Cooking for Vampires

Acharei Mott is a bloody parasha. There is an almost obsessive discussion of blood. How to use it in ritual cleansing (who'd have thought blood, of all things, can be a cleansing agent), how to purify oneself when coming in contact with it (I thought it was a cleansing agent, no?) and how important it is to avoid consuming it in any way, shape or form.

Growing up Jewish, the idea of eating blood is repugnant to me. But I understand that there are many cuisines that make extensive use of it. Not to mention the recent population explosion of vampires who surely must have whole cookbooks devoted to the subject. Must be unbelievably difficult to be a vampire if you're Jewish, though.

So no blood.

But the Torah goes further and creates a whole set of restrictions on where, when and how we can eat meat. Never mind the blood. You can't even barbecue properly without involving a priest. Why? Why does G-d insist on putting so many restrictions on an already heavily restricted diet?

Some people think that G-d's ideal is for people to be vegetarians (my oldest child is doing a happy little dance now). It sure sounds like it when the parasha keeps repeating that blood is life ("nefesh") and we should not eat blood. I mean, draining the poor animal of its blood will kill it even if we don't actually drink the blood so we'll be 'taking a life' either way. 

Since people are so lacking in self control (I certainly have none), never mind being unable to follow even the simplest commandments (my husband, for example, cannot follow any of my commands), G-d has to contend Himself with limiting the scope of our feeding frenzy (would have been nice if He could enforce this one when I eat my third helping of pasta). So, only kosher animals and even of those, only certain parts and make sure you drain them well. My brother the atheist says all these rules kill the taste of meat. Maybe that was G-d's point?

My oldest daughter is a vegetarian. She hates meat. More than that, she hates vegetarian food that tries to imitate meat. 

We, being lesser people, like the flavor and texture of meat and if forced to go meat-less, we like to come as close as possible to the original. 

Last Pesach I made a mushroom dish that was amazing. This Pesach I could not remember what went into it. I knew there were mushrooms, ground nuts and balsamic vinegar involved. I even knew which dish I cooked it in (how's that for selective memory? I must be getting older) but for the life of me I could not recall how the ingredients were combined into the robustly flavored, savory-sweet, meat-like delicacy of last year's Seder.

Last week I finally managed to find a day to experiment. As I was driving my daughter to school, I mentioned my plans to reconstruct this dish and I said I cannot remember what else went into it. And she said "It was quinoa". 

Head-slap. Of course! 

I went home and put the following dish together with a minimum of trouble. Why didn't I think to ask her when I was desperately looking for something to do with my mushrooms during Pesach?

A word about this recipe. First of all, despite my husband's disbelief, yes, I did "invent" this myself. That is: I had various ingredients on hand and put them together without an actual recipe or even a description of what I was about to do. Second, the stuffing ends up looking, smelling, feeling and tasting like meat. So much so that it fooled my brother in law Andy, who comes from a long line of devout carnivores. I don't know how or why it comes out this way. That was not the original intention. And lastly, once again, this is one of those "a bit of this and a bit of that" recipes. Feel free to experiment with it. I did.

Blood-less mushrooms

You'll need very large white mushrooms. And I do mean very large. About 3 inches in diameter or so. Remove the stems (put them in the Ziploc bag marked "for vegetable stock" that you keep in the freezer) and gently peel the mushrooms. This is not essential but it does help them absorb the sauce better. You do it with your fingers. A little like peeling an orange. Just grub a bit of the edge and peel off. It's easier than it sounds. And don't fret if it doesn't work. Just clean them well and proceed.

Make the stuffing:

Fry finely chopped onions in oil (olive is good) until soft and starting to brown. 

Add ground nuts (a mix of nuts if possible. I used walnuts and almonds) and cooked quinoa.

Amounts: for 2 large onions you will need about a cup of nuts and a cup of quinoa. This will probably be enough for 8-10 mushrooms (depending on their size). This is all very approximately.

Spice it well: salt, pepper, paprika, coriander, turmeric, a touch (only a bit of) cinnamon and a little bit of finely chopped parsley. Play with the spices until you like the flavor (It will not taste like meat yet).

Heat up a little (2-3 tablespoons) olive oil in a large oven proof pan over medium high heat and saute the mushrooms slightly on both sides (they will just change color a bit. Say, a minute on each side). 

Place all the mushrooms facing up, in a single layer in the pan. Fill each mushroom with the stuffing. Heap it up. 

Drizzle about a teaspoon of balsamic vinegar over the stuffing in each mushroom. Pour quite a bit more vinegar into the pan (around and over the mushrooms). Be generous. A half a cup is not too much. 

Cover the pan and put it into the oven at 350F for an hour. Remove cover and continue baking for another half hour.

About the meat: Most research shows that eating a mostly plant based diet is beneficial to our health. And if we are what we eat, wouldn't you rather be a sweet pea than a cow?