Vedge: 100 Plates Large and Small That Redefine Vegetable Cooking

By Rich Landau and Kate Jacoby

“Reintroduces vegetables, teaching home chefs how to cook them up, dress them down and enjoy their natural flavors.” —Chicago Tribune
 
The most exciting vegetable cooking in the nation is happening at Vedge, where in an elegant nineteenth-century townhouse in Philadelphia, chef-proprietors Rich Landau and Kate Jacoby serve exceptionally flavorful fare that is wowing vegans, vegetarians, and carnivores alike. Now, Landau and Jacoby share their passion for ingenious vegetable cooking. The more than one hundred recipes here—such as Fingerling Potatoes with Creamy Worcestershire Sauce, Pho with Roasted Butternut Squash, Seared French Beans with Caper Bagna Cauda, and Eggplant Braciole—explode with flavor but are surprisingly straightforward to prepare. At dessert, fruit takes center stage in dishes like Blueberries with Pie Crust and Lemonade Ice Cream—but vegetables can still steal the show, like in the Beetroot Pots de Crème.With more than one hundred photographs, behind-the-scenes anecdotes, and useful tips throughout, Vedge is an essential cookbook that will revolutionize the way you cook and taste vegetables.
 
“This cookbook is about putting vegetables front and center in astonishing and innovated ways.” —TheKitchn.com
 
“Warm and approachable, and filled with tempting recipes that push boundaries just enough.” —Publishers Weekly
 
“[Vedge] offers deeply satisfying vegetable dishes for year-round eating.” —Epicurious.com
 
“Anyone who cooks vegetables should buy this book.” —Cooking Light
 
“Expect every recipe in Vedge to be a mouthwatering celebration that will dazzle your senses and taste buds.” —Kris Carr, New York Times–bestselling author of Crazy Sexy Kitchen

“Vegan? Yes! Magic, no . . . this is pure passion at work!” —Amanda Freitag, Executive Chef and ChoppedJudge

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Sep 3, 2013
• ISBN: 9781615191772

Book preview

advance praise for vedge

Is Vedge the best vegan restaurant in America? It might be one of the best restaurants, period.

—Philadelphia magazine

Vegetables are thriving. They’re no longer thought of as secondary to the magnificence of meat. They get equal billing, sometimes the entire marquee. Never have they seemed so visionary as at Vedge.

—Alan Richman, GQ

[A] Best New Vegetable Cookbook. Philadelphia chefs Richard Landau and Kate Jacoby simplify the stunning dishes at their restaurant.

—Food & Wine

"Chefs Richard Landau and Kate Jacoby are veggie virtuosos. Expect every recipe in Vedge to be a mouthwatering celebration that will dazzle your senses and taste buds."

—Kris Carr, New York Times–bestselling author of Crazy Sexy Kitchen

Rich Landau is a highly skilled, inspirational chef who always makes me happy with his food and his energy. He and his wife Kate have created an incredible restaurant in Philadelphia and a work of art in this book. Vegan? Yes! Magic, no . . . this is pure passion at work!

—Amanda Freitag, Executive Chef and Chopped Judge

"Rich and Kate’s thoughtful, ingredient-driven cooking at Vedge enriches Philadelphia’s already vibrant restaurant culture, and this book makes their techniques accessible to home cooks. Vedge is a worthwhile read for anyone interested in elevating their cooking skills, vegan or not, and a solid introduction to the value of seasonal eating."

—Chef Jose Garces

Landau and Jacoby have the gift of making global vegan cuisine sexy and delicious.

—Joy Pierson, Nutritionist, Restaurateur, Candle Cafe and Candle 79

BECAUSE EVERY BOOK IS A TEST OF NEW IDEAS

also by Rich Landau and Kate Jacoby

Horizons: The Cookbook

Horizons: New Vegan Cuisine

vedge

100 PLATES LARGE AND SMALL THAT REDEFINE VEGETABLE COOKING

RICH LANDAU & KATE JACOBY

Foreword by Joe Yonan

colophon

NEW YORK

Vedge: 100 Plates Large and Small That Redefine Vegetable Cooking

Copyright © 2013 Rich Landau and Kate Jacoby

Foreword copyright © 2013 Joe Yonan

Cover, interior, and author photographs copyright © 2013 Michael Spain-Smith

All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or online reviews, no portion of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or information storage or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

The Experiment, LLC

220 East 23rd Street Suite 600

New York, NY 1000–4658

www.theexperimentpublishing.com

Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book and The Experiment was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been capitalized.

The Experiment’s books are available at special discounts when purchased in bulk for premiums and sales promotions as well as for fundraising or educational use. For details, contact us at [e-mail].

