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Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. Most Thursdays, we have a food for a conversation called Food for Thought. We talk about a specific cuisine, or talk about food policy or interview a cookbook author. As we do, we often get calls from listeners asking, "How can we make this vegan?" Vegan listeners and anyone who is vegan curious, the next conversation is for you. Even if you're not, it may reframe how you think about vegan food.

Often veganism has a restrictive reputation. It's viewed as things you can't eat, like chicken or butter, even marshmallows, but what if you turn that mindset around? Nisha Vora is a cook who blogs at rainbowplantlife.com and now she's the author of the bestselling cookbook, Big Vegan Flavor: Techniques and 150 Recipes to Master Vegan Cooking. In it, she approaches vegan food from a position of abundance. She joins me now. Hi, Nisha.

Nisha Vora: Hi. Thank you so much for having me.

Alison Stewart: We want a little backstory here. You weren't always vegan. What made you change your approach to eating?

Nisha Vora: Yes. Well, eight years ago, I went vegetarian, just kind of on a whim. I found that when I was eating meat, I just felt a little weighed down, not as energetic, so I cut out meat. It was going well and it made me curious about where my food was coming from. One evening I watched a documentary called Food, Inc. about how food is grown in America, and that led me down to many other documentaries that I've watched over the course of three nights, about nine or ten.

Once I started to see how we treat animals, how the impacts of factory farming and big agribusiness affect the environment, affect human health, it was a very easy decision for me to say, "Okay, I don't want to eat animal products anymore." Then the rest of it, figuring out how to actually make the food delicious, was a longer process.

Alison Stewart: Your initial approach to veganism was subtraction and substitution, as in subtract chicken thighs, replace with lentils, subtract butter, replace with olive oil. How and why did it change over time?

Nisha Vora: Well, when you cook by subtraction, you take out the chicken, the fish, the sour cream, the butter, the parmesan, whatever it is, and you're left with-- if you just subtract, you're left with food that's often bland and boring. I got tired of eating that way because I'm someone who doesn't just eat in order to live. I love food. I love flavor. I love cooking. I had to figure out how to cook a bit more unique and to find ways to amplify the natural flavors and textures and plant-based ingredients. It took me down this journey of exploring how to cook interesting, flavorful meals that would satisfy anyone, but without using [unintelligible 00:02:56] products.

It took a few years to really figure it out and that is why I wrote Big Vegan Flavor, because I wanted to share everything I've learned in one place so other people don't have to figure it out for themselves.

Alison Stewart: Listeners, we want to hear from you. Do you have a question about vegan cooking? You want to know how to balance and pair flavors, or you're wondering how to veganize some of your favorite meals? You can always call us, 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. You can call us and join us on air, or you can reach out via social media, @AllOfItWNYC. The key to recipes in your book, Big Vegan Flavor, right there in the title. You said flavor. When it comes to flavors, what are you thinking about?

Nisha Vora: I think that flavor profiles, for instance, savory umami or salty or sweet, are best when they're harmonized. I'm thinking of, "Okay, if I'm making a lentil ragù or bolognese, where I want there to be that deep savoriness," I'm thinking about, "Okay, how can I create that savoriness, but also, how can I enhance it and balance it with the other flavor profiles?" Sometimes that comes in the form of acidity. When I make a lentil bolognese, for instance, I'm going to deglaze the pan with some red wine because that acidity is going to enhance the natural meatiness that you'll find in lentils. It's going to bring them out and it's going to make it taste meatier, which can often be missing in lentil-based dishes if you're going for that meaty flavor profile.

Alison Stewart: What are the basic ingredients you think home cooked should have in their pantry if they plan to have a vegan pantry?

Nisha Vora: The first two things I'll say should be in any pantry, and that's good olive oil and salt. This is key for any kind of cooking. Beyond that, I think nutritional yeast is super helpful. For listeners who aren't familiar with that, it's basically brewer's yeast that's been fermented and deactivated, so it's very rich in umami, adds a great depth of savoriness and slight cheesiness to sauces and dips and pastas. I'd also say soy sauce and miso paste. Again, these are fermented foods that are going to add a complex savory depth of flavor that is very helpful when you're not using animal-based foods like meat or cheese.

