Dine like you’re at Met Gala 2021 with these plant-based recipes

New York’s up-and-coming chefs cook for the gala and they are sharing how you can make their food at home

Finally! Met Gala 2021 is upon us. After a year of silence due to the pandemic, the stars, the elites, and the best of the New York social scene come together again to celebrate fashion as a medium of art. This year, the Superbowl of Fashion, as Andre Leon Talley puts it, pays homage to the legacy of American style with its theme “In America: A Lexicon of Fashion.”

This year’s fundraising benefit for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City is an intimate one because of the pandemic, but that doesn’t mean we can have any of it, even if it is one of the most elusive events in the world. Vogue welcomes everyone to experience the gala wherever you are with its online updates and streaming. It even shares how you can dine like you are in the Met with the help of its featured chefs

Last Aug. 2, 2021, The Costume Institute announced its roster of up-and-coming New York-based chefs, each of them will contribute one plant-based recipe for either canape, entrée, or dessert “with a new interpretation of regional American cuisine.” The chefs were selected by restaurateur-chef Marcus Samuelsson and Bon Appétit magazine.

The diverse selection of chefs includes Fariyal Abdullahi, Nasim Alikhani, Emma Bengtsson, Lazarus Lynch, Junghyun Park, Erik Ramirez, Sophia Roe, Simone Tong, Fabian von Hauske, and Thomas Raquel, a pastry chef with Filipino roots.

Here are some of the dishes you can try a home:

Harusame rice noodle dish by Erik Ramirez

Ingredients:

Rice noodles

Sesame oil

Tamari sauce

Cucumber

Rice vinegar

Shimeji and shiitake mushrooms

Sugar

Salt and pepper

Chives

Procedure:

1. Boil rice noodles. Once hydrated, put them in cool water to stop the cooking process. A drizzle of sesame oil will help keep them separated.
2. For the Harusame dressing, combine tamari sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, and sugar in a bowl.
3. Clean and chop mushrooms. Saute them in a pan until they get a little color. Add salt and pepper. Then pour in a little of the Harusame dressing.
4. In a separate bowl, cut the cucumber into small logs. Add some salt and sugar and let them sit.
5. Assemble everything in a bowl. First, the noodles, followed by the mushroom, the cucumber, add the dressing, and sprinkle some chives.

Coconut custard with tahini-lime streusel and strawberry jam by Thomas Raquel

Ingredients:

Coconut custard:

2 quarts of full-fat coconut milk

Agar

Okinawa black sugar

Vanilla paste

Tahini-lime streusel:

Half a cup of all-purpose flour

Toasted coconut flakes

Muscovado sugar

Maple sugar

Teaspoon of salt

Tahini

Coconut oil

Lime zest

Strawberry jam:

Strawberry jam

Fresh chopped strawberries

Lemon

Procedure:

1. In a saucepan, combine the coconut milk, agar, Okinawa black sugar, and vanilla paste. Whisk the mixture and let it boil.
2. Pour half a cup on your container of choice, Thomas used jars for the recipe. Put them in the fridge for 15 to 20 minutes to cool down.
3. For the streusel, mix all ingredients except the lime zest, put them on a baking sheet, cook it in a 325-degree oven until golden. Add the lime zest as soon as it came out of the oven.
4. For the jam, fold premade strawberry jam with chopped fresh strawberries. Add a squeeze of lemon juice.
5. To assemble, get the coconut custard, add two tablespoons of the strawberries on one side, and then the streusel on the other and it’s done.

Check out more @voguemagazine on Instagram.