While it’s my understanding that many nut-allergic folks can eat seeds, which might make sunflower seeds and sesame tahini fair game–not to mention coconut, which is classified as a tree nut by the US government despite being botanically quite different–I’d like to meet this particular challenge by avoiding that altogether. With rice.
Creamy rice dishes don’t require actual cream, just a different cooking technique (and, to a certain degree, the right kind of rice). Risotto, traditionally made with arborio rice, is simmered and stirred while liquid is added a little bit at a time; the grains release starch into the liquid as they cook, and the whole thing comes out creamy without anything even pretending to be dairy.
Wanting to try a different recipe, I consulted my mountain of cookbooks and landed on the one in the Crossroads cookbook with leeks, cherry tomatoes, and corn. Well, and it’s supposed to have a cashew cream, which I omitted. And the choice of cooking fats is a sensitive one when it comes to allergies, so choose wisely. I used coconut and olive oil.
I also made my own stock with the scraps from the leeks and corn cobs, though I am not sure how much it really added to the end result, since I didn’t simmer it terribly long (about an hour).
The end result was rich and creamy without any cream, plus it used some super seasonal produce from the market! Colorful, too. I made a meal of it with some wilted kale and baked tofu (made with a spicy seasoning salt a friend brought me from Hawaii). Delicious.
