Part 1. Reasons To Be Cheerful.

Not the usual route to giving up meat and fish, plus, a seed is planted...... Oh, and a recipe for Teesside couscous.

Now, first things first, why did we open a vegetarian restaurant in 2004 which wasn’t doing a veg curry or pasta bake? Wouldn’t it have been less risky to just follow the crowd? This was at a time when the words Plant and Based weren't put together and watery porridge was oat milk. But we wanted a challenge, and we wanted to prove the point that a vegetarian restaurant could be on par with a mainstream restaurant, why couldn't it be?

So first let’s rewind a little, way back to the year 2000, in the north east, before we opened Vanilla Black, and look at the path that led us to do the crazy thing we mentioned above. I am a chef by trade and had cooked meat for many years in professional kitchens, I’ve gutted and filleted fish, trimmed down sirloins and prepared lots of game. So the whole vegetarian thing was never in my thoughts, apart from when there was a customer request, which back in the 80s meant knocking up a three minute veggie curry with some trusty Maykway curry powder.

Now, over the years Donna and I ate out at restaurants, for fun and partly also looking for inspiration, that’s a chef thing. Donna would  usually order the vegetarian option, she was never a fan of meat or fish. But, as far as I was concerned, way back then, choosing a vegetarian dish was never considered by myself when there was some perfectly good meat options available. It’s funny how life turns out

Well, it was during one of these restaurant visits that, as Donna was ploughing through her mushroom risotto/pasta bake/cauliflower balti or whatever else the chef had plonked on the end of the menu, and I was looking under the mop of rocket garnish for the meat, that Donna asked me why the veggie option was always crap. Simple was the answer, Chefs don’t like vegetarians. Yea I know there was maybe the odd one or two who didn’t mind them, but generally they were regarded as a nuisance. So then I went on and explained that if you have a hundred covers booked in and two of them are vegetarian, it’s a chew on to break off from a mountain of prep to do two separate dishes.

So there you go Donna, that’s why you’re eating mushroom risotto, again.

So Donna got it, but, she then suggested something absolutely crazy. She reminded me that I was always rabbiting on about setting up a business, which was true, so why didn’t I set up a business which had something to do with vegetarian, food there must be a gap in the market. Ha! See, crazy.

I played the idea over in my mind the next day, over and over.

And I came up with this brilliant idea, if chefs can’t be bothered, or don’t have time to look after the lovely vegetarians, then I would step in. I could make single portions of vegetarian main courses which a chef could just bang in the oven or microwave. But hang on, just so you know, it’s quite normal for chefs to rely on ready prepared products, even just a few little things. Don’t get any crazy ideas that there’s a team of chefs slaving over every single item.This could be a perfect solution to their ‘problems’ and I would have my own business. Then I would stop rabbiting on about it.

But first of all I didn’t want to do the usual stuff, this had to be something which would stand out, no quinoa burgers or mung bean casserole. These products were available already. So I started doing some research at Stockton on Tees library, the internet wasn’t a thing back then kids. And wow was I shocked, I had never looked at a vegetarian cookbook before, why would I?  All I could find were books titled One Pot Veggie, Veggie Dishes For Students or  How To Be A Hippy. Even visits to veggie restaurants (there wasn’t many) didn’t help, they all offered up similar stuff. We would leave the menu closed and guess correctly what was on it, which was pretty much whatever was in those library books.

So it seemed that I would have to come up with my own ideas. Now this was difficult at first, I didn’t want to rely on spices or meat substitutes, because everyone else did, and pasta dishes were out, because that’s what everyone else was doing. Without consciously realising, this became the rule for Vanilla Black. I needed to change my thinking. And then I had this absolutely great idea. When I got home I told Donna, that for a few weeks, I wasn’t going to eat meat or fish, just so I could get my head around the whole vegetarian thing. This should help me see dishes from a different angle. Donna was up for this also, don’t forget, as previously mentioned, she wasn’t a big meat eater.

