
The nice thing about these three dishes
is that they were all incredibly simple to make.
The second video of vegan foods that I'm doing.
is a little bit more complicated.
So I divided it by like, this was beginner,
and the next one is beginner plus,
because I'm still just a beginner.
I will be looking for your potato recommendations
in the description.
And I will see you all in my next video.