Then I'd also say nuts and seeds. They add lots of healthy fats, but also, they can add creaminess or crunch, depending on how you use them. And spices. I cook with a lot of spices. My family is from India, so it's rooted in my DNA, but I think it's also a really easy and healthy way to add tons of flavor and complexity to your dishes.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Nisha Vora, the author of Big Vegan Flavor: Techniques and 150 Recipes to Master Vegan Cooking. Listeners, we want to hear from you. Do you have a question about vegan cooking? Want to know how to balance and pair flavors, or wondering how to veganize some of your favorite meals? Phone lines are open, 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. You can also text to us at that number or reach out on social media, @AllOfItWNYC. The first chapter is titled The Basic Principles. You say you should layer the flavors. We just talked about flavors, but you have to layer them. How so?

Nisha Vora: Yes, so I give an example in the book that I think is really helpful to visualize what that phrase means, because layering flavors isn't always that intuitive when you say it, but I give an example of, let's say you're making a ragù. The easiest option is to just add all of your ingredients into a pot, bring it to a simmer and let it simmer away and it will be edible. But if you want it to have that really rich depth of flavor, something that you're going to enjoy eating and looking forward to, you want to layer different ingredients in stages.

You might start with your aromatics, pinch of salt to bring out the flavors, draw out the water in the onions or whatever your aromatics are. Then you might add some garlic and fresh herbs. That's another layer of flavor. Then you might add some tomato paste or red wine for that acidity. That's another layer of flavor. Then you might add your lentils or whatever your protein is with your canned tomatoes or vegetable broth, some more salt and pepper. Then you might season it again at the end with salt and pepper, maybe some balsamic vinegar. You're just adding layers of both salt, but also just general seasoning and acidity and things that are just going to make everything taste more well-rounded and nuanced in the end, instead of over-salty or under-seasoned.

Alison Stewart: You say deglazing is a secret weapon. Why?

Nisha Vora: Yes, so when we're sauteing something or pan frying something, you tend to see at the bottom of the pot little brown pieces of food. The proper culinary term for that is fond, or fon, F-O-N-D, but basically, those are little flavor bits. If you add a little bit of liquid, whether it's vegetable broth or wine, and you scrape up those little bits, you're going to introduce them back into the dish, and you're going to get all of that good flavor back into the dish. If you don't deglaze, you're just leaving a lot of flavor at the bottom of the pot that's unused.

Alison Stewart: You say to remove water from ingredients and not just tofu. Say more about that.

Nisha Vora: Yes, so there are certain ingredients, particularly things like tofu or vegetables, that can be quite watery. If we want to kind of maximize the flavor that they can absorb and also enhance their texture, it helps to remove some of that excess water. If you've ever made a fresh salsa like a pico de gallo, if you salt the tomatoes, for instance, you're going to draw out some of that excess water. You're getting rid of the wateriness and you're enhancing the tomatoeness so your tomato will taste more like a tomato. It will have more vibrancy, more richness to it, and less water. Water is great for so many things, but it doesn't add any flavor, so sometimes we want to minimize the amount of water that's left in our ingredients.

Alison Stewart: Let's take a call. Matthew is calling in from Manhattan. Hi, Matthew. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Matthew: Sure thing. Thanks for taking my call. My wife and I have been vegetarians for over 30 years, but there was a period of four years we were vegan. In fact, my wife was pregnant at the time. We're predominantly vegan now and we make a tofu pesto pizza, which is out of this world. Like your guest said, we take the tofu, we put a heavy thing on top of it, get rid of the moisture, and then you could sauté the tofu in slices with garlic, salt and pepper. Get a pizza dough from a local pizza place. It's mostly vegan. Usually always vegan. You could check, but it's just yeast and water and flour, and you just put that pesto on top. You make your pesto fresh or you can buy it and then you put the tofu on top and you bake it and it's phenomenal.

Alison Stewart: Sounds great. Sounds great all the way around. Thank you, Matthew for calling. We got a text here that says, "Jumping in on your vegan segment. Dined at Eleven Madison Park last year and was blown away by the complex flavors of their vegan restaurant. It reshaped how I think about vegan cooking and eating," so thanks for that text. When you're creating vegan meals, Nisha, especially ones that are calling for meat substitutes, how do you think about texture?

