Vegetables in the bag

Serves 4, vegan
This idea combines a very European style of cooking vegetables with Japanese flavours. Cooking 'en papillote' or in paper seals in all the juices ensuring maximum flavour and nutritional value from the vegetables.
Ingredients 2 bok choi 8 babycorn 1 courgette (zuccini) 4 large mushrooms 2 leeks 4 cloves garlic For the marinade 2 tbsp soy sauce 1 tbsp rice vinegar 2 tbsp vegetable oil 2 tbsp sake 2 tbsp mirin	Cut the bok choi in half. Slice the mushrooms, courgette, leeks and garlic. Cut four rectangles of greasproof paper or baking parchment from it's roll. It should be twice as long as it is wide. Fold the rectangles in half lengthways and reopen them. On the crease of each one place one quarter of the vegetables.
	Mix together the marinade ingredients and pour them over the vegetables.
	Fold over the paper and scrunch up the ends to seal the paper squares into parcels. Bake them for 20 to 30 minutes in a hot oven and serve straight away. These can be made hours in advance and cooked when you want them. If you use aluminium foil to wrap them you could make this dish on the barbeque.

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Rice wine vinegar or rice vinegar is made from fermented rice or rice wine. The Japanese variety is colourless to light yellow and slightly milder and less acidic than Western varieties of wine vinegar. You can use Clear Chinese rice vinegar instead. On many occasions, when I have run out of rice vinegar, I have used white wine vinegar.
Sake is a Japanese rice wine. The quality can vary enormously but for cooking purposes I would buy quite a cheap one to start with. If you like to drink it buy a big bottle.
Mirin is a sweetened sake with a similar taste to a sweet sherry. It is used a lot in Japanese cooking and used in many recipes in this book so it is worth seeking out a bottle. Lots of supermarkets now stock mirin and you will more than likely find it in your local Asian grocer. It can be quite expensive but no more than a good sherry.