One of the biggest surprises for me on HIVE was the reception to my cooking. I've always cooked for myself and I've worked in plenty of kitchens but I never really considered myself much of a cook; rather I liked my food and I thought no one else would- which may have been influenced by a string of very negative comments about my cooking by an ex partner... 😂
When 
Upon reading the topic for this week's contest, I was a little more intimidated. "Traditional" food. I'm a white kid living in the United States of America. We literally have no traditional food; rather we have just stolen all of our food from other cultures. My family has an interesting history of fleeing Estonia from the Nazi party during WWII, ending up here after some years spent as traveling refugees, moving back to Estonia, and finally moving back here shortly after I was born. Enough for me to consider myself more Estonian than of the USA; yet not enough for me to learn much about traditional Estonian food.. especially anything at all about vegetarian Estonian food; considering my family is chock-full of meat eaters.
I know that I have a lot of Norse/Viking blood in myself, and I know a bit of that culture. In terms of food, however, I knew mostly that meat was a HUGE part of their traditional cooking.. so I wasn't sure how to play that. HOWEVER, I'm also aware that Viking tradition was also "eat whatever you have, however you can"- which is certainly something I picked up from my ancestry.
So, I settled on that as "traditional" for myself. And, honestly, I realized that is something "traditional" for myself. My cooking mainly consists of looking in my fridge and thinking, "how can I use this all at once?". And that's what I decided to create; throw a bunch of things in a stew and cook it. That's what the vikings would do, so that's what I will do.
Vegan Viking Hodgepodge
I really wanted to cook this over a fire in traditional Viking style. I don't know why; it just seems like it would be better. Give it a natural "smokey" kind of taste. I live in a large apartment complex and we have an outdoor firepit. After looking around my belongings for a good while to try to find something I could place the pot on over the fire, I went outside and saw that the pit was occupied. So, back to the stovetop.
Be warned I cooked this for approximately 5 hours. You don't have to. I decided to cut my vegetables into larger chunks and let them simmer as long as possible.
Ingredients
Let it be noted this is not an "ingredients" list with the intentions of what you should use. This is simply what I used. To keep with the "traditional" aspect, this is meant to be altered and a traditional viking meal would just be to throw everything you have into a pot. So, if you want to make this- just use whatever you have! Hence the "hodgepodge".
- 1/2 head of red cabbage
- 3 large celery sticks
- 2 russet potatoes
- 1.5 large onions
- a good chunk of ginger
- 10 cloves of garlic
- 6 thai chili peppers
- 2 large carrots
- 1 12oz dark beer
- 3 cups vegetable stock
- 3 TBSP red pepper flakes
- 1 TBSP turmeric
- 2 TBSP chili powder
- 2 TBSP adobo powder
- 1 TBSP merken
- salt to taste
- black pepper to taste
- 1 cup red lentils
On account of what I mentioned above, about the versatility of how to cook viking food; I will be recording my "instructions" as more of a this is what I did style rather than a do this format :)
- I chopped up my potatoes, carrots and celery into rather large chunks. I already knew I would be planning on cooking this over the course of several hours, so I figured a larger size wouldn't hurt and I figured it's what my ancestors would do.. some 1100 years ago. I don't know why, but large chunks just seems more appropriate.
- I threw those in a pot to clear my cutting board, and proceeded to chop my onions. I've been told I cut onions wrong; so no need to point it out. I don't care 😂 hard to break old habits.
- (3) I crushed up my garlic and threw it in. As I tend to do, I threw most pieces in whole(yet crushed) and cut a few of the larger pieces in half.
- (4) I cut off the stems of the chili peppers and cut them into small chunks; yet larger than I would if I were doing something such as sautee'ing them or using them in really any other dish. In general, everything that went into this is in larger chunks than I normally would. Oh, and yes, of course I put the seeds in!
- (5) I cut my head of red cabbage and half, chose the smaller half and sliced it into ribbons. I then peeled the skin off my chunk of ginger and peeled slices of the meat into the pot on top of the cabbage. The more ginger, the better..
- (6) With all my vegetables in the pot ready to go, I turned on a burner on my stovetop and placed the pot on it. I added 2 1/2 cups of my vegetable broth for the time being. I wasn't sure how much I was going to end up using as I knew I would have to continue to add liquids to the hodgepodge as time dragged on.
- (7) Cooking with beer was a big viking tradition. They would frequently make their own beers, commonly dark ones. I don't like dark beers; for drinking anyway; and I certainly didn't feel like going out to buy one. Lucky for me, I had this non-alcoholic dark stout leftover from a pack I bought on a sober trip. I should have known at the time I wasn't going to like it; yet I had drank every type of this company's other N/A beers and loved them so I had decided to try this one. They've been in my kitchen ever since. I'm happy I found a use! ... oh yeah, I poured it in with the pot.. 😂
- (8) I used water to cover the rest of the vegetables to the appropriate level. I knew the vegetables would reduce in size; yet I also knew I would lose liquid. I added my red pepper flakes, adobo, chili powder, turmeric, salt, pepper and merken. If you don't know, merken is a traditional Chilean seasoning. My partner is Chilean and she introduced me to it; and on her last trip to the USA she brought me a fair amount. It's absolutely amazing. I believe it's made from Goat Horn Chilis.
- (9) At this point I brought it to a boil and then reduced it to medium-low heat to let it simmer. I would occasionally visit it to stir and check the level. I ended up needing to add a fair amount of water/broth throughout the process. Other than the stirring and the addition of liquids, it remained unaltered for about 3.5 hours.
WARNING: This shit smells delicious!
My room mate and his girlfriend came home during this time and they were obsessing over the smell. I had gotten used to it, but after I took my dog out and came back I could see what they meant. Anyways
- (10) After said 3.5 hours, as I was tasting/testing the texture, I decided to add a cup of split red lentils. This had not been previously planned. I liked the idea of just a straight up stew, but I figured I'd stick with tradition and improv halfway through. And I'm glad I did.
- (11) During this time I chopped up my dill. I had some leftover from pickles and I knew vikings were big into herbs and the like. That had been planned from the beginning. Cilantro followed suit; that had not been planned.
The hodgepodge, post herbs, in it's final stages.
- (12) I let the pot simmer for roughly another hour. At that time, I took if off the heat, served myself a bowl, and let the rest cool before transferring it to containers to refrigerate/freeze. Obviously this made quite a few servings. I have a habit of making large amounts of food and putting it away; especially if it's healthy. This is to prevent me from eating something quick & shitty for me when I get hungry and don't feel like cooking.
This turned out AMAZING
I'm realllllly hyped on the way this came out. I'm not a stew or soup guy! At all! Like, I love it; but I never cook it. I haven't made a soup in probably 6 months. And that last one... well I learned my lesson about freezing soup in a mason jar. Idiot.
I was a little pissed at myself for not having sour cream. The reason I'm pissed at myself is that this is like the 10th time I've been upset about not having sour cream. I've been to the store dozens of times in between. And. Just. Can't. Remember.
So anyways, this was my "traditional" dish! It doesn't look to impressive and wasn't too complicated to make; so I don't know how well of an entry this is but I really don't care. I had a blast making something different than my normal cooking and it was entertaining to think of what my ancestors ate. I REALLY wish I had cooked it over a fire. I think that would have been super exciting for me.
Oh, and one thing that makes these one-pot dishes amazing... easy clean-up
This is my first HIVE Top Chef entry and I'm excited to keep trying! Loving this wonderful community more every day. Thank you all and happy HIVEin!