Seaweed 'Bacon' and Mock King Oyster Mushroom 'Scallops'

We have been indulging in King Oyster Mushroom 'Scallops', I know how decadent! And here is the handsome proof.

The King Oyster Mushroom 'Scallops' here are served on a bed of green pea puree, I know how original - not, and Sea Bacon, now that part is original.  

I was actually going to make rice paper 'bacon', but wanted to try the Sea Bacon which are dried strips of dulse. I've had a packet of Sea Bacon in my kitchen cupboard for a little while.  I had forgotten that I had it until I came across it looking for something else. I fried it in a little oil for a few seconds to crisp up. 

To the uninitiated, the Sea Bacon looks like thinly sliced potato peel, roasted and then strewn across the plate, but it really is seaweed. And no points for presentation, presentation skills are not my forte. 

The King Oyster Mushroom Scallops were absolutely amazing, the sea bacon was good too, crispy but very salty.  You would not want loads of it here.  I think the amount I served on the plate here was plenty. For the green pea puree I used frozen peas.

I am sharing this with The Veg Hog who is hosting #EatYourGreens this month.  There is plenty of time to join in, so please do.   

King Oyster Mushroom 'Scallops'

May I present to you homemade King Oyster Mushroom Scallops.

I made these mock 'scallops' last month during Veganuary (which I was doing quietly) for St Dwynwen's Day - Welsh Valentines Day. 

For an extra touch of elegance, I served them in these sea shells that I picked up from Cornwall a couple of years ago. 

King Oyster mushrooms are hard to track down where I am, but suddenly some supermarkets have them and I have been loving it, as it finally gave me the opportunity to make these vegan mock 'scallops' a number of times, and let me tell you these were superb!

Black Eyed Pea and Courgette 'Crab' Cakes

Since making the Cincinnati Spaghetti from The Superfun Times: Vegan Holiday Cookbook by Isa Chandra Moskowitz, I have been perusing the cookbook quite a bit of late.

Over the weekend, I made these vegan Black Eyed Pea and Courgette 'Crab' Cakes as I wanted to start using my tub of Old Bay Seasoning.  I made the recipe from scratch.  Soaking the black eyed peas overnight and cooking it the following day; and blitzing fresh breadcrumbs at home.

This is not a sponsored blog post - I bought this product to try

These vegan 'crab' cakes were nice, but they did not blow me away. I think I would prefer the Chesapeake Tempeh Cakes from Vegan Brunch for more 'fishy' flakiness, as these ones were made with grated courgettes and seemed to impart an element of dampness to these savoury cakes.

Still nothing goes to waste in our home, they were all eaten with homemade Sriracha mayo.

Other Savoury Cake Recipes 

Fishless Japanese Sea Vegetable and Nori Cakes

Savoury Kale Cakes 

Purple and Green Cabbage Potato Cakes

Parsnip Potato cakes

Courgette Potato Cakes

wild Garlic Potato Cakes

Vegan Smoked Carrot 'Salmon'

I have been following Olives for Dinner for a while, and Erin's originality is astounding and her generosity for sharing her recipes definitely praise worthy.   I have a number of her recipes bookmarked including her Carrot Lox recipe.  I have been waiting for an excuse to make it.  

The reason for finally making the vegan Smoked Carrot 'Salmon' came to me last week, when it was one of my good work colleagues birthday.  This colleague happens to be vegan. 

One colleague who is an excellent baker had decided to make her some vegan chocolate cupcakes with Lotus Biscoffi 'butter cream'.  I had decided to have a go at making the classic Cream Cheese and Smoked 'Salmon' Bagels for her, only vegan style!  

The first time I ever had smoked Salmon was by pure accident.  It was on a flight from Paris to San Francisco many, many years ago. I was assured by the flight attendant that the ready made vegetarian meal  I was having was indeed vegetarian, even when I questioned it.  I didn't even know what smoked lox was then.  I  remember the taste in my mouth and it stuck with me and tasting this vegan Smoked Carrot 'Salmon' transported me back to that memory.  D my husband who is not vegetarian and does still on rare occasions (only if and when we go out for meals) eat seafood and fish was totally amazed at how the Smoked Carrot 'Salmon' mimicked the silky fleshy texture of the real thing.

Full credit for the recipe and inspiration for the Carrot Lox goes to Olives for Dinner.  I made the Smoked Carrot 'Salmon' in a loaf tin lined with baking parchment paper.  I also only used 1 and a 1/2 cup of sea salt as that is all I had. I subbed white wine vinegar as I have not been able to source coconut vinegar near where I live. I also read the comments in the original post and substituted the olive oil for flaxseed oil that you can get from most health shops.  In future, advice to myself is to use much thicker and fatter carrots next time as the smoked carrots felt a little tender going through the mandolin.  

