5 vegan spring recipes (created by 5 great chefs)

The latest analyzes say that there are in the world 80 million people who have chosen a vegan diet. In Italy, the percentage of vegans would represent 2.2% of the total population, with a moderate increase in the last two years, witnessed by the constant opening of vegan-friendly restaurants. But even more interesting is the development of a high-level cuisine, increasingly attentive to vegans and vegetarians and anything but “punitive” or “privative” (the main accusation made by those who do not love vegetables) indeed capable of conquering even carnivores.

They prove it the recipes we asked five of the best chefs on the national scene: Michelangelo Mammoliti (La Madernassa in Guarene), Riccardo Monco (Enoteca Pinchiorri in Florence), Antony Genovese (The Pagliaccio in Rome), Giuliano Baldessari (Aqua Crua in Barbarano) e Stefano Baiocco (Villa Feltrinelli in Gargnano). They are formidable dishes, not too complicated and of great stylistic impact: here are the recipes (in the gallery above the photos and the tricks to make them).

Perfume – Michelangelo Mammoliti
It starts from herb pesto. Peel and clean 80 g of the leaves of the wild herbs, chosen according to the season. Bleach and cool in water and ice. Wring very well taking care to lose all the water present. In a pacojet cylinder pour 220 g of extra virgin olive oil and add the herbs, 10 g of toasted pine nuts, 20 g of grated Parmigiano Reggiano, 2 g of salt and or, 5 g of black pepper. Blend and chill. Once blast chilled, blend with the help of the pacojet and put it back in the blast chiller. Repeat this operation three times in order to completely eliminate the fibrous filaments of the herbs. Once the mixture is smooth, place in the refrigerator. For the risotto, put 240 g of Carnaroli (Tenuta Castello, in his case) in a saucepan, then 20 g of finely chopped shallot, 20 g of EVO oil and toast for 2 minutes. Wet the hot rice with 40 g of Prosecco, let it evaporate and add a ladle of the 800 g of broth, prepared previously. Bring the rice to cook – it will take about 12 minutes – being careful not to add too much broth in the last two minutes (it must remain dry). Add another 30 g of EVO oil, 40 g of Parmigiano Reggiano and 12 g of lemon and lime zest. Let it rest for a minute under a lid. There finish it is made by stirring the rice and finishing it with 60 g of herb pesto. If the consistency is too greasy, dilute with a little broth. Arrange on the plate and add some beetroot powder and herbs for garnish.

Red Passion – Riccardo Monco
Wash and chop the tomatoes: 200 g of the piccadilly variety, 100 g of Florentine and 100 g of cherry tomatoes, strawberries. Combine them in a bowl 100 g of fresh spring onion, 250 g of ripe strawberries 100 g of red pepper. Season with salt, pepper, vinegar and oil and leave them for about 2 hours. Aside, keep some strawberries, piccadilly and bell pepper to garnish the dish. Blend the contents of the bowl with the help of an immersion mixer until a soft cream is obtained. In a deep dish, pour the gazpacho first, garnish with the strawberries, tomatoes, pepper. Finish with 60 g of extra virgin olive oil, sprinkled in drops, and a few flakes of Maldon salt

The Vegetable Bresaola – Giuliano Baldessari
For the coconut parmesan, melt some coconut butter and spread it between two sheets of parchment paper. It is rolled up to give it the classic curl shape of Parmigiano Reggiano, and put in the fridge. Take 400 g of very fine tomato sauce, reduce until a compact and narrow pulp is obtained. Take a silpat – the cooking mat – and an oval-shaped mold, made from a plastic film about 2 mm thick with a hole of about 10 x 7 cm. Then spread a spoonful of about 6 g of the tomato pulp, obtained previously, on top of the silpat, flattening it with a spatula. Dry in the oven at 70 ° for 40 minutes, then remove the wafers from the silpat to place them in the refrigerator. The wafers must be ‘filmed’ well with the film and separated with sheets of parchment paper, so that they do not dry out and maintain that bresaola-like consistency necessary for the dish. To serve, both sides of the tomato sheet must be oiled, garnished with wild rocket leaves and coconut parmesan curls. It is lightly seasoned with oil, salt and pepper, placing a slice of lemon (real) on the side.

