my take on this, and others will have equally valid alternative opinions, is no. You will end up with something, and it may be pleasant enough, but generally I believe a good recipe needs to be followed to the letter. Replacing a type of meat with a veg or two has problems, IMHO. And this is why.:

take your examples, vindaloo and bhuna. A vindaloo (the Indian one, anyway) is always made with pork, and originally a strong flavoured pork. The pork was marinated with vinegar and garlic (from where the name originated) and some strongly aromatic spices, including many chillies. After a long time marinating, the pork is gently fried then immersed in water to cover the meat, and slowly cooked for an hour or more. Now, what vegetable would survive that treatment. Why should it? Because following the recipe provides the flavours that you wouldn't get from cooking for a shorter time, or at a higher temperature.

The bhuna is really a method of cooking, a kind of stir fry. Here, the meat is fried with spices in a way as to use high heat without burning the spices, but so as juices from the meat (as it contracts from the heat) goes to help make the flavours. Its difficult (though maybe not impossible ) to substitute for a meat in this case.

Even substituting one meat with another is fraught with danger. A vindaloo needs a tough meat, able to be slow cooked, whereas the bhuna needs a meat that can be fried quickly.

As Indian cuisine is so rich in vegetarian dishes, why would one not want to explore it? And the methods of cooking and the spicing has been worked out for vegetbles to get the best from them.

As Lapis has said, vegetables generally would not require/ stand up to being prepared and cooked in the same manner as meat, so you could not take a meat recipe and substitute vegetables if you use the recipe as it is.

Certainly, you could adapt the recipe, depending on how experienced a cook you are. And you'll have varying degrees of failure/ success depending on which recipes you choose and which vegetables you use in place of the meat.

But, as Lapis points out, there are soooo many vegetarian recipes on this site (and elsewhere) that you would perhaps be better placed in trying some of these out first. Or at the very least, using them to increase your familiarity with the ingredients and cooking techniques involved - that experience will put you in a stronger position to adapt the meat recipes you find.

You could swap veg for meat.. you could adjust cooking methods but then you wouldn't quite be making the same dish.. no reason you can't do it !...

I will however point out that when I cook I adjust spices depending on whats going in there...

Obvious things like I might make a beef dish and use a lot of cinnamon as the robust stong meat flavour of the beef will take it and the two flavours work well. If I was to subsitute lamb into the dish I'd almost not use cinnamon at all and would use sharper flavours that complement the lamb better (mint, fenugreek, more garlic etc..)

Chicken I find a light delicate flavour (and I also feel it doesn't take in flavours very well) so again I'd go for different spices again, maybe using lemon rind to add a blast of flavour...

When I cook with just veg I always think about adding flavour using lots of well browned onions... maybe adding more tomato and for some reason I like to add more green herbs (I think thats just for the look..who knows why I do half the things I do... )...

So in summary.. give things a try but be aware it may at best only produce a mediocre copy of what it should be or at worst become a missmatch of flavours and textures..

The real thing to consider is the majority of Indian food eating by the average family is actually vegetable based.. meat tends to be certain areas or for special occasions (generally speaking)... so there are many many vegetable based curres and dishes already available...

Steve

Guest, absolutely no reason not to try it! Cooking is sometimes following recipes and sometimes experimenting!!!

I would say, look for a version of the same dish that has already been adapted to vegetables first. If you can't find it, then go ahead and give an adaption a go!

For example, if you search on "do pyaza" (enter "do +pyaza" into the search box) you will find both meat and vegetable dishes. Do pyaza just means two onions and refers to dishes cooked with higher ratio of onion to other ingredients.

I didn't know that 'do pyaza' meant 'two onions': thanks, Kavey. So this is probably from a language in the North of India.

re following a good recipe to the letter: I'm undecided about this. On the one hand, if people have spent the time and energy getting it right, why mess with it? On the other hand, once you get confident with a particular kind of cookery, you can experiment and adapt.

There's a fantastic recipe on this site for Coq au Vin (written by an Englishman): I wouldn't dare to do anything other than folow it to the letter.

But there are Indian recipes that I've adapted (e.g. mussels in coconut milk and cumin, but with the added step of a pastis flamb?, and a chicken fenugreek recipe that I removed the fresh coriander from, and used both fenugreek seed and fenugreek leaves).

I've seen the origin of this dish as one named after one of the nine courtiers of King Akbar, or Navratnas, who was called Mulla Do Piaza. It is said a dish was commissioned in his honour, and this dish is what we call Do piaza. I like to think that this is a dish, a type of korma, where meat and vegetables (obviously here it is onions) are braised together. The onions are the rather small variety.

In the case of Indian dishes, certainly the older ones, which were either developed in India, or adapted from other cuisines (Persian, Portuguese) have managed to survive the test of time. It is unlikely that improvements could be made to these. More modern recipes may need a little tweeking, but I would suggest that if more than two ingredients are added or subtracted from the original, then it could be thought of as a new recipe. I think this is how copyright law sees it.