Nisha Vora: It's a good question. Yes, texture is, I think, just as important as flavor. I think flavor is obviously the title of my book, but there's a whole chapter on texture because I think texture is the main reason we actually don't like a food. For instance, with tofu, I think tofu in its natural state is softer and a little bit wobblier than meat. One of the techniques that I will use sometimes to make it a little bit more meat adjacent is to freeze it. When you freeze tofu, the water molecules inside the tofu expand into ice crystals. Then when you defrost it, kind of makes the tofu chewier, spongier. So when you fry it up or bake it, it does have a significantly more chewy texture, which can be very helpful if you are trying to use tofu as a chicken replacement.

Another thing I like to do with extra firm or super firm tofu is to grate it using a box grater that you might use as a cheese grater. When you pan fry it, it gets chewy, and a little crisp, and if you add a little sauce to it, it just becomes a very chicken-like texture. There's actually a recipe in the book called super savory grated tofu. The first time I served it to someone who was not vegan, they were like, "I can't believe this is not chicken." There are lots of little techniques you can use to improve the texture of plant-based substitutes, and there are lots of recipes to choose from in Big Vegan Flavor.

Alison Stewart: We're talking vegan cooking on today's Food for Thought. We'll have more after a quick break. This is All Of It.

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Alison Stewart: This is All Of It and we're talking vegan cooking and today's Food for Thought. Our guest is Nisha Vora, author of Big Vegan Flavor: Techniques and Recipes to Master Vegan Cooking. 150 recipes, I should say. Let's talk about recipes and why we're here. We have sticky coconut milk braised tofu for our listeners. Head to our show page by going to wnyc.org and clicking on All Of It. You've been kind enough to let us post it. Why did you suggest this for our listeners?

Nisha Vora: Sure. I think tofu has this reputation for being bland and boring, and this recipe really upends your expectations. You will pan fry some squares or slabs of tofu just to firm them up a little bit. Then you put them in this braising liquid that has coconut milk, soy sauce, a little bit of sugar, some Thai aromatics like lemongrass, garlic and chili peppers. The tofu just braises in there very hands off, and it comes out of the sauce so sticky and rich and deeply savory, a little spicy, a little sweet. It's pretty easy to pull together and it will blow your mind with how rich and deeply flavorful tofu can get.

Alison Stewart: How do you braise tofu?

Nisha Vora: Braising is just a technique of cooking anything, a vegetable, a protein in a slightly small amount of liquid, usually covered until it gets really moist and tender inside. Usually, you will panfry or sear that vegetable or protein first, which we do in this recipe. You can braise tofu using the same methods you would use to braise meat or vegetables.

Alison Stewart: Let's take a few more calls. Peter has called in. Hey, Peter, thanks for calling.

Peter: Hi, how are you?

Alison Stewart: Doing great.

Peter: I was just going to say, I've been vegan for 10 years. It's helped my cancer tremendously. My ex was vegan, diabetic and gluten free and wanted a birthday cake. I looked online and I did a great dessert with almond meal, chia seeds for the egg, and different sweeteners that are for diabetics and it came out amazing. For people who think being vegan is so hard and so difficult, your book, I really have to thank you. It can show people it can be made nice. Tofu could be made into cheesecake. It could be made into so many different things that people don't even know it's tofu because it absorbs that flavor.

Alison Stewart: Love it. Peter, thanks for calling. We appreciate it. Let's talk to Lars. Hi, Lars.

Lars: Hi there. I've been kind of-- my wife is vegan and I've been becoming more vegetarian myself these days. I've always been sensitive to milk, so I'm always interested in making ice cream. I actually have an ice cream maker. I've tried making vegan ice cream like you can get in the stores and I've never been successful. I've tried oat milk, soy milk, all kinds of milk substitutes, and then tried agar. Agar and, and dextrose just to thicken it up and it always just ends up as a cold slurry. I wonder if you have any suggestions on how to make that successfully at home.

Alison Stewart: Any suggestions, Nisha?

