CropFest’s weird, wonderful and wonky vegetable recipes

Last month, Youth Food Movement held CropFest in Sydney and Brisbane. CropFest is a celebration of fruit and veggies in all shapes and sizes, their un-tarnished flavours and their nutritious properties.

The Sydney event featured cooking workshops from local restaurants and businesses. YFM has kindly passed on some of the best vegetable recipes including Naked Indiana’s Buddha Rolls, Trolley’d‘s Pear and Lemon Shrub cordial and Studio Neon‘s Beetroot Kimchi.

Bon appétit and make the most of those wonky veggies!

Naked Indiana Buddha Rolls 

Photo: Youth Food Movement

These are the greatest fridge cleaners.. You can basically fill them with anything raw or cooked. They look fantastic and make for a great snack at any time of the day. Here is what I used but truly go wild with your design.

Ingredients (Makes 6 rolls):

Choy sum, 3 bunches,

Carrots, about 100g

Zucchini, lightly grilled, about 100g,

Avo, 1 large

Marmalade onions, 100g

Broccoli floretts, 100g

Steps:

1. Cut the steam out of the Choy Sum and steam lightly

2. Prep all your fillings on a board ready to assemble easily

3. Fill the Choy sum with a handful of fillings of each of the fillings

4. Roll tightly into itself and pull in one side to seal the base.

5. Dipping sauce

6. 3 parts apple cider vinegar : 1 part pumpkinseed oil

Trolley’d Pear n lemon shrub

Photo: Youth Food Movement

 Ingredients: 

4 lemons

Sugar, 300g

Pears, 500g

Water, 100ml

Steps:

1. Remove skins of 4 lemons & cover skins with 300g of sugar.

2. Press roughly on sugar and leave for half hour to soak oil into sugar.

3. Chop 500g of pear add lemon oil sugar & 100ml water and simmer on low temperature for 1-2 hours.

4. Strain and bottle in sterilised bottle.

5. Will keep in fridge for 1-2 weeks.

Studio Neon Beetroot Kimchi

Ingredients:

2 kg beetroot

100ml fish sauce

50 g salt

50g sugar

200 g red fermented chilli paste (Korean)

1 bunch spring onions

100g ginger 100g garlic

10ml sesame oil

100ml soy sauce

Steps:

1. Peel and thinly slice or grate the beetroot
2. Add the salt to the grated beetroot leave to stand for 45 minutes to an hour.
3. Wash the beetroot off well under cold running water squeeze as much water from it as possible. Combine all wet ingredients together
4. Finely chop or puree the ginger, garlic and spring onion and add to the wet ingredients.
5. Pour the wet ingredients over the grated beetroot and mix in very well. Massage into the beetroot.
6. Then place in a sterilized glass jar. Place a weight on top of the beetroot to keep the beetroot fully submerged under the liquid. This is often done with a small plate or something similar.
7. Leave the jar at an ambient temperature over night then refrigerate the following day.

Side note: The salt and the fish sauce combined create the perfect atmosphere for lacto fermentation, which is the growth of good bacteria called lactobacillus. By leaving the jar out at ambient temperature over night aids and kick starts the bacterial process. However it will take at least 1 week for the bacteria to take full effect. The fermentation will get stronger the older it is. We recommend anywhere from 3-6 weeks is the optimal time to consume the product. Traditionally in Korea the older the kimchi the better