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Landau, Rich, 1967-

Vedge : 100 plates, large and small, that place vegetables in the

spotlight / Rich Landau and Kate Jacoby.

pages cm

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-61519-085-0 (cloth) -- ISBN 978-1-61519-177-2 (ebook)

1. Cooking (Vegetables) 2. Cooking (Fruit) 3. Vegan cooking. 4.

Vedge (Restaurant : Philadelphia, Pa.) I. Jacoby, Kate, 1980- II. Title.

TX801.L297 2013

641.6'5--dc23

2013012098

ISBN 978-1-61519-085-0

Ebook ISBN 978-1-61519-177-2

Cover design by Susi Oberhelman

Text design by Pauline Neuwirth, Neuwirth & Associates, Inc.

Manufactured in the United States of America

Distributed by Workman Publishing Company, Inc.

Distributed simultaneously in Canada by the University of Toronto Press

First paperback printing July 2015

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3

Our son Rio Jacoby-Landau is a self-proclaimed vegetarian. He travels with us and never fails to impress us with his approach to food and capacity for joy.

This book is for him.

contents

Foreword by Joe Yonan

Introduction

Reading and preparing recipes

Pantry essentials

BASICS

Stocks

Vegetable Stock

Mushroom Stock

Shiitake Dashi

Spice blends

Montreal Steak Spice Blend

Island Spice Blend

Latin Spice Blend

SMALL BITES and SMALL PLATES

Charred Shishito Peppers with Smoked Salt

Olives

Green Olives with Preserved Lemon and Fennel

Black Olives with Fresh and Dried Chiles

Baby Cucumbers with Sambal and Peanuts

Daikon Summer Rolls

French Breakfast Radishes with Nori, Tamari, and Avocado

Heirloom Tomatoes with Grilled Shiitakes and Green Goddess

Kohlrabi Salad with White Beans and Horseradish

Portobello Stem Anticuchos

Lupini Beans with Piri Piri

Roasted Rutabaga Salad with Pistachio and Charred Onion

Salt-Roasted Golden Beets with Dill, Avocado, Capers, and Red Onion

Sea Bean Salad with Daikon and Cucumber

Spiced Little Carrots with Chickpea-Sauerkraut Puree

Roasted Sunchokes with Smoked Paprika Aïoli

SOUPS and STEWS

Pho with Roasted Butternut Squash

Saffron Cauliflower Soup with Persillade

Peas and Carrots with Jamaican Curry

Posole with Chayote and Poblano Peppers

Puree of Chinese Broccoli with Crushed Cucumber and Ginger

Hedgehog Mushroom, Turnip, and Barley Stew

Fresh Chickpea Bourdetto

Honshimeji Mushrooms Beach Style

Napa Cabbage Funky Kimchi Stew

Lentil Mulligatawny with Cilantro-Onion Salad

Oyster Mushroom and Corn Chowder

Parsnip and Chestnut Bisque with Mulled Wine–Spiced Onion Confit

Soba Bowl with Shiitake Dashi and Market Greens

Spring Bean Stew

Shanghai Bok Choy and Okinawa Hot Pot with Spicy Miso Broth

Peruvian Squash and Giant Lima Bean Stew

THE DIRT LIST

Broccoli Rabe Philly Style

Dandelion Greens Horta with Skordalia

Fingerling Potatoes with Creamy Worcestershire Sauce

Red Potato Ash with Sauce Gribiche

Grilled Baby Bok Choy with Tamari and Chinese Mustard Sauce

Hakurei Turnips with Falafel Crumbs and Creamy Sesame

Nebrodini Mushrooms as Fazzoletti

Roasted Asparagus with Hazelnut Picada

Roasted Cauliflower with Black Vinegar and Kimchi Cream

Watermelon Radish Carpaccio with Fava Beans and Tarragon

Roasted Kabocha Squash with Black Trumpet Mushrooms and Madeira

Savoy Cabbage Colcannon

Seared French Beans with Caper Bagna Cauda

Shaved Brussels Sprouts with Whole-Grain Mustard Sauce

Summer Corn with Green Chile Cream

Swiss Chard with Pickled Golden Raisins and Pistachios

Tatsoi with Seawater Broth

Seared Yellow Wax Beans with Togarashi

Warm Ramp Hummus

Whipped Salsify with Red Wine and Truffle Jus

Greens

Baby Scarlet Turnips and Their Greens with Garlic Jus

Marinated Chioggia Beets and Their Greens with Nigella Seeds and Sherry Vinegar

Grilled Broccolini with Pistachio, Cured Olive, and Preserved Lemon

White Eggplant with Catalan Spices and Saffron Aïoli

Zucchini with Pesto Trapanese

PLATES (AKA MAINS)

