’Tis the season to go vegan

CHENNAI: It’s Christmas time in the city and Sharanya Shridhar has so much to tell you about the joy of celebrating cruelty-free get-togethers in between bites of her ‘biscoff caksicles’, and rum and orangesoaked plum cakes. At the home of this Hyderabad-based gourmet home baker – raised in a Tamil vegetarian family and married to a Malayali Christian very festival brings with it a unique blend of nostalgia.
But what they all hold in common is that none of these dishes comes from animals. Eight years ago, when Sharanya turned vegan, celebrations meant having no cake because there were hardly any dessert options available for her. “At parties, I’d be offered watermelon to eat. I got so tired of not having desserts that I decided to make them myself,” Sharanya told TOI. “I also wanted to do my bit for the vegan community to help people transition better. Today, even non-vegans want to try out our cakes, cupcakes, cake pops and tarts. Many even opt for vegan butter and cheese spreads.” World over, searches for ‘vegan food near me’ reportedly hit an all-time high last year, and the interest for, ‘vegan wine’ and ‘vegan breakfast’ increased by 3,800% this year, according to Google’s Year in Search.
This can be seen in an higher curiosity for plant-based alternatives in Christmas-time classics too – from Shepherd’s Pie to – closer to home – keema idli and mutton biriyani, say chefs. “While there are no specific delicacies for Christmas, except for plum cake, there are vegan options more than ever to Indian festive food,” says vegan foodpreneur Marieen Vijay. “From a time when I would literally have to beg people to look at a vegan lifestyle, the health benefits of a plant-based diet are playing a big role in shifting mindsets naturally,” she says. Marieen says that with mock meats, the choice of protein itself goes up multifold. “Meats made out of jackfruit or wheat base work well in biriyanis and curries, and for turkey or chicken nuggets, soya meat sits right,” she says.
This also has covered classics like Shepherd’s Pie that can be created out of minced mock meat, vegetables and mashed potatoes, and introduces full-set vegan dishes such as spicy jackfruit curry and rice, and devilled potatoes, into the festival platter. Lawyer-turned-chef Nisha Vora, who currently cooks out of San Diego, California, binge-watched 10 documentaries on factory farming over the course of three nights and on the fourth day, decided to go vegan. She has, since that pursuit began, discovered, created and blogged about hundreds of vegan recipes and is out with a whole new series of Christmas specialties that include gluten-free sides, mains and desserts at rainbowplantlife.com.
Among the choicest of her offerings are her recipes of maple-glazed carrots, vegan baked candied yams and vegan Seitan (a meat substitute made out of wheat gluten) roast beef. But to get the most out of local flavours, Chennai chef Ramkumar V swears by tempeh, the ancient, fermented plant protein from Indonesia that is catching the fancy of every vegan’s kitchen experiment. Made from fresh or cooked soybeans and fermented by a combination of bacteria, fungus and yeast, tempeh is said to be rich in proteins, vitamins and minerals, but low in sodium and cabs. “Unlike tofu and paneer, it has the ability to absorb the flavours it is cooked in, which makes it a perfect replacement to animal protein in herbs and spices-rich curries,” says Ramkumar. “Over the last five years, the number of people asking me to make them classic meat dishes with plant-based alternatives has risen by at least 30%. And tempeh is what I always go back to.”