There has been a lot of very good advice here already. I will only say one thing more, which is that if you really do want to make a meat dish with a vegetable substitute, make it and find out how it comes, adapting it to the vegetable you are using. As mentioned by others, vegetables and meats do cook differently and absorb differently.

from the experimnts I've done, neither meat nor veg aBsorb anything, they both lose water on cooking.

The main difference between meat and veg. apart from the tenderness, is that meat is made of protein and veg from carbohydrate. This means that meat will aDsorb flavours onto its surface, whereas veg will not. No use marinating veg!

I'm sure I watched an episode of Heston Blumenthal's show where he was looking into marinading meat (chicken) and put one in with yoghurt and one without. He then took MRI scans of the meat after a few hours and it showed that the one with yoghurt had penetrated much deeper into the meat (a good few centimetres not just the surface)....

On a similar line I'm almost certain that when we pickle (ie leave soaking in a liquid) that the veg takes the flavour right into it ?..

Am I confusing something?

Steve

Well, Lapis is mostly right, there is more adsorption (sticking) than absorption going on in cooking. But there is some absorption also going on, I am sure. You only have to look at things like potatoes, paneer, aubergones etc., the spicy liquid goes get inside the outer layers at least. It might be only adsorption to the inside molecules of a vegetable, if you are looking scientifically.

When a vegetable, such as a potato is cooked, say boiled for 20 minutes, I found it loses between 3 and 8% weight, (presumeably water) depending on the variety. No aBsorption takes place. But if salt is put into the cooking water, it burst the cells on the cut surfaces, and a very small amount of aDsorption occurs, as parts of the contents of the cells are exposed. It does not, however, lead to any aBsorptiion.

When meat cooks, I found the amount of water loss is about 35%, depending on conditions. ADsorption to the surface of the meat happens, because of the hydrophobic parts of the protein molecules, and small amounts of fat. However, if the meat is marinated, flavour compounds will migrate into the meat, but very slowly. It is the same action as the way nicotine patches work, the rate of migration depending on the flavour chemical.

So, meat can aBsorb flavours, but only very slowly, and the cooking time is not long enough. Vegetables do not aBsorb flavours, and only aDsorb them if the outer cells are lysed (burst).

I think the point being missed is we aren't talking about controlled water boiling experiments being judged off weight !

Its about cooking ith spices, oil, fats, herbs and water that do make their way into meat and veg in varying degrees depending on technique used.

If they didn't surely we wouldn't be on a recipe site talking about different dishes and methods etc.. as all dishes would just be a collection of veg/meat that always tasted the same just served with a different sauce ?

Steve

I think the point being missed is we aren't talking about controlled water boiling experiments being judged off weight !

Its about cooking ith spices, oil, fats, herbs and water that do make their way into meat and veg in varying degrees depending on technique used.

If they didn't surely we wouldn't be on a recipe site talking about different dishes and methods etc.. as all dishes would just be a collection of veg/meat that always tasted the same just served with a different sauce ?

Steve

The controlled water experiments, as you put it, Steve, is to provide objective proof that meat and veg lose water, and do not absorb during cooking.

And the point is about substituting veg for meat in recipes. As veg is almost all carbohydrate, it is difficult to see how flavours would absorb, or even adsorb onto the surface of vegetables, seeing that most flavour chemicals are oil-liking, sticking only to fat or protein.

If one followed a meat recipe, substituting a veg. for meat, by washing the veg after cooking, anyone would be hard pressed to detect any difference in flavour, certainly not by absorption or adsorption.

So, pouring a 'sauce' over some veg is all about one could do if one wanted to substitute for meat. It wouldn't flavour the veg., so make sure you have the veg. and sauce in the same mouthful!

Lapis, why when I make a meat and potato stew do the potatoes turn from the normal white/yellow colour to more of a light brown colour (the colour of the stock/gravy) they are in, if they aren't absorbing it ? (the colour penetrates into the potato not just sitting on the surface)

Steve

why is the gravy brown?

Its brown with the caramalised onions, the meat stock etc.. it seems to penetrate into the potatoes giving the colour and taste.

Sometimes when we are making a lot we cook the potatoes in a large stock pot in just water while the meat is cooking in another pan then add them together. When we do this you can taste and see that the potato hasn't been cooking with the meat from the start (taste much more of just potato)

Steve

the brown colour is from a water soluble compounds such as melanoidins and caramel. These will adsorb onto carbohydrates, as the carbs are very similar to water molecules over much of their molecule. Flavour chemicals are oil liking in nature, and will not stick to carbohydrates.

I doubt whether intact potatoes would absorb any water, if they did, they would burst, as would any vegetable. If your potatoes absorb colour (and flavour, there is the clue) it is because they are falling apart, and therefore not absorbing, but just mixing.

If you boil potatoes with saffron (water soluble), then only the outside is coloured. If the colour gets inside, its through damaged cells.