Another Italian recipe? What is this?
Yes, you read it as another Italian cuisine recipe because why not? It's just that Italian cuisine is easy to make at home, and it is also trendy. SO! Today's topic for Recifee recipe is lasagna with a twist. A vegetarian lasagna. Firstly vegetarian and vegan is different. Let's learn more about vegetarian. Noted that I am not a vegetarian just love to eat their diet. And also actually did an experiment myself about vegetarian food. More about that later if you are interested.
So what is a vegetarian? A vegetarian is someone who cannot eat animal meat and its products or any part of the body of a living or dead animals. This includes meat, poultry, fish, insects or any processing aids created from animal meat or animal product. Their diet consists of grains, pulses, legumes, nuts, seed, vegetables, fruits, fungi, algae, yeast and other non-animal-based foods with or without dairy products, honey and eggs.
There is actually many type of vegetarian:
Vegans is a strict vegetarian that do not consume any animal meat or even their products such as red or white meat, fish or fowl, eggs and dairy products. Vegans also do not consume any honey or beeswax, gelatin and other animal by-product ingredients or products. Not only in the terms of food, in fact vegan do not use any animal products such as silk, leather and wool.
Lacto-vegetarians do not consume any animal meat and eggs product. However, lacto-vegetarians do consume dairy products such as cheese, milk and yogurt.
Ovo-vegetarians do not consume animal meat and dairy products. However, ovo-vegetarians do consume egg products.
Lacto-ovo vegetarians is actually the most common type of vegetarian. They do not consume animal meat however, they able to consume dairy products and egg products.
Pescatarian (Pescetarian):
Although it is technically not a type of vegetarian, these individuals do restrict their meat consumption to fish and seafood only. Pescatarians do not consume red meat, white meat or fowl. They are considered as a “semi-vegetarian” or “flexitarian”.
Much like the pescatarian, they are also considered as “semi-vegetarian”. This is because their diet contain restriction of meat consumption to poultry and fowl only. Pollotarians do not consume red meat or fish and seafood.
Flexitarian is a plant-based diet with the occasional meat item on the menu. They limit their intake or consumption of meat as much as possible and they have an almost entirely plant-based diet. This is not technically considered a “vegetarian” diet.
With all of that consider, we doing a vegetarian lasagna specifically an lacto-ovo vegetarians version, its still used animal products such as milk, butter and cheese. You can change it to vegan by buying vegen cheese, that is actually available in Brunei, used other time of milk, like almond or rice milk and used margarine which is a flower based product. So anyway, as you can see from my lengthy blog, vegetarian diets has a special place in my heart. Back to the topic, Lasagna is actually existed way back from the Ancient Greece. It is the first form of pasta and it used to be called Laganon. However lasagne or lasagna was created in the city of Naples, Italy during the Middle Ages and its started to appear in the 14th century cook books. Therefore I created my version of lasagne using tempe or tempeh, a Javanese food made from soyabeans. Soyabeans are actually rich source of protein. Therefore it act as a meat for vegan and vegetarians.
Here are the ingredients:
Lasagna sheets:8 – 9 sheets
1 Large can chopped tomatoes
15g or 1 tbsp of Tomato puree
10 small florets of brocolli
Seasoning : Salt, pepper and herbs
5g or 1 tsp of grated nutmeg
Seasoning: Salt and pepper
First you soak the lasagna sheets in hot or warm water, set it aside. On stove, in medium heat cook your milk on a pot, add bay leaf, nutmeg and half an onion. let it simmer, until you can smell the aroma. While waiting for the milk, you can preheat your oven to 180 degree celsius. On another pot with medium heat, sizzle some olive oil and add chopped onions, saute, then added minced tempeh, mix well and saute them well . Make sure you turn of the heat for the milk. Then added your canned tomatoes, tomato sauce and tomato puree. Added the sugar and seasoning and taste it. If you feeling like it is missing some things you can add more pepper, salt and sugar. Lastly add on the chopped carrots and broccoli. Let it simmer for 10 minutes.
Reusing the milk pot by removing the milk to a jug or used a new one, it is time to make roux method sauce. In medium heat, add butter to the pot, until it melt then add flour. Stir well and make sure the texture is paste like. Then lower the heat and add milk mixture slowly and gradually at a time but stir quickly and do not stop until smooth and the milk is finish. This is to prevent lumps. Make sure you already drain your milk such as removing the onions and bay leaf. Then you can added the cheddar. Add salt and pepper for taste.
Its assemble time, in a casserole or over-prove dish add meat sauce using a ladle, then the bechamel then the lasagne sheets. Repeat until no space add Mozzarella. Oven it for 15 mins or until its golden brown.
Tadah!!! As you can see, it does look like a normal lasagna. That actually a mission accomplish for vegan and vegetarian. I have trick my family, they thought that its a chicken lasagne. Wish is a biggest compliments. It called TVP or textured vegetarian protein meaning creating something that act as the meat and have the same textured. Tempe is one of it, if you mince and chopped it, it look like a chicken. I have done experiments like this with my other friends. By serving them two lasagne one is chicken and one is tempe. They love the tempe on better than chicken. It is kinda funny to see their shock faces. Other noted you can also change the recipe if you want chicken or meat just change it. But this Vegetarian Lasagne is a must bake and have. Its actually better then meat or chicken plus its cheaper tempe only cost $1 and you can get 4 of them.
Not a vegetarian just love to cook like one.
