Vegan MoFo Day 25 - Worldly Wednesdays - Stopover 32 - Solomon Islands - Sweet potato and parsnip fritters

Sourcing recipes for around the world cooking has proven to be tricky for some countries, the Solomon Islands was one of the more challenging ones. The food from the Solomon Islands has been influenced by the trade of exotic fruit, vegetables and spices from Asia and India as well as it's colonisation by the British. Coconuts, cassava, sweet potato, breadfruit, bananas and taro account for a large portion of the fresh produce intake on the Solomon Islands.

The first recipe I found that was linked to the Solomon Islands was called Kara which is a portion of corned beef smothered in coconut cream surrounded by an outer layer of grated cassava. It is typically wrapped in banana leaves before being steamed. I was keen to give this a try especially as I already had corned beef seitan sitting in the fridge, the only problem was that couldn't find cassava so I continued searching for other recipes.

Finding a recipe that used accessible ingredients proved to be difficult so I was relieved to finally discover a recipe for sweet potato and parsnip fritters linked to the Solomon Islands. The recipe was almost vegan as it only required one egg to be substituted and it was gluten free as it used rice flour. It was a simple recipe to make although the mixture didn't hold together well when I cooked the first batch of fritters so I added additional rice flour and the next couple of batches turned out much better. The ground cumin, cayenne pepper and curry leaves in the batter gave the fritters a nice amount of heat which were lovely paired with some mango chutney, rice and steamed asparagus.  

Sweet potato and parsnip fritters (Adapted from Veria Living)

250g sweet potato, peeled and grated
250g parsnip, peeled and grated
25 - 30 curry leaves, finely chopped
1/2 cup rice flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 - 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper (depending on your spice tolerance)
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 - 1 teaspoon sea salt, to taste
1 tablespoon ground flaxseed mixed with 3 tablespoons water
1/2 cup ice cold water
oil, for shallow frying

Place the grated sweet potato and parsnip in a large bowl and add the curry leaves, rice flour, baking powder, cayenne pepper, ground cumin and sea salt. Pour in the flaxseed mixture and water and stir well until the ingredients are combined thoroughly.

Heat some oil over medium-high in a deep sided frying pan. Drop small portions of the fritter mixture into the oil and flatten slightly with the back of a spatula, ensuring they have some room to spread out. Fry for a couple of minutes on each side until golden brown then drain on paper towels. Place the cooked fritters in a warm oven while you are cooking the rest of the batch.

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Did you know?

Plum Pudding Island in the Solomon Islands was renamed to Kennedy Island after Lt John F Kennedy, the former US President. During World War II the patrol torpedo boat John F Kennedy and his crew were aboard was rammed by a Japanese destroyer. Two soldiers died in the incident and JFK aided the remaining crew members to this island.

Eating out around Perth

After a six hour drive from Kalgoorlie, unpacking the car and driving out to the airport to pick up the young man (he spent six nights with us in Perth before heading back home to start University), a quick meal was in order. I envisaged we would be tired and hungry on our first night in Perth and had printed a menu from Sri Melaka's website so we could pick up some take away food on our way back from the airport to the rental house. Sri Melaka vegetarian restaurant was one of the recommendations Steph suggested when I mentioned my travel plans to Perth. Steph formerly lived in Perth and is now based in Melbourne, so I used her blog as one of my resources for seeking out vegan food.  

Sri Melaka’s menu is Malaysian styled Nyonya cuisine predominately based on mock meat. It was difficult to choose from a large number of dishes as they all sounded fantastic. We ordered Chicken Kapitan, Kangkong Belacan and two of our favourite dishes Mee Goreng noodles and Lamb Rendang. The Chicken Kapitan contained chunks of mock meat and potatoes in a very spicy coconut curry gravy, the Lamb Rendang was 100% mock meat in a thick spicy coconut paste. Mee Goreng had a combination of vegetables, mock prawns and possibly some other form of mock meat I couldn’t identify and the Kangkong was Asian water spinach stir fried with chillies and mock shrimp paste. Every single dish was very spicy and our noses were running by the end of the meal. No-one could pick a favourite as we thoroughly enjoyed them all. I’ve been to a few Asian mock meat restaurants around Melbourne but none of them have managed to serve up food as delicious as this! It cost a little over $50 and there were enough leftovers to provide the three of us with a light lunch so it was also very good value.   

