Vegan Glazed Roots by Chef Dhriti Mankame (KMC*)
Chef Mankame loves working with vegan ingredients as it gives her the challenge to come up with new and exciting dishes. “It helps us push ourselves and our creativity while applying new techniques and using a variety of ingredients.” According to her, including vegan options in your day-to-day diet is beneficial, even if you don’t opt for going for complete veganism.
“When you restrict yourself from eating a certain type of food/ingredient, you’re naturally drawn towards looking for its nutritional and taste alternative. With the hospitality industry moving towards ingredient-based food; lesser-known/region-specific food has also been made available to the layman.” A good way to do this is to try her recipe, “It’s a simple, easy and comforting dish. It fills you up while providing a nutritional meal. There’s a lot of scope for innovating and making combinations from this recipe.”
Ingredients
For the vegan labneh:
100g Dairy free Curd
5g Cumin
1 Green chilli
Salt- To taste
¼ tsp Caster Sugar
25 g Confit garlic paste
For the root vegetables:
10g Carrot
10g Beetroot
10 g Purple yam
5g Bhavnagri chilli
4g Thyme
3g Rosemary
5g Garlic
15 ml Oil
For the marinated grapes:
100g Grapes
5g Sesame oil
10g Sugar Salt Pepper
For the glaze:
3g Mustard
6g Sugar
2g Sesame oil
10g Soy sauce
2g Coffee powder
70ml Water
3g Corn Starch
For the garnish:
Flavoured oils- Chilli, Herb, Smokey,
Nut Pea shoot or other microgreens
Method
1. To make the labneh, remove excess water from the curd. Chop green chillies finely. Whisk all ingredients together.
2. To prepare the root vegetables, boil the yam after peeling in salt water till its cooked perfectly. Chop garlic. Put beetroot, carrots, thyme, rosemary, garlic drizzled with oil on a baking tray, cover it with aluminium foil and bake at 180c for 20-25 mins or till cooked. Char the bhavnagri chillies.
3. To marinate the grapes, slice them into half and mix it with all the ingredients. Let it marinate for a couple of hours.
4. To make the glaze, make a slurry with cornstarch and water. Add the remaining ingredients in a pan and bring to a boil. Add the slurry and cook for another five mins or till it reaches a coating consistency
5. Cut the vegetables and bhavnagri chillies into thick slices. In a nonstick pan, add the vegetables and coat them generously with the glaze.
6. Spread 2 spoons full of labneh on a plate. Arrange the vegetables and bhavnagri chillies on them. Put a few pieces of marinated grapes. Drizzle your choice of flavored oils and microgreens.