I made the classic Cream Cheese and  Smoked Carrot 'Salmon' Bagel fresh at work for my colleague.  I sliced open the chewy bagel, slathered over Bute Islands soft vegan Creamy Sheese and layered the vegan Smoked Carrot 'Salmon' in generous folds .  She absolutely loved it.  Only thing, she confessed she had never had real smoked salmon so was unable to compare it previous experiences, she was still very very happy with her edible gift.

The vegan Smoked Carrot 'Salmon' is a very convincing substitute and its quite fatty and oily in texture that I have been inspired to have a go at making vegan Scandinavian style Gravadlax soon too.  I am sharing this awesome recipe with Baking Queen Slow Cooked Challenge. 

Fishless Fish Free Japanese Sea Vegetable and Nori Cakes

These Fishless Japanese Sea Vegetable and Nori Cakes would make a fantastic light starter 

I think these Fishless Sea Vegetable Cakes look marvellous without the panko coating that its a shame it has to be cover the colourful seaweed shades of greens.   This is my submission to #EatYourGreens food challenge.  Please do join in with you Green Vegan Mofo blog post, the rules are here.

Before I give you the recipe, I want a little bit of a rant.  Yesterday was not the day we had planned.  All our good plans went pear shaped.  We were on our way to Bristol to celebrate and have a little fun with my nephews, but the icy weather played havoc with our car that we had to turn back home and go to the garage.  It cost us £300.00.  Happy Birthday. There was no point in grumbling but I was very mift and wished we had never left the house in the first place.  All the signs with the weather were warning us to stay indoors.  When we got back home we just tried to make the best of what was left of the day at home and outside it poured ice buckets. 

Anyway, I digress.  I had so much fun getting back into Food 'N' Flix, so I am joining again.  The movie chosen this month is Burnt.  As a foodies, I have to admit I had not seen it or heard of it and to be honest, I am not a fan of either Bradley Cooper or Sienna Miller, but I wanted to play along with Food N Flix,  so I purchased the film.  I watched it one weekend.  

Although there are loads of food references, it did not terribly inspire me - perhaps because I am a Vegetarian and many of the food references were to meat and seafood, but whilst I was racking my head for ideas the scene when the two lead characters are in Billinsgate Markets,  London's most famous fish market inspired me to make some 'Fish' Cakes.

Of course I was not going to make anything with fish or seafood, but I did have sea vegetables and these Fishless Fishfree Sea Vegetable Cakes were created . 

Luxurious Vegan 'Vish Fish' Pie with Sea Vegetables, Spaghetti Seaweed, Smoked Tofu

This is perhaps the most luxurious vegan fish = Vish pie you will ever set eyes upon or eat, if you choose to make it.  

I made this rather La-Vish/lavish Vegan Ocean Pie over the weekend.  D wasn't feel too good, so we didn't venture far at all.  I decided to play with some new ingredients and incorporate them into this experimental Pie.  This vegan 'Fish' Pie is packed with vegetables, smoked tofu, sea vegetables, spaghetti seaweed and sea flakes to give it that natural taste of the sea.    

Unlike the other vegetarian and vegan pies featured on my blog, this one is made with lots of unusual ingredients and has a lot of processes before it reaches the plate, but its all worth it. One of the other things I wanted to do was cut the tofu to resemble little fishies, click here to see my Tofu Fish, but couldn't find my cutter, but I did get round to using my new EZ Tofu Press (see below).

I feel for D, he eats mostly vegetarian meals because of me. The only meat he will eat is fish, but its not often.  Its only if we ever go out to eat or on holidays overseas, he will order a fish or seafood meal, but even then its quite rare.   He doesn't moan, but I know sometimes he hankers for some Fish Supper Fridays.  So I made this with him in mind.  I was a little unsure if he would accept this meal, but he has always been gracious and accepted whatever I have put on the table for him to eat.  He thought the ingredients mimicked the flavours of a Fish pie well.  Lots of textures and flavours from the vegetables, seaweed and liquid smoked tofu.  

The cream sauce was delicious enhanced by the nutritional yeast.  The only thing that muddied the creamy sauce was the chestnut mushrooms, if I could have found oyster mushrooms locally, I would have thrown them into the pan, but its a small aesthetic thing, it did not impact on the dish as a whole. To finish off it was topped of with mashed potatoes that were doused with Green Nori flakes and then put into the oven to bake.

Tofu 'Fish', Chips and Mushy Peas

This Great British Pub grub has been given the veg(etari)an culinary makeover.

All that is missing from this plate is a generous dolloping of bright red sauce.

For those of you who have been reading my blog a while, will note that I am a greasy fingered girl.  I like my deep fried snacks, especially chips, pakoras aka bhaji's and samosas.  When I told D I was going to be making Battered Tofu 'Fish' and Mushy Peas, he snugged his nose.  Not so much at the idea of the Battered Tofu 'fish', (though his preference is bread crumbed) but the mushy peas.  For some reason, he has never been keen on mushy peas - not sure if its the processed flavour or its luminous green colouring. Mushy peas like the ones I've made here are traditionally made from dried marrow fat peas.

If your lucky to be near a Chinese Wholesaler, you can find soya fish, Soya fish fillets, soya squid and soya scallops from Chinese wholesalers. I actually did see some Soya 'fish' (head, fins and tail) at SeeWoo, Glasgow a few month ago when I picked up the vegetarian 'prawns' and wonton wrappers.  Momentarily, I had considered purchasing a packet of a soya 'fish', but it was mighty for me to wolf down alone and D wasn't keen on sharing.  I wish I had done so now, as I may not find Soya 'fish' when I move down South.  Also there are not many places in the U.K that make 'Fish' and chips suitable for vegetarians or vegans.  In fact, I know of only one place, a company called Something Fishy: Purveyors of fine quality soya meat and seaweed that do so.

Anyway, here I have used firm tofu and my fish biscuit/cookie cutter to mimic the shape of a fish.  If you can't find a fish shaped cutter, just slice the tofu and make 'fish fingers' and then coat it in a batter. If I had the patience I would have wrapped my tofu 'fish' in some dried seaweed to give it the smell, if not the taste of the sea.

Spiced green beans with Tamarind Tofu

Is that fish steaks on your plate?!

I agree, sure does look like that, but let me assure you its 100% vegan.
After making the broad beans in tamarind sauce, I decided to carry out an experiment with the tamarind concentrate: Baked Tamarind tofu. Despite how it looks, it worked out pretty good. The flavour of the thick tamarind sauce was sharp. You could call it a BBQ sauce I guess, I honestly wouldn't know as I've never had any, or made any in my entire life; and I am a woman of a certain age now. Nope, it was not part of my childhood, teenage or early adulthood days. The tamarind sauce actually reminded us both a little of Brown sauce, just a lot more zing and zang in the mouth. So I’ve reduced the tamarind a touch. Our only complaint with this dish was the tofu itself. Its the brand I use often, but this particular this slab of tofu was actually quite soft, instead of firm. This detracted a little of our enjoyment of the meal.

I served the tamarind tofu with some spiced potatoes and the remaining runner, green (and yellow) beans in my freezer from last year. These were good and a good way to use up frozen beans.
Tamarind Tofu
Serves 3 – 4
Ingredients (can be halved)500g firm tofu
2 tablespoon oil
1 medium onion, minced
2 cloves of garlic, crushed and chopped
1 chilli pepper, seeded and chopped
Pinch of salt
1 to 1½ tablespoon tamarind concentrate
100ml water
1 teaspoon ginger powder
½ teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon ground coriander
Method
Preheat oven to gas mark 6
Slice the tofu into ¼ inch slices, lightly fry in 1 tablespoon of oil and set aside
Saute the onions, garlic and chilli in the remaining oil, and blend with all the other ingredients until smooth.
Arrange the tofu slices on a lightly greased baking dish, pour the sauce over the tofu and bake for 15-25 minutes.
Spiced green beans with new potatoes
Serves 2 - 4 as an accompaniment
Ingredients200g new potatoes, steamed, halved and set aside
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon of black mustard seeds
1 generous teaspoon of cumin seeds
1 teaspoon coriander, freshly ground
300g green beans, topped and tailed
Salt to taste
100ml water
Method
Heat the oil in a wide pan, when hot add mustard seeds and cumin seeds and cook until the cumin is dark and the mustard pops. Add the potatoes and green beans and cook for a few minutes, before adding the water. Cover with a tight fitting lid and cook gently for 10 minutes, or until the beans are tender, but still crunchy.
Uncover and turn up the heat. Stir in the ground coriander and seal to taste and cook rapidly for a few minutes until most of the water evaporates. Idea inspired by Stones Cookbook.