Midsummer Barbecue

Most Finns want to celebrate midsummer in the country, preferably on summer cottage. So do we, and luckily we had a chance to go to a friend’s cottage. The weather wasn’t good, but we had a nice time with sauna, swimming and of course yummy food. We had seitan, sweet potatoes, vegetables in foil pouches and corn on the grill.

Zucchini, onion, broccoli, mushrooms, carrots, garlic and cherry tomatoes went inside the foil pouches.

Barbecued Vegetables

vegetables of your choice:
carrots, mushrooms, zucchini, broccoli, garlic, onion etc.

aluminium foil

Sauce:
3 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp oil
2 tsp mustard
1-2 tsp chopped fresh rosemary
3 tbsp chopped fresh basil
t tsp sugar
salt and pepper

Cut the vegetables into bite size chunks. Boil harder vegetables like carrots for few minutes. Mix the sauce ingredients together. Cut the aluminium foil into big squares, put some vegetables and about a tbsp sauce on it. Close tightly and put on the grill.

Return of vegan barbecue: seitan steaks and potato-cabbage salad

Seitan recipe is from Animalia‘s Vegegrilliruokia (Veggiebarbecue recipes) pamphlet. Idea for the potato-cabbage salad came from a delicious looking fresh summer cabbage head.

http://animalia.fi/

Fresh salad and delicious seitan.

Seitan steaks

0,5 soy flour
1 dl gram flour
1 dl nutritional yeast (brewer’s yeast)
5 dl vital wheat gluten
0,5 tsp ginger
1,5 tbsp soy sauce
2,5 dl water

Broth

2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp molasses (dark syrup)
2 vegetable bouillon cubes
2-3 l water

Marinade

2 tbsp tomato puré
0,5 dl oil
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
3 tbsp soy sauce
0,5 tsp chili powder
1 tbsp ajvar
2 tbsp herbs
1 tsp curry powder
0,5 dl water
3 tsp minced garlic (optional, we didn’t use it)

Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl. Add soy sauce to water and combine it with dry mixture. Knead couple of minutes. Make four balls.

Bring water to boil and add rest of the broth ingredients. Put dough balls to broth and let boil 30 minutes.

Mix marinade in a small bowl, slice cooked seitan balls and put bot into plastic bag and marinade over night. Grill next day.

Potato-cabbage salad

10 new potatoes
250 g new cabbage
10 radishes
1 tbsp caper

Dressing

3 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp apple vinegar
2 tsp mustard
1 tsp dried mint
2 minced garlic cloves
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Cook potatoes in boiling water until they are soft. Cube the potatoes, shred cabbage and slice radishes. Mix dressing ingredients in a cup and combine with salad.

Pea kebab and barbecue sauce

A few pea kebabs. Notice: these are too big, make yours smaller.

Pea kebab

1 onion
2-3 garlic cloves
4-5 dl cooked peas
2 tbsp tomato pure
1,5 dl sesame seeds
0,5 dl wheat flour
0,5 dl bread crumbs
1 dl rolled oats
2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 tsp paprika
2 tsp turmeric
2 tsp coriander
2 tsp parsley
1 tsp salt
0,5 tsp extra hot chili powder
oil or barbecue sauce for grilling
wooden skewers, soaked in water at least half an hour

Mash peas and mince onion and garlic. Mix everything in a bowl and put into fridge for 10 minutes.

Form bars from pea mixture  and put on skewers. Remember to make small enough bars, because if they are too big, they may fall apart while you grill them.

Brush with oil or barbecue sauce and grill.

Original recipe is from Jere Nieminen’s cookbook Herne Rokkaa. He used canned peasoup, but we substituted it with cooked peas. We added oatmeal to the recipe, because our mashed peas weren’t thick enough and we also added the salt.

Basic barbecue sauce

0,5 dl oil
0,5 dl soy sauce
2 tbsp ketchup
0,5 tsp freshly ground black pepper
pinch of salt

Mix everything and brush on vegetables or whatever you’re grilling.

This time we added the juice of one lime to the sauce and sometimes we add garlic or chili powder.