"We're on a Mission From God"

The accompanying picture doesn’t look very appetizing. It’s an early stage in the preparation of a vegan stock, one of my more recent obsessions. The jury is still out on this on.

When we first opened our soul food kitchen here in Tel Aviv, the stocks-in-trade were pure carnivore: chicken, veal, beef, fish. I can’t say those have entirely disappeared from the cooking inventory and repertoire. But more and more, it’s vegan stock I’m drawing upon.

The reasons should have been obvious from the get-go. Take soups for example. If I make a vegan mushroom soup, I can always enrich it with non-vegan elements should I be inclined. But the reverse obviously doesn’t hold true: No way to make a vegan purse, so to speak, from a cow’s ear. The same is true with things like risotto and numerous braised dishes and our baked beans. Hell, most things on our menu immediately become more adaptable starting from a vegan stock base. And when you are located in a vegan foodie hub such as Tel Aviv, the move makes total business sense.

So where’s the rub? Developing an excellent, and I mean truly excellent, vegan stock. It needs to be dark and rich, kinda like our beef stock, but without overpowering some of our more delicate soups like English pea soup with mint. And ideally, I need to be able to clarify it into a vegan consumme (without the egg whites obviously), so that the flavor is absolutely there but the color doesn’t interfere with the brilliant hues of whatever I’m preparing. It needs to enhance the flavor profile of our macaroni, without taking over the ensuing vegan mac ‘n’ cheese. I could go on, but you get the idea.

You might say I’m looking for (at least) 3 distinct vegan stocks, not just one. Which is probably the case were our soul food kitchen the size of a 150-seat restaurant with unlimited refrigerator space. Me, I prefer the creativity that constraints entail — necessity being the mother of invention.

And so the quest goes on. Stay tuned.