Nisha Vora: I have not made ice cream in years, but I do think coconut cream or coconut milk is the thickest plant-based milk option, and that can be helpful. It does have a stronger coconut flavor if the ice cream flavor itself isn't strong. Like if it's chocolate, great, but if it's vanilla or something lighter, you will taste the coconut. It can be helpful to use a partial amount of coconut cream and then maybe something more neutral tasting. An ice cream place I like here in San Diego does coconut milk, less hazelnut milk, so maybe that's an option to try.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Claire from Brooklyn. Hi, Claire. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Claire: Oh, hi, thank you. This is great. I've been listening and I do a lot of vegetarian cooking. One of my favorite protein sources is tempeh, but I don't usually hear very much about tempeh when people are talking vegan. Do you have any recipes for it that you like?

Nisha Vora: Yes, so there's actually in chapter six, which is the proteins chapter of Big Vegan Flavor, there is a section called An Ode to Tempeh, specifically because tempeh, as you mentioned, is one of those ingredients that doesn't typically get a lot of love. It can be kind of bitter and earthy, and I think if you cook it the right way, it can be fabulous. In the book, I share some of my techniques for making tofu-- or tempeh, I should say, sorry, tempeh crispy and kind of removing that bitterness.

One of the techniques I like to use is I crumble the tempeh into really small pieces or I slice it into really thin matchsticks. That enables it to crisp up, which crispy food is always delicious and the smaller pieces tend to not have that same bitterness. Another technique I like to use is to pair the tempeh with a sauce that is pretty bold in flavor, it has some acidity, has some sweetness, has some savoriness, because all of those flavor profiles will naturally balance and pare down the bitterness in tempeh.

Alison Stewart: Nisha, I'm thinking something that's quick and easy. I come home from work, I want to make a vegan meal, what would you suggest?

Nisha Vora: One of my favorites is in chapter six. It's the super savory grated tofu, which I mentioned earlier. You grate a block of tofu. You stir fry some scallions and garlic. You add your tofu, you pour in a sauce that has five ingredients. It's like 20-ish minutes. If you've got any leftover rice in your fridge, that's your meal. Or if you want to steam some broccoli on the side to make it a little more nutritious. That's one of my favorite quick meals that I make at least once a month, so I would definitely start there.

Another one I really like is the pasta and chickpeas and tomato shallot butter, which is in chapter 12. The sauce is super hands off. You just add your cherry tomatoes, shallots, garlic, olive oil to a baking dish. Let that do its magic in the oven. Puree it with some olive oil, pour it into your pan with pasta and chickpeas, finish with some fresh basil and lemon zest. It's really lovely, really cozy, still fresh and bright.

Alison Stewart: We're talking to Nisha Vora. She's the author of Big Vegan Flavor: Techniques And 150 Recipes to Master Vegan Cooking. Listeners, we want to hear from you. Do you have a question about vegan cooking? You want to know how to balance your flavors or how to veganize something? Our number is 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. You can text that number as well or reach out on social media, @AllOfItWNYC. Let's talk to Anastasia from Greenwich Village. Hi Anastasia.

Anastasia: Hello. First of all, I'm glad that your guest mentioned the frozen tofu because I believe it's called nama goi tofu, which is frozen and then defrosted. But my thing, what I want to trying to talk about is kala namak. If you're trying to make like a scramble or tofu scramble or an omelet, if you want to have it like that pungent and kind of eggy taste, I would recommend kala namak, which is called also black salt. It's not really black, it's actually pink. But you can find it in Indian grocery, and it's spelled K-A-L-A N-A-M-A-K-

Alison Stewart: Thank you so much--

Anastasia: -and it's like so pungent it's eggy. I would recommend using that in your whatever.

Alison Stewart: Thank you so much. We appreciate you calling. In fact, you talk about salt is very important in vegan cooking. Yes?

Nisha Vora: Yes. Salt is key in any cooking, but yes, in vegan cooking, it's sometimes demonized, but I think it is what makes food taste like food and what makes ingredients taste better and more like themselves, and it is completely essential for good cooking.

Alison Stewart: One other thing you talk about, and you've actually made a great video on YouTube about is preparing these condiments, these like mint, pistachio, pestos and chili crisp, and they can really be a game changer. How do you build a meal around one of these?