Colors, fettuccine in two flavors – Antony Genovese
For the fettuccine it takes two doughs, the first with 100 gr of semolina, 400 gr of flour 00, 20 gr of bitter cocoa. The second with 200 grams of corn flour, 200 grams of flour 00 and 100 grams of semolina. Themushroom water cutting the mushrooms into slices, cooking them in a vacuum with 20% water for three hours at 90 °. The cocoa bitter should be left to infuse for two weeks from the moment of preparation: you need 50% water, 35% pure alcohol and 15% 77% raw cocoa. As for the vegetable jus, two white turnips, four peeled potatoes, four red turnips, one celeriac, two celery sticks, five carrots, 500 gr of mushrooms, two leeks, two heads of garlic, a touch of ginger and lemongrass are roasted in the oven . Once roasted, add the spices (pepper, cardamon, star anise, fennel, coriander, greek fenu, a piece of kombu seaweed and 10 ten pieces of dry shitake) and put everything into a pot. The mixture is caramelized very well, making it stick to the bottom of the pot three times, blending it at the end with xeres vinegar and soy. The cooking is stopped with water and ice and covered with cold water. The dish lacks morel mushrooms (browned with garlic, thyme and bay leaves, shaded with Marsala and finished with a knob of butter) and porcini powder (obtained by blending 50 grams of dried mushrooms, with two cloves of soulless garlic) . At the end, the cooked fettuccine is stirred with the filtered mushroom water, the reduced and filtered vegetable jus, a touch of butter. The cocoa bitter is added and the ‘nest’ is formed in the dish, with the morels and the powder.

Potato linguine, burnt onion, potato broth – Stefano Baiocco
Per linguine, just peel 500 grams of potatoes, rolled with the special mandolin, cooking them for 30 seconds in salted water (1% salt). For the cream, peel 300 g of potatoes, diced evenly and cook them in two liters of whole milk with two cloves of unpeeled garlic, an aromatic bunch (rosemary, thyme, bay leaf, savory) and 5 g of white peppercorns . When cooked, remove the aromatic garnish and mix them with 120 g of extra virgin olive oil (Casaliva Giacomini is ideal) and 4 g of fine salt. For the burnt onion, 3 kg of golden onions are cleaned and cut into eighths. Then cook them for twenty minutes in salted water (2%); drain them and let them dry in the fridge overnight. Then they are passed slowly to the grill until they are burnt. Dry them in the oven at 80 ° C for about an hour and blend them in the thermomix. It continues with the potato broth: wash 2 kg of potatoes well, leaving the skin, cutting them evenly and season with 8 g of coarse salt, some ground black pepper and 50 g of extra virgin olive oil. Bake for 20 minutes at 180 ° C in the oven, then lowering the temperature to 150 ° C. Add 10 cloves of poached garlic, 5 sprigs of rosemary, a leek and continue cooking for another 20 minutes. Recover the potatoes and vacuum them with 4 liters of mineral water and steam them for 30 minutes at 70 ° C. Rest overnight and filter with an etamine. For the ‘sawdust’ of potatoes and Jerusalem artichokes, just wash 200 grams of potatoes and 200 grams of Jerusalem artichoke leaving them with their skin, grate them separately with a microplane and leave them for an hour under running water. Then they are drained and fried in seed oil at 160 ° C. Dry them until they have completely lost the excess oil and join them together. The dish is composed by placing a spoonful of potato cream on the base of a bowl, then the linguine seasoned with a few crystals of salt, the burnt onion powder and the sawdust. Serve the hot broth separately.