Vegetarian Star

Chef Tal Ronnen is the author of The Conscious Cook, a hot new cookbook being snatched off the bookshelves by vegetarians, vegans and food lovers in general. Tal is the chef who helped design Oprah Winfrey‘s meal plans when she went vegan for 21 days and has worked with Chrissie Hynde‘s restaurant, The Vegiterranean. He’s been a vegetarian for 19 years and a vegan for 11 years. Tal took a few moments away from braising tempeh to give Vegetarian Star an exclusive interview.

Tofu, Tempeh, or Seitan:
It depends on the application. I think my personal preference for home is definitely tempeh. It’s a less processed product. It’s fermented so it’s got nutritional benefits from the fermentation process. With that said, it has to be cooked properly. People will just cut tempeh up and sauté it or stir fry it or something like that. [But] Because it’s so dense, it’s hard to get any flavor to penetrate. Tofu just acts like a sponge, it just sucks up all the marinade. [With] Tempeh, the best way to get the flavor in there is to braise it. So cook it in a flavorful liquid and the flavors can change based on the dish that you cook. So if you’re doing something like Tex Mex or South of the Border you can braise it in a stock that’s got chilies and peppers. If you’re doing something like Asian, it can have soy sauce or ginger. When you’re cooking it in a broth, you’re able to penetrate tempeh. After it’s cooked in a broth, you start cooking with it. So I can grill it or sauté it, but the first step for me whenever I work with tempeh is to braise it.

On Guest Chefs in The Conscious Cook:
We wanted to have a really broad view of what professional vegetarian cooking looks like. And [we did this] by bringing in people who have influenced me or I’ve influenced throughout the years. All the chefs that are highlighted in the book are people who’ve been a big influence in my culinary career or someone that I’ve worked with very closely. And by doing that we’re able to really show different perspectives in the book, not just my perspective with vegetarian cooking.

Favorite recipes from The Conscious Cook:
I love the celery root soup. I love the Gardein scaloppini with the shiitake sauce. And the banana  rum cheesecake I think is really great.

Learn how Tal got a school district in southern California to put veggie burgers on the menu after the jump…

On Working With Chrissie Hynde and Scott Jones for The Vegiterranean:
It was great. Scott was a very talented chef and he was running around the kitchen and it was the perfect choice for Chrissie. He didn’t know too much about vegetarian cooking, so Chrissie had me work with him. And it was just a great partnership. We still work together and Scott and I have become very close friends. It was an amazing experience. I was a little hesitant at first when I heard the restaurant was going to be in Akron [Ohio]. It’s been a huge success; the place is packed all the time. We serve largely a non vegetarian crowd, so that’s very exciting.

On more veg Food on School Lunch Menus:
I certainly know the challenges that schools face through my work with VegAdvantage. K-12 schools really have limited budgets. Everything is under $1 as far as cost of what they can spend per student so imagine trying to create a whole healthy meal and not being able to spend more than $1 and sometimes only 60 cents. So it’s very difficult. It’s great that people want to encourage healthy meals, but I think the first thing that has to change is our perception of what we’re feeding our kids, how we’re feeding our kids, and what we’re willing to spend to feed our kids because there’s not too much you can do with 60 cents per plate. And that’s why so many schools rely on government commodities for school lunch programs. It’s definitely a difficult challenge. But I think that schools that have added vegetarian options have seen a lot of success because kids are very savvy and they know that reducing their meat consumption makes sense for the environment and their own health.  At VegAdvantage, we worked with the Costa Mesa (southern California) school district to add veggie burgers to their menu and it was a big hit. So it can be done, but the product has to be priced right and it has to be done the right way.

On Veg Advantage
At the time there were really no vegetarian products out there that were geared to food service. Grocery stores had a lot of vegetarian options-from veggie burgers to veggie dogs to soy cheese and things like that. It didn’t come in bulk, so any type of restaurant or university or corporate dining hall that wanted to add a vegetarian product, they didn’t have bulk products to work with. With Veg Advantage, we worked with companies that produce vegetarian products to help them launch their products into the food service world. So we would help them with everything from actual product specification to actually getting them placed.  Right now I’ve turned it into a referral site, so all the information with all the vendors and product manufactures that we used to work with is now online. If you are a university or corporate dining hall and you’re interested in adding vegetarian options, you can still use VegAdvantage.

We can’t wait to try recipes from our copy of “The Conscious Cook”. Maybe we’ll finally get tempeh right based on Tal’s advice.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Chrissy Teigen Failed Vegan Experiment
• Mia Evans Is A “Masterchef Junior” Vegetarian Star
• Holly Madison Enjoys Vegan Smoothie From M Cafe In Beverly Hills
• Controversy Over Pro-Vegeterian Curriculum In Schools
• Ellie Goulding Creates Protein Bar “Everlasting Joy” With GoMacro