After reading about the Thai Vegan stall located at the Fremantle markets on Happy Cow, I put it high on my must visit list. I’ve travelled to Thailand a couple of times and haven’t been able to enjoy Thai food in Melbourne restaurants since. A reviewer on Happy Cow piqued my interest by mentioning that the food was that best they had eaten outside of Thailand. The stall is open on market days (Friday to Sunday) and is managed by two lovely women who were run off their feet pounding fresh herbs and spices, stir-frying and preparing fresh salads in addition to taking many orders. There are only a couple of seats to eat at the stall but there is a park nearby as well as plenty of benches in the surrounding streets.

In addition to a few precooked deep fried snacks, the menu is largely based on Thai salads, soups and noodle dishes (priced between $7 - $11). The man had left me to organise our food while he waited outside with Ollie and the young man ventured off to eat whatever he pleased. Salads are usually not popular with the man yet I recalled that he enjoyed the ones we ate in Thailand and boldly ordered a Larb salad, two spicy tofu sticks and a Pad Se Ew noodles. Somehow I managed to order an extra noodle dish which may have been due to the noise level in the markets and my substandard hearing. The amount of heat can be varied to your personal taste so I ordered all of our meals to be spicy.

The spicy tofu sticks ($3 each) consisted of three triangular pieces of crispy tofu on skewers, they were slightly disappointing as they didn't live up to their name in the spice department yet they were tasty enough to enjoy as a starter. The Larb salad was made up of lettuce, spinach, carrot, green papaya and cucumber topped with soy mince and was bursting with fresh flavours of lemongrass, chilli, coriander, mint and lime. It reminded us of the fantastic salads we had eaten in Thailand and I was thrilled that my brave selection turned out to be a success. Pad Se Ew was full of an assortment of vegetables (cauliflower, broccoli, carrot, cabbage and bean sprouts) as well as nicely seasoned tofu and lovely wide rice noodles. I think the extra noodle dish was called Rad Na, it had the same vegetables, tofu and noodles as Pad Se Ew yet it contained more sour flavours and it was spiciest dish of the lot. We loved both of the noodle dishes although the man said that the Rad Na was verging on being too spicy for him.    

Perth is fortunate to have a couple of Loving Hut restaurants which are located a suburb apart from each other. Loving Hut at Victoria Park is open for lunches (Wednesday to Sunday) and weekend breakfasts and East Victoria Park is open for dinners (Wednesday to Sunday). I had looked at both of their online menus and after mentioning to the man that there was an opportunity to eat pizza with vegan cheese he was super keen to drive across and get some take away food.

The menu begins with Asian entrees, mains are a combination of Asian meals, pasta dishes and pizza. They also offer a range of desserts and like all of the stores in the Loving Hut chain, everything on the menu is vegan. We were in the mood for pizza and pasta, the entrees also sounded great so we ordered way too much food! The spring rolls and samosas were both good but it was the crispy bites (above) that were the most popular starter. These pieces of mock meat coated in a slightly spicy batter and deep fried may not have been the healthiest choice but boy did they taste good! I've been requested to pull out the deep fryer and recreate this at home one day.

While the vegan pizza had been a draw card, it ended up to be slightly disappointing. The base wasn't great, it was thin but the edges were not rolled out evenly and it was unlike a base you would get from a pizza shop. The vegetable toppings of capsicum, mushrooms, spinach and pineapple were fine but there was a scant quantity of Notzarella cheese covering them. By the time we demolished this amount of food we were too full to tackle the pasta dishes and put them aside for next days lunch. We enjoyed ravioli with a tomato based sauce and I was less impressed with spaghetti carbonara with mushrooms as I thought the sauce had a weird flavour but the man seemed to enjoy it. Loving Hut's strengths may be in their Asian meals given the success we had with the entrees. We paid $64 for three entrees, a pizza and two pasta dishes which was pretty good value.

Beautiful dog beach at Swanbourne which had a clear blue sky every day

The Naked Fig in Swanbourne boasts a lovely view across the ocean and was on our daily walking route from our accommodation to the closest dog beach. It is one of three trendy restaurants in Perth, their other locations are in Swanbourne and Fremantle and each of them has a dedicated vego night. We ordered take away soy lattes (with extra shots of coffee) from The Naked Fig twice after early morning swims. We decided not to return as the wait times were 15 minutes one day, over 20 minutes the following day and the coffees were very weak and milky, apparently made with St Ali coffee beans from Melbourne. It was a shame as The Naked Fig had a vegan breakfast on their menu and veggie burgers with vegan options for lunch and dinner.

Ollie waiting for the ball to be thrown in the ocean (yet again)

There were several other eateries I had wanted to visit but was most disappointed that we didn't make it to Heavenly Plate in Applecross as Kari's pre-wedding high tea sounded amazing as did Steph's dining experience there. The man spent half of his childhood growing up in Perth and was astounded by the amount of vegan food that is on offer these days. Vegans who are planning a trip to Perth should check out the following blogs for heaps of food options around town: Vegan4Life, Bite Sized Thoughts, vegan about town and Vegan Sparkles as well as Happy Cow.

Favourite foods from 2012

Happy belated new year to all my readers! I hope everyone had a thoroughly enjoyable and restful festive season full of delicious food.

Apologies for such a lengthy break between posts, it feels like ages since my last post was published and I'm also way behind in responding to reader comments as well as reading other blogs. After my family Christmas obligations ended, we spent a few days away camping in the bush which was relaxing as we spent our days swimming, playing with Ollie and watching the different native birds in the area. Instead of being rejuvenated by the camping experience, I picked up a bug just after we got home (the first illness I've had in over 2.5 years!) and have been feeling extremely worn out after dragging myself back to work last week. Now that my head is finally feeling clearer, it's time to get back on track with the first of a couple of posts I've been working on to sum up 2012 in my kitchen.

Favourite soup - Smoky cauliflower (and tofu bacon) soup. With or without tofu bacon this simple blended soup has become a household favourite. Red lentils are a sneaky ingredient to provide the soup with added protein and make it a more substantial bowl.

Favourite Mexican meal - Tofu adobe with refried beans. This has become our standard Mexican meal, when Mexican is requested this is what my fellows are after! We pile refried beans from Viva Vegan along with Tofu with adobe paste (from the Tofu Xpress recipe booklet) onto tortillas with some lettuce, tomato, cashew cream, guacamole and hot sauce. There's an art to how much filling you can load in the tortillas before they become a very messy eating experience.

Favourite meal that can be served anytime of the day - Mexican inspired tofu scramble. I've been making this scramble for such a long time and it never fails to satisfy our taste buds. It's loaded up with heaps of veggies and beans and pairs well with toast for an easy dinner or wrapped into tortillas for breakfast burritos.

Favourite fried food - Tofu “fish” fingers with tartare sauce. We adore Bryanna Clark Grogan's tofu "fish" recipe and have scoffed them down on a few occasions. I also tried a baked version with a polenta coating but they turned out rather dry so I recommend shallow or deep frying them for the the ultimate eating experience.

Favourite finger food - Gobi (cauliflower) pakoras are superb when paired with a coriander chutney from Vegan Eats World. I made these a few times by frying them in a wok and have been meaning to make them again in our relatively new deep fryer.

Favourite noodles - Steph from vegan about town's Char Kueh Teow recipe isn't actually restricted to our favourite noodle dish of 2012, it first appeared in my kitchen in 2011 and has been on semi-regular rotation since. It's a super tasty meal for minimal effort.

Favourite quick meal – Smoky Alfred with broccoli, asparagus, spinach or broad beans. I've been making this pasta dish for years (originally based on Hurry Up Alfredo in Vegan Yum Yum) and we never tire of it for a speedy weeknight meal. I change it up frequently by adding in some seasonal greens and enjoy it with tofu bacon on occasion too.

Favourite from around the world posts - Sri Lankan pan rolls. Although they took a couple of attempts to perfect, I've been very happy with my version of these deep fried snacks that we used to enjoy years ago. Stay tuned for another delicious Sri Lankan snack soon which I've been playing around with recently.

Favourite sweet - Sfoof (Semolina cake) and Chocolate chip cookies. As I rarely feel the urge to eat sweet things I'm leaving this one up to my fellows. Bryanna Clark Grogan's semolina cake with lemon or lime syrup from World Vegan Feast was the definite winner for the man last year, when he is craving a cake this is what he always asks me to make. The young man's choice is slightly more mundane, chocolate chip cookies are his fave which is fairly predictable coming from a teenage boy.

Number 1 household favourite - Calzones. The regularity of our calzone nights has dropped back from fortnightly to about once a month but they are still without a doubt the recipe I am requested to make if I ask the others what they feel like eating. I can't imagine them disappearing from meal rotations in the near future either!

Vegan MoFo - Home made tofu

I've wanted to make tofu for such a long time but certain things have held me back. I looked into the process and wasn't sure where to get a coagulant so I pushed tofu making into the back of my mind. When Steph posted about her experience of attending a tofu making class in Beijing earlier this year, my interest was piqued and I took it a step further by purchasing some organic soy beans but still couldn't track down the coagulant.

It wasn't until reading Tofu Mom's post recently that I hunted again and found that calcium sulphate (also known as gypsum) is also used in home brewing. This ingredient I had been searching for was actually available at a home brew store down the road all this time! Tofu Mom provided links to three different tofu making methods, it was the first I followed which uses calcium sulphate. I found the process pretty easy, it takes a while from start to end but there is a lot of slack time in between steps. Here is a summary of my tofu making day last weekend.

400 grams of soy beans were soaked overnight, then drained in a colander and rinsed well with water. After placing the soy beans in the blender I filled it up with filtered water to couple of centimetres above the beans.

The soy beans were processed into a paste.

The contents of the blender were poured into a stockpot with 4.5 litres of filtered water and the temperature brought up to between 82C (180F) and 93C (200F) for 30 mins.

The mixture was strained with cheesecloth into a couple of bowls. The leftover pulp okara can be used in baking, I didn't have time to look up recipes for it and froze it for the time being. The strained milk was returned to stockpot and the temperature heated up to 93C (200F).

3 teaspoons of calcium sulphate was mixed with 3 cups boiling water. 3/4 of this mixture was poured into the pot initially and stirred through once. The heat was turned off and the pot sat undisturbed for 10 mins. The liquid was still cloudy after this time so I stirred through the rest of the coagulant as directed. If the liquid is clear there is no need to do this.

The tofu curds were removed from the pot with a slotted spoon and placed into the Tofu Xpress lined with cheesecloth. I didn't realise when I purchased the Tofu Xpress that it could also be used in the tofu making process and was thankful that I decided to buy the additional lighter tension spring that was required for this purpose. The curds released a lot of water for me initially so I drained the excess several times. After the tofu had been resting for 30 minutes the Tofu Xpress was plunged into an ice bath for 1 hour, after that the tofu was ready to eat.

Since my latest motivation to make tofu came from Tofu Mom and I loved the sound of the recipe in one of her recents post I decided to give the Fried Tofu Chik'n Style recipe a go. This was a perfect way to try out the tofu, it was crispy and tasted fantastic and I loved the combination of the vegan mayonnaise, nutritional yeast and soy milk dipping paired with the sage, "chicken" stock, garlic power and cayenne pepper breading.

I love eating tofu a lot so it was very rewarding to finally give tofu making a try. I definitely won't be doing this all the time but will enjoy making a batch every now and then to enjoy a special recipe or two.

Vegan MoFo - Stopover 14 - Madagascar

Madagascar was another exciting pick, it was the first African country to be drawn and apart from Morocco, Egypt and Ethiopia I haven't cooked food originating from African countries before. The food influences of Madagascar vary greatly due to the mix of South East Asians, Africans, Indians, Chinese and Europeans that have settled on the island over the past 2,500 years. Rice is the centre of the Malagasy diet and is eaten at every meal of the day, usually served with an accompaniment called a laoka. The people that reside in coastal areas use coconut milk as the base in their laoka whereas the highlanders are more likely to cook with a tomato base.

I found a selection of Malagasy recipes on celtnet.org.uk and picked out a lima bean and tomato curry called Kabaro au Carry and some fritters which are a common street food called Moko Sakay. Lima beans are one of the few beans I haven't cooked with yet so I was interested to give them a try. The recipe included a curry powder referred to as cape curry powder, this was stated to be most similar to a Malaysian curry powder blend and as I already had some in the pantry, this is what I used. I didn't change anything about this recipe although the cooking time needed to be extended considerably as my beans took 2 hours to soften. This was a fairly mild dish which we all enjoyed, especially the man as he really loves his beans.

Mofo Sakay introduced another new ingredient into my cooking repertoire - watercress. These fritters were a mixture of watercress, tomato, spring onions (scallions), fresh chillies and curry powder. They were simple to put together and fry whilst the beans were cooking away. I was expecting them to be spicier than they turned out, this may have been due to using chillies that had been sitting in the fridge for a while as I usually find fresher chillies tend to have more bite to them. Fritters are usually best eaten straight away yet I found it interesting that the leftover ones reheated in the oven the following day tasted a little different. The peppery taste of the watercress was more prominent as were the spices so even though they weren't as crisp I preferred the heightened flavours.


Mofo Sakay (Adapted from a recipe on celtnet)
Makes about 12 fritters

280g plain flour
1 ½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon Malaysian curry powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
360ml water
60g watercress, chopped
3 birds eye chillies, finely sliced
2 spring onions (scallions), finely sliced
1 medium tomato, diced
oil, for shallow frying

Mix together the flour, salt, curry powder, baking powder and pepper in a large bowl. Pour in the water and stir thoroughly until it becomes a thick batter and no lumps are remaining. Fold the watercress, chillies, spring onions, and tomato through the batter.

Pour about 1-2 cm of oil into a deep sided frying pan and place on medium-high heat. When the oil is hot, drop 3 or 4 large spoonfuls of the batter into the oil, ensuring they have room to spread. Fry for about 3 minutes on one side or until the batter is almost set on top. Flip over and fry for a further 2 minutes or until golden brown. Transfer to a plate lined with paper towels to absorb the excess oil. Repeat the frying process until the batter is used up. 

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Did you know?

Although the island of Madagascar is situated closest to the African coast, the cultural roots are more similar those of South East Asia which were the first inhabitants of the country. The residents of Madagascar are known as Malagasy and they do not like to be referred to as Africans.

Do you want to know where else I've been this month? Click here for the round up.

Vegan MoFo - Stopover 4 - Indonesia

Indonesia was another easy one for me, the meal was planned as soon as the country was drawn! Long time readers of this blog may recall that I struggled to enjoy tempeh for a while before finding some burgers and lasagne that I loved and even after all this time I'm still a bit wary about trying out new tempeh recipes. As tempeh originates from Indonesia I simply had to be brave and delve into a tempeh dish. A recipe called Oseng Oseng Tempe (Fried spiced tempeh) had been on my list to try for ages which is from World Vegetarian Classics by Celia Brooks Brown.

