Vege steak

Vegetarianism in China and Taiwan, mainly thanks to the Buddhist monks, started out from moral beliefs of not harming animals. This is in contrast to many western vegetarians who give up meat for health or taste reasons, albeit often with a moral side too.

Perhaps not surprising then is the prominence of fake meat in local vege cuisine. Sometimes it’s too good for us western veges :) So what happens when a French chef meets Taiwan? Well that’s what happened with the Marquise a cinque heures.

You can find the Marquise down a side street five minutes west of the Sun Yen Sat memorial.

Home made cheese

Home made produce can be fun and rewarding, but often thwarted by the time it takes and sometimes unpredictable results. Bread and yoghurt are normally reliable, but take several hours.

So I was a little skeptical at 30 minute mozzarella, but it turned out reasonably well.

The first step is to acidify the milk with a little citric acid, then heat to a temperature needed by the rennet, cut the curd and heat a little a more. The magic step is then to drain the curd and zap it a few times in the microwave – this makes it more elastic for stretching and shaping.

A quick cool in water and then the refrigerator and you have some fresh cheese in no time. My first batch needed a little more rennet to set and could have been a little more ‘melt in the mouth’ but tasted fine.

The easiest way to start is with a kit though you should be able to find the bits you need independently too, but remember to check the rennet is vegetarian.

Veging in Taiwan

Yes it's been quiet here of late. As you might have seen over at http://aroaming.blogspot.com I've been spending some time in Taipei. One of the better places to be for a vegetarian...

As always, http://happycow.com is great resource for worldwide travelers and you'll find many venues. A more personal insight is how Taiwanese 'get' vegetarianism perhaps due to the high number of budhists.

I was taken to a side street 'Shabu Shabu' restaurant and when explained that I was vegetarian, they even brought me a tomato based broth (in contrast in China, I'd been given a mushroom soup that smelt of chicken).

Another instance was at the hotel when I was ordering room service (thanks to jetlag). Having ordered a soup and then asking for vege fried rice, they asked, so do you want the vegetarian version of the soup or regular?

All in all, very enlightened I thought - a true respect for our morals.