Hearts of Palm Cakes on Curried Lentils

Yukon Gold Potato Pierogies with Charred Onion

Celery Root Fritters and Rémoulade

Grilled Leek Salad with Black Lentils

Tarts

Olive and Onion Mini Tarts

Potato and Spring Vegetable Tart

Zucchini, Tomato, and Olive Tart

Thanksgiving Root Stew

Portobello and Celery Root Shepherd’s Pie with Truffle

Royal Trumpet Mushroom Cioppino

Whole Roasted Carrots with Black Lentils and Green Harissa

Roasted Baby Turnips with Maitake Champignons au Vin

Portobello Frites

Royal Trumpet BLT with Basil Mayo

Fazzoletti with Peas and Morels

Lentil Haggis with Neeps and Tatties

Winter Vegetable Cassoulet

Eggplant Braciole

Baked Potato Poutine with Porcini Gravy

Squash Empanadas with Green Romesco

Black Kale as Spanakopita

Grilled Zucchini with Green Olives, Cilantro, and Tomato

Korean Eggplant Tacos with Kimchi Mayo

DESSERTS and BAKED GOODS

Apple Cake Fritters with Waldorf Frosting

BBQ Cherries with Jalapeño Cornbread

Beetroot Pots de Crème

Blueberries with Pie Crust and Lemonade Ice Cream

Caramel Panna Cotta with Red Raspberries and Tarragon

Chocolate Stuffed Beignets

Figgy Toffee Pudding with Madeira-Quince Ice Cream

Cranberry Jelly Doughnuts with Hot Cider

Summer Corn Custard with Blackberries and Hazelnuts

Vanilla-Bourbon Peaches with Pecan Pie Ice Cream

Strawberry Sorrel Bread Pudding with Saffron Ice Cream

Sweet Potato Turnovers with Sweet Kraut

Zucchini Bread French Toast

Breads

House Bread

Nine-Seed Rye Bread

Pumpernickel Bread

Baguettes

Warthog Bread

COCKTAILS

Alpine Sensation

The Van Gogh

Pomegranate Sangria

Sherry Temple

The Creole Gent

Kyoto Sour

The Elder Sage

Bitters

Final note

Acknowledgments

Index

About the authors

About vedge

foreword

MY FRIEND DANIEL is scraping clean a plate of salt-roasted golden beets. Actually, three of us are all clinking forks, battling like musketeers for the last bites of this terrine-style dish, in which the beets are layered amid chunks of smoked tofu and avocado. The flavors and textures seem so made for one another that they must be part of some traditional dish, but of course they aren’t. Rich Landau has married them.

How does he do it? Daniel mutters, to himself as much as to anyone else.

That pretty much sums up the vibe at my table whenever I’ve eaten at Vedge, my favorite restaurant in Philly. People make involuntary noises of approval midbite; they push plates around with a spoon as they try to get those last few droplets of sauce; they close their eyes as they swallow, then open them and chuckle out loud; they make exclamations and proclamations, ask questions and fumble for answers.

Our server calls Rich a magic man, but his brand of prestidigitation isn’t categorically different from the creative, difficult work that any great chef undertakes to transform ingredients into beautiful, satisfying, sometimes even exciting dishes. Except, of course, for the fact that Rich isn’t using every trick in the book. By avoiding all animal products, he challenges himself to think of the purest way to express the character of his favorite vegetables, while still making food that appeals even to the omnivores in the room, of which there are plenty. But these aren’t dishes that rely on mock-this or faux-that sleights of hand. It’s not that kind of magic. The result of Rich’s legerdemain are plates on which the starring ingredients’ natural flavors shine, where sparks of heat or salt or spice work as punctuation but aren’t the ultimate point. The ultimate point is the showcased flavor of something that was recently pulled from the dirt.

I’m not the only one who enjoys bringing carnivores to Vedge, in a sort of Can you believe it’s vegan? game. It’s just too much fun to see the same kinds of reactions as the ones I had the first time I ate there. When I ate that meal, I wasn’t quite ready to declare myself a vegetarian but I was finding myself drawn ever more exclusively to vegetables. Simultaneously, I was skeptical of vegetarian and vegan restaurants, because, like so many people, I had eaten far too many mushy veggie burgers and tempeh chilis and sandwiches on leaden bread overstuffed with sprouts. Even the upscale places often disappointed me, as if they held themselves to an altogether different (that is, lower) standard from that of the omnivorous ones.

At Vedge, Rich and Kate Jacoby (his wife, co-owner, and pastry-chef magician in her own right) have created a restaurant that feels absolutely of the moment, with a menu that features everything most of the people I know enjoy eating. That means small plates, designed for sharing. Lots of fermented, charred, pickled, and smoked foods. Global spice blends—many of them plenty spicy—from the world’s boldest cuisines: Korean, Southeast Asian, Japanese, Turkish, American Southern. A drinks list full of the finest spirits in perfectly balanced cocktails infused with fresh herbs and spices. A sophisticated yet approachable wine list. And a staff able to walk that delicate line between efficient and friendly, so knowledgeable about the restaurant—so clearly happy to be part of it—that they infect every customer with enthusiasm, too.

They call it a vegetable restaurant, not a vegetarian or vegan one, and only once you eat there do you truly understand that distinction. Rich’s dishes are jubilant celebrations of vegetables, not an attempt to accommodate a so-called dietary restriction.

I said that Vedge is my favorite restaurant in Philly, and that’s true. It’s a strong enough statement, given that the city is home to such standouts as Vetri and Zahav and their sister restaurants, not to mention the many smaller chef-driven places that are equally committed to quality. But the truth is, it’s one of my favorite restaurants on the East Coast, and in the country, really. I’d put it up against anybody’s. Not that I have to, of course. Because despite the comparisons, Rich and Kate are happy doing what they’re doing: drawing people to Center City Philadelphia to taste the magic for themselves.

Now that they’ve spilled some of their secrets in this book, of course, you’d think that I might be a little more reluctant to make the train trip from DC to Philly. You’d be wrong. It’s true that I’ll be cooking my way through this book, and have started already. I can’t wait to learn how Rich gets that dashi stock so flavorful without using any dried tuna flakes, or how he manages to make hearts of palm seem so comfortable atop curried lentils. But by the time I do, he will have no doubt picked up another bag of tricks, and there will be only one way to experience them. I’ll happily be back on that train.

---

JOE YONAN is the two-time James Beard Award–winning Food and Travel editor of The Washington Post and the author of Eat Your Vegetables: Bold Recipes for the Single Cook (Ten Speed Press). He is also the author of Serve Yourself: Nightly Adventures in Cooking for One, which Serious Eats called a truly thoughtful, useful, and incredibly delicious book. He was a food writer and Travel section editor at The Boston Globe before moving to Washington in 2006 to edit the Post’s Food section, for which he also writes the Weeknight Vegetarian column and occasional feature stories. His work from the Globe and Post has appeared in three editions of the Best Food Writing anthology. Joe spent 2012 in North Berwick, Maine, on leave from the Post to learn about growing and homesteading from his sister and brother-in-law.

introduction

A SENSE OF time and place.

A reporter recently asked me why vegetables are so in right now, and that is how I responded. More than anything else, it’s the vegetables that define our culinary seasonality. If there are ramps in your pasta and some asparagus on your plate, it must be early May. If you’re grilling zucchini, I’m guessing you’re in flip flops in the late summer. And I’m betting by the time you’re buying apples and acorn squash, you’re probably dusting off some Halloween decorations. The world has become smaller for many of us, but there remains a growing season that cycles back each year. The Farm to Table movement we’re cheering for these days is nothing new, but it does wake up our common food consciousness. We’re spending more time learning about what we’re eating and where it’s coming from, and vegetables are wonderful teachers.

So Vedge is a vegetable restaurant. We put vegetables front and center on our plates, celebrating the huge range of different flavors, colors and textures that the plant-based world gives us throughout the year. From signature dishes to the ever-evolving Dirt List, from our Cocktail List to our Desserts, we hope to give the world more examples of just how inspiring and satisfying vegetables can be.

I remember loving vegetables as early as kindergarten when a guest came in to do a cooking demonstration for our class. Boiled baby carrots in salt water—it didn’t matter, I was hungry. But in their simple state—not covered up with spices or cloaked with sauce—these carrots transcended food and became a delicious expression of pure garden freshness. I still remember vividly how that carrot tasted.

Then on Sesame Street one day I saw something that really caught my eye. Mrs. Wilson’s garden was a campy 60’s video (you can find it on YouTube) of a girl who went to visit a woman named Mrs. Wilson in her country home. There they pulled up vegetables from the garden, cooked them and ate them right there. Corn, tomatoes, carrots, beets. So fresh and so clean. These visions of what vegetables were supposed to be (versus what I was served for school lunches) just blew my mind and stuck with me forever.

Years later when I decided that eating animals was an ethical issue for me I turned to vegetables for my diet and never looked back. Oh sure I ate mock meats, lived on pizza and hoagies for a while and of course I have never been perfect. A plant-based diet is a state of mind, an approach to food—it’s not a club, cult or religion. Go ahead, call us vegans if you want—it’s good enough for Bill Clinton, after all—but although Vedge uses no animal products whatsoever in its kitchen, we prefer to stick with the title that refers to the