Nisha Vora: Yes, so great question. Condiments and flavor boosters are what I call building blocks. These are categories of food that are separate and distinct, that aren't a meal itself, but that I use to make meals together, and that's the whole chapter five through eight. Chapter five is Flavor Boosters and Condiments, Proteins, Grains and Vegetables. If I have a really flavorful high impact condiment, like a Chinese chili crisp in my fridge, even if I have 10, 15 minutes to make dinner, I can still make something that's flavorful because that condiment's going to carry the whole meal.

The other day all I had was some tofu that I very quickly sauteed in my sauté pan, 10 minutes or less. I had some leftover rice. I had some carrots that I'd grated. It wasn't like a gourmet meal by any means, but it still was flavorful because that salty, savory, spicy Chinese chili crisps just drizzled on top really brought all of those ingredients together. That is I think the value of having a couple of those condiments in your fridge or pantry, is that when you have those emergency meal situations where you don't have much time, they can still kind of bring the whole dish together.

Alison Stewart: Can you recommend something that would impress non vegans?

Nisha Vora: Sure. Sure. Yes. There're so many. I have to choose one though. That is the difficult part. If someone enjoys Indian food, I would recommend the chickpea masala. It's like a creamier version of chana masala. It's got whole spices toasted in oil that you drizzle on top. If someone is looking for a stir fry, the salt and pepper spicy noodle stir fry in chapter twelve is so incredible. You use again the frozen defrosted tofu, and you add this Chinese salt and pepper mix to it. You get it nice and crispy and then you've got some charred green beans, noodles with a deeply savory sauce. No one's going to miss the meat on that.

Alison Stewart: I have to admit, in terms of vegan food, I've gone to fancy restaurants, and then they show up, and with dessert, it is not great. It's always like, "Oh, you just missed it." Give us a great dessert.

Nisha Vora: Oh, okay. My most popular dessert are my vegan brownies. They're what I call adult brownies. They are rich in dark chocolate, and they're not trying to be a health food. These are the, they've got vegan butter, they've got sugar. These are like a chewy, fudgy brownie that you can sink your teeth into. They've got a shiny, crinkly top that I think is really hard to achieve with vegan brownies. I've adapted them in the cookbook to be a skillet brownie, which is really fun. You can just eat it straight out of a skillet, have a scoop of ice cream on top. That is something that if you have friends coming over, they're going to absolutely not believe that it's vegan.

Alison Stewart: Got a text that says, "I'm not vegan all the time, but I love a vegan meal. My friend made black bean tacos with cashew crema from your book this weekend, and I wanted to bathe in crema. Thanks a lot." Here's a question. "I've been a vegan for 10 years. I miss two things, beef wonton soup and Philly cheesesteaks. Any ideas? Any options?

Nisha Vora: Not in my book, but I will say one interesting option to explore that will really help with the texture that you're looking for with beef are soy curls, it's basically dehydrated soy that you get that really chewy, meaty texture that you can't really get with tofu. Even if you freeze it, you'll get some of it, but not truly all of it. Or a textured vegetable protein, which is essentially wheat gluten. The soy curls are a little bit of a less processed option if you're looking for that, but definitely try experimenting with those because those are going to give you that texture that I think could be hard to achieve for a beef dish.

Alison Stewart: A lot of people choose veganism for health reasons. You weren't always a vegan. Did it change your health?

Nisha Vora: Yes. I didn't go vegan for health reasons, but I have experienced some nice health benefits. I have always had a hereditarily high cholesterol. I think within a few months of going vegan, it dropped by like 50 points, something really drastic. I now, eight years later, still have a good baseline cholesterol. I have a lot more energy. I know that's a chronic issue for so many Americans. We feel tired, feel like we wish we had more energy. I am one of those probably annoying people who has energy that people are always asking, "How do you have so much energy?" I'm sure it's other things, too. I prioritize sleep, but going vegan, definitely, I saw a boost in my energy levels.

Alison Stewart: The name of the book is Big Vegan Flavor: Techniques and 150 Recipes to Master Vegan Cooking. Nisha Vora has been our guest. Thanks so much, Nisha.

Nisha Vora: Thank you so much for having me.

Alison Stewart: Coming up, we'll talk about the practical effects that make horror movies so terrifying with Criterion Channel curator Clyde Folley. That's next, right after the news headlines.

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