It's All About the Stock (I Think)

I finally got my vegan mushroom risotto tasting the way I want it. It took a while.

This dish has been on our soul food menu pretty much since the beginning. It’s one of my son’s favorite dishes — or at least the conventional version was before he became a vegan. It’s one of those dishes that nag at you — it’s okay, but not where you want it to be. Getting it right became something of an obsession.

The dish originally was more astringent than creamy. I suspected the dash of white wine vinegar and ran with white wine instead. Modestly better, but still no-go. Maybe it was the brewer’s yeast, which was supposed to give it that creamy touch. I kept reducing the quantity, eventually doing away with it entirely. Better. But still not there.

I started eyeing the rice a bit suspiciously. Maybe arborio rather than basmati? It was an expensive change, but hell, I was in whole hog on solving this thing so I made the change. Nope, not the rice.

Michael Ruhlman, in one of my favorite cookbooks out there (Twenty), has a tip in his section on soups — more of a throwaway aside than an actual tip — which I had grabbed hold of a while back.: sear you mushrooms separately. I just happened to be making a portobello mushroom soup at the time, so seared enough for the risotto as well. Oh my fucking god. A world of difference. I’m a convert: once you sear mushrooms, you never go back.

But the risotto still wasn’t there.

Meanwhile, several vegan family members were talking about how they missed the taste of parmesan cheese. By chance, I stumbled upon a simple and elegant vegan version, using cashews, a bit of brewer’s yeast (yeah, brewer’s yeast is like a bad penny in vegan cooking) garlic powder, and salt. Superb. I tossed a fistful of the stuff on my risotto just before the cooking was down. Another nice improvement.

Still not there.

So you know where this story is headed, you’ve known since the beginning: the stock.I don’t know about you, but for me, getting a good vegan stock that matches a dish you’re making is far more challenging than making a veal or beef or chicken stock. Subject for another story. To cut to the chance, I eventually landed upon one I make, using the brine from my boiled peanuts, among other things. And there it was: the vegan mushroom risotto is all its creamy, umami glory.

One thing still nags at me. In their groundbreaking work on cognitive biases in decision-making, Kahneman and Tversky discuss the challenge of availability bias: making decisions based on the most immediate or most recent information on hand. So, was the issue with my risotto resolving the stock issue — or was it simply the last adjustment in a long series of improvements?

Too much philosophy in the kitchen these days. OK, what else needs fixing?