A delicious vegan version of the typical Mortadella !

in #food6 years ago

As more and more people are choosing not to eat meat or dairy products, the number of vegans is growing fast. Do not tell the world that vegans are eating foods stuffed with chemicals. That's far from the truth and I'm here to prove it. Here the ingredients are simple, accessible to everyone, and they're very easy and fast to prepare.

So...

Welcome to my new vegan mortadella lunch recipe inspired by Italian culinary tradition, but meatless. Another name for this vegan mortadella is also "Bologna". It usually contains black peppercorns and sometimes pistachios. In this case, we've used green olives instead of pistachios. It's also nice to know that this mortadella lasts in the fridge even up to a week.

Step 1 (Preparing the ingredients)

Ingredients:

  • 400 gr canned white beans, drained
  • 1 small beet (for pink color)
  • about 15 green olives
  • 1 small red pepper piece
  • 1 small bunch of parsley
  • 4 small garlic cloves
  • 2 teaspoon agar agar
  • 1/2 teaspoon dry thyme
  • 400 ml water
  • salt & pepper

Step 2 (Making beet juice)

We'll beginning with the process of extracting juice from beet. We need a juicer and of course we need beet. We need very little beet juice, about 2 tablespoons set aside for our recipe, