I might have developed a new addiction...
Crunchy vegetables (charred or not charred) drenched in a peanut-lemon soya sauce concoction.
I am not being overly dramatic when I say that I have this for lunch every single day now. This was partially caused by my mistake of buying in bulk (it always seems cheaper). So, I have been eating crunchy raw vegetables in this new sauce for the last week and a half.
And it has been amazing, to say the least.
Variety is the spice of life, as I have said many times, and this recipe will just be the base for something of your own creation. Swap out the lentil for chickpeas, swap out the broccoli for cauliflower... let the blank canvas of your palate dictate your recipe!
But for now, please join me as I show you how I cooked this vegetable bowl full of protein!
This bowl was a bit full, so it could easily be two portions, but in the bowl, I think I had a whopping 50 grams of protein. Proceed with caution, it can easily become your next foodie addiction!
Without further ado...
Ingredient list/Recipe and Nutrition Label
I don't usually weigh my food, nor do I count my calories.
But for this recipe, I went the extra step to weigh all of the food and it was interesting to see just how many calories I can add to my diet without thinking much.
The amount of peanut butter, about 125g per person might be a bit too much, in future recipes I reduced this considerably (but this does not count for the spoonfuls I consume in between cooking!).
Either way, the ingredient amounts looked as follows:
- 50 grams of black lentils (dried)
- 100 grams broccoli (uncooked)
- 150 grams marrow/zucchini (uncooked)
- 125 grams green beans (uncooked)
- 125 grams peanut butter (no sugar, no oil, no salt)
- 10 grams soya sauce
- 20 grams lemon juice
The key is to find a peanut butter that is made just from peanuts. Turn the tub around and read the ingredients list.
But this is up to you, as noted earlier, your palate will dictate what you crave.
Method/Cooking Procedure
The process that I followed consisted of three steps. First, I cooked the lentils (as this takes the most time). Secondly, I made the sauce. And thirdly, I "charred" the vegetables.
Step 1: Lentils
Follow your instructions for cooking the lentils. It took my lentils about 8-10 minutes to cook. You want them al dente, not too soft, not too hard. You want to dry them thoroughly. And then I fried mine afterwards in some oil to make them crunchy. This is a great addition to any salad, or in my case, the veggie bowl!
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Step 2: Peanut-lemon Soy Sauce
While the lentils were cooking, I began with the sauce. I merely added the lemon juice, soya sauce, and the peanut butter into a bowl. At first, the sauce will be split, but trust the process: Just...Keep...Stirring! The sauce will come together.
Note: As you can see, the sauce here was a bit thick. Luckily, the vegetables release some of their water to loosen the sauce. But in the future, and as I did throughout the week, add a little bit less peanut butter and the sauce will be better!
Step 3: Char Those Veggies
I am a fan of "control burn" or charring vegetables like broccoli and zucchini. It allows the vegetables to become so much butter in my opinion.
I began by butting the vegetables in the desired size.
To a cast iron pan, I added some oil and layered the vegetables so that they had some decent contact surface with the pan. The goal is not to "burn" them, but to add some controlled char to them. Burning them in a pan that is too hot will impart bitterness you do not want in your dish.
With some practice, you will get it right!
Enjoy!
In the end, you can plate this as you'd like. I added mine to a bowl with the sauce and the lentils.
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As noted, this is a big bowl, containing according to the online calculator I used around 1,000 calories. This is a lot of food and could have easily been divided into two portions. But I usually skip breakfast, so this counts as lunch and breakfast, which makes the 1,000 calories look not so bad.
Considering how much protein and fibre there is in this single bowl of food, I am actually impressed with the little effort to make this. During the rest of the week, I radically reduced the effort even more. I skipped the charring of the vegetables, and I did not add lentils (which takes away from the protein and fibre). But I added things like avocado, carrots, cucumber, and so on. It became a new addiction! And it is so delicious, and I think so healthy, so there might not be too much downsides to this addiction.
In any case, I hope that you will cook this for you! Please let me know how it went.
Do you cook something similar? Please let me know!
For now, happy cooking, and say healthy.
All of the writings and musings are my own, unless hyperlinked or stated otherwise. The photographs are my own, taken with my Nikon D300.