This has been one of my favourite cookbooks for years and definitely the most utilised non-vegan cookbook on my shelf these days. Celia's recipes have rarely left me disappointed, the photography is gorgeous and it covers food from so many countries. Up until now I had only made one of the Indonesian recipes which was a fantastic rendang curry using jackfruit during MoFo last year which still remains as my favourite way to eat jackfruit.

Oseng Oseng Tempeh is a simple dish of thinly sliced tempeh strips shallow fried in oil with shallots and is served with a delicious spicy mixture of cayenne pepper, soy sauce, lime juice, sugar and tomato paste. After the slices were fried there was none of that weird taste I'm not fond of and the young man who is an even bigger tempeh sceptic than me also gave it the thumbs up! I served this with Nasi Goreng (Indonesian fried rice) which was also from World Vegetarian Classics as it's such a typical Indonesian dish and it seemed like a perfect partner for the tempeh. I'm pretty fussy when it comes to this sort of thing and this recipe needed a bit more spice for my liking so I'll probably tweak it a little next time. An interesting note in the cookbook states how it is best to use long grain rice that has been cooked 2-3 hours in advance for Nasi Goreng, fresh rice is no good neither are leftovers that have been sitting in the fridge overnight.

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Did you know?

Most people are aware that there are several volcanoes spread across the islands of Indonesia but how many of you have heard of Mount Kelimutu? It is a unique volcano which contains 3 summit crater lakes that are coloured blue, green and red.

Do you want to know where else I've been this month? Click here for the round up.

Vegan MoFo - Stopover 2 - Sri Lanka

It was an exciting moment when the young man drew Sri Lanka out second, it was a country I really wanted to appear in this challenge because I knew exactly what I was going to make. Many years ago I worked as a travel agent and one of the companies I was employed with was a Sri Lankan family business. During my time there I was introduced to several of their fiery hot curries yet it was their greasy deep-fried snacks known as short eats that remain to this day as my favourite part of Sri Lankan cuisine.

After sampling many of these types of snacks, pan rolls became my favourite short eat and when I introduced the man to them he was hooked too. They resemble a large spring roll that has been crumbed and fried and the spiced, peppery filling inside is irresistible. Traditionally pan rolls are contained inside a pancake before being crumbed and fried which is where the name comes from. I took a shortcut with my version and used spring roll wrappers to cut down on preparation time and because I was fearful about pancakes falling apart.

Most of the ingredients are easy to come by although there are a couple of unique components to the dish like pepper powder and pandan or rampe leaves. I purchased pepper powder from a Sri Lankan spice shop ages ago for the sole purpose of using it in these rolls but I haven't been able to determine whether it is a different type of pepper to the standard black variety that is widely used around the world. Pandan leaves have a mild flavour and aroma and are often used to flavour desserts. There is one across the back of the top photo if you are interested in what they look like.

A few months ago I had my first attempt at making pan rolls which were a huge success even though I had been a little heavy handed with the spices. I didn't post the recipe at the time as I wanted to fine tune it a little but when I came to making them this time I couldn't locate my notes! This time around the pan rolls weren't spicy enough so at least I have recorded this effort now and will get the spices perfect next time around. I couldn't bear to serve up just fried food for dinner so I went served this with a fantastic Sri Lankan cashew curry from the soon to be released Vegan Eats World.

Edited to add (29/10/2012): The recipe has been modified slightly after making a better version and I have also included cooking times for a deep fryer. 