And that was it, people expect that the whole giving up meat thing was to save the planet or help the little fluffy chicks, but it was actually a temporary exercise. Except that it wasn’t temporary, after about six weeks I realised that I didn’t miss meat and that actually the thought of eating blood kinda made me feel a bit weird, and Donna was perfectly happy to stick with a veggie diet, so there we go. We didn’t even label ourselves vegetarian, I know you're supposed to, but we just didn’t mention it.

Oh hang on, a quick funny story. Although not eating meat and fish wasn't a big deal to us, to others, they thought we were putting ourselves through a torture chamber. We went to my parents for Christmas dinner, I told may dad to leave the turkey off our plates as we didn’t eat meat anymore. His reply was, “what, not even at Christmas?”.

Anyway, here’s a recipe from way back when we first decided to become vegetarian, or when we stopped eating meat and fish as we preferred to say.

This is a bit of a cowboy recipe, which basically means something knocked up quickly. Please do not feel that you have to use exactly the same veg as the recipe, just whatever you have hanging around the fridge is good. And don’t faff about too much with the chopping, it’s just a quick meal.

Teesside Couscous  (Probably called Filthy couscous these days)

Ingredients

1 Onion

½ Aubergine

½ Courgette

1 Red pepper

1/4 Cauliflower

½ Head broccoli

Any type of oil

450ml Water, this seems like a lot but you’ll lose some in the simmer

120g Couscous, just the little stuff

1tbsp Tomato purée

150g Mature Cheddar, grated

1tbsp Mayonnaise

Salt and pepper

Method

-Roughly chop the onion, keep this separate from the other veg.

-Now roughly chop the courgettes, pepper and aubergine. Don’t be too particular about this, but keep it chunky.

-Break the cauliflower and broccoli into rough florets.

-Add a little oil to a large saucepan, about a tablespoon will do.

-Get it hot then add the onions.

-Give them a minute of stirring in the hot oil then add all the other veg.

-Cook them with the occasional stir until they are slightly charred (for flavour). Don't burn them.

-Then add the water and simmer gently for a couple of minutes until the veg is cooked. Shouldn't be too long.

-Add the tomato purée, stir, turn off the heat then add the couscous.

-Let it sit for 5 minutes to allow the couscous to sort itself out.

-Finally, add some salt and pepper (you know how much, I’m not baby sitting here), the cheese and mayonnaise and fold together.

-Eat it

As you can see it doesn’t look like regular couscous. That’s the Teesside touch.

And there we go, that was the start. I was working as a catering college lecturer and Donna was a nurse. We lived in a place called Stockton on Tees, which was not a vegetarian hot spot, and I had set up this little company called Collander (daft name, I know) which was sending out ready prepared vegetarian dishes to restaurants, hotels and pubs. This little company was started in the kitchen at home, but after some months a little unit was rented, and kitted out with second hand equipment, the start of a huge food manufacturing business.

But it didn't become huge. Trying to sell Sweet Potato and Basil Dumplings in a Tomato and Red Pepper Casserole or Puy Lentil, Feta and Mint Tarts to chefs in the early 2000s was like pushing water up a hill. Don't get me wrong, the people who did buy them thought they were great, some customers ordered them by the hundreds. Feedback was very positive, we even started selling mixed boxes to friends and colleagues, they saw it is a revelation. But in general most chefs just weren't interested in buying the products. In fact one chef put it into perspective for me, not intentionally. When I asked him why he didn't want to buy the products he explained that he already had his own veggie dish on the menu. My eyes flicked to the menu on the chalkboard, there it was, a dull pasta dish. When I pointed out that he was offering the same old dish and what I was offering was more interesting his response was, “it’s only for the the vegetarians”. And so Collander crept along for a few years as we ran it part time whilst also working in our full time jobs.

Now here’s the little seed, we were getting positive comments about the dishes all the time. Most of these were from people who we were selling directly to. And there were some comments which started a little spark…… “this is better that the food I get in a vegetarian restaurant”, “I’ve never had vegetarian food like this before”, and one particular comment that often came up, and was flattering, “you should open a vegetarian restaurant”.

Now there’s an idea………..