Sri Lankan pan rolls
Makes 10-12 

750g potatoes, peeled and diced into 1cm cubes
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2cm piece ginger, minced
3 birds eye chillies, finely chopped (reduce the amount for a milder version)
300g carrots, finely diced
1 ½ - 2 teaspoons pepper powder (depending on your pepper tolerance)
1 ½ - 2 teaspoons salt
12 curry leaves
2 tablespoons roughly chopped fresh pandan (rampe) leaves OR
2 stalks frozen pandan leaves cut into 5cm pieces
½ cup water
1 cup frozen peas
10-12 25cm spring roll wrappers
soy milk (or other non-dairy milk) and breadcrumbs, for coating
peanut oil, for shallow or deep frying

Place the potatoes in a saucepan filled with water and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 10-15 minutes or until very soft. Drain in a colander and set aside.

Heat the olive oil in a deep sided frying pan over medium heat. Fry the onion, garlic, ginger and chilli for 5 minutes or until the onions have softened. Stir through the carrots, pepper powder, salt, curry leaves, pandan leaves and water, cover and cook on low for 5 minutes. Add the potatoes and mash them lightly into the mixture with a wooden spoon, then stir through the peas and allow them to cook until thawed. Turn off the heat and allow to cool slightly. If using frozen pandan leaves, remove the stalks from the mixture.

Spoon about ¼ cup of the mixture into each spring roll sheet. Roll each one up to enclose the filling. Dunk each roll into soy milk then the breadcrumbs and transfer to a clean plate.

Heat the peanut oil in a deep sided frying pan, wok or deep fryer. If not using a deep fryer, test the readiness of the oil by sprinkling in some breadcrumbs. The breadcrumbs will sizzle immediately when the oil is ready. In you have a deep fryer, set the temperature to 180C.

Fry the pan rolls in batches for a couple of minutes on each side until lightly browned or deep fry for 5 minutes. Drain the excess oil on paper towels and enjoy!

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Did you know?

Sri Lanka was the first country in the world to have a democratically elected head of state who was a woman.

Do you want to know where else I've been this month? Click here for the round up.

Tofu "fish" fingers with tartare sauce

Over the past year or so I have tried a few fish substitute recipes using tofu and none of them really hit the spot. I didn't bother posting about any of these unsatisfactory experiences and continued searching for a better recipe. Last week I tried one that was so good it was immediately requested to go onto high rotation.

I bookmarked a recipe for crispy tofu scallops from cookbook author Bryanna Clark Grogan's blog earlier this year and was interested to try it out as the tofu was marinated prior to being crumbed and fried. Other recipes I had attempted before this one had been battered in a seafood flavoured mixture. Rather than cut the tofu into the shape of scallops as Bryanna had done which would have resulted in leftover tofu scraps, I cut my tofu into strips to resemble fish fingers.  

The recipe sounded fantastic so I didn't want to change too much and only substituted a few ingredients that weren't on hand at home. The absence of dulse or nori flakes in my pantry was of no concern as I was certain that shredding half a sheet of nori would suffice. It did do the job although I would probably use a full sheet next time around. I'm always a little cautious when mimicking seafood flavours as they have never really been my thing. Bryanna had used a type of cereal made of bran flakes which gave her scallops a crunchy coating, I was quite happy to use some wholemeal breadcrumbs this time around.

Bryanna's accompanying tartare sauce recipe wasn't going to work out with the ingredients I had available and after a quick search I found a recipe on allrecipes.com that almost suited my needs. I substituted a couple of gherkins and some fresh dill for the sweet pickle relish and asked the man to be my taste tester as he has much more expertise eating tartare sauce than I do.  

The crispy outer layer of the "fish" fingers combined with the tender tofu within was incredible and the tartare sauce paired perfectly with them. I'm tempted to to give this a try with frozen and thawed tofu another time for comparative purposes although this is a recipe I don't think I'll be playing around with too much.


Tofu "fish" fingers (Adapted from Notes from the Vegan Feast Kitchen)

350g firm tofu, drained and pressed
1 cup water
3 tablespoons vegetarian stir fry sauce
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
½ tablespoon raw sugar
1 teaspoon salt
½ - 1 sheet of nori, shredded in a spice grinder
½ cup plain flour
½ cup soy milk
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
2 crusts wholemeal bread, processed into breadcrumbs
Peanut oil or other vegetable oil, for shallow frying

Cut the tofu into thirds lengthwise, then cut each piece of tofu into 6 even sized sticks. Whisk together the water, vegetarian stir fry sauce, lemon juice, oilive oil, garlic, sugar, salt and nori in a deep sided dish and add the tofu ensuring that it is well coated in the marinade. Allow to rest covered in the refrigerator for several hours if possible, or at least 30 minutes.

Organise 3 bowls for coating the tofu fingers, plain flour in the first, soy milk mixed with apple cider vinegar in the second and breadcrumbs in the third.

Heat oil in a deep sided frying pan. Test the oil's readiniess by placing a breadcrumb into the oil, if it sizzles the oil is hot enough. Cook the tofu fingers in batches. Fry on one side for about 3 minutes and then flip over and cook on the other side for a further 3 minutes. Remove and place on paper towels to drain the excess oil.


Tartare sauce (Adapted from allrecipes.com)

½ cup vegan mayonnaise (I used Praise 97% fat free)
¼ small brown onion, very finely diced
2 gherkins, very finely diced
1 tablespoon dill, chopped finely

Mix all ingredients together in a small bowl at least 30 minutes before serving. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until required.

Gobi pakoras (Cauliflower pakoras)

Whilst I cook Indian meals on a fairly regular basis there are so many types of Indian foods I still haven't attempted to make at home. I generally rotate between vegetable based curries, several different dals, koftas and occasionally flatbreads. Apart from samosas and onion bhajis, Indian appetisers haven't really featured in my kitchen. Pakoras popped into my mind the other day when I was brainstorming something different to serve with my old favourite dal makhani. I have always enjoyed these spicy fried snacks in restaurants.    

After flicking through my cookbooks I couldn't settle on a recipe so I searched around the internet as well. The common theme was a 1:1 ratio of besan (chickpea flour) to water, bicarbonate of soda and lemon juice. The spices seemed to be the factor that gave these recipes their individuality. This research was quite interesting yet I still couldn't decide on a recipe. I ended up following one from an older cookbook of mine that has been a bit hit and miss at times and added a few extra spices I had liked the sound of in other recipes, kaloonji (nigella) seeds being one of them. 

This pakora batter could be used with a variety of vegetables, at the time I had an abundance of cauliflower and decide to use that solely. Coriander and tamarind chutneys as well as raitas were mentioned as being ideal condiments. I enjoyed testing a coriander chutney for Terry Hope Romero several months ago and whipped up a batch to have with these pakoras, this was a perfect match. The three of us couldn't quite make it through the quantity in this recipe as we also had dal to eat. It was difficult to show restraint as the pakoras were incredibly tasty. I highly recommend eating these on the night they are prepared, reheating the leftovers in the oven crisped them up a little yet they weren't as fantastic as they were fresh from the wok.

Gobi pakoras (Cauliflower pakoras)  (Adapted from The Essential Asian Cookbook) 

1/2 head cauliflower, cut into small florets

3/4 cup chickpea (besan) flour 

1/2 teaspoon turmeric

1 teaspoon garam masala

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon kalooni (nigella) seeds

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

3/4 cup water

1 tablespoon lemon juice

3/4 - 1 cup peanut oil, for frying 

Mix the chickpea flour, turmeric, garam masala, coriander, kaloonji, cayenne pepper, salt and bicarbonate of soda together in a large bowl. Pour in the water and lemon juice and whisk until a smooth batter forms.

Heat some oil in a wok or deep sided frying pan. Drop a tiny bit of the batter into the oil. If the oil bubbles around the batter it's ready for frying. Dredge the florets in the batter, then place into the oil and cook in batches for about 5 minutes or until golden. Remove the florets and place on paper towels to drain the excess oil. Serve immediately with a chutney or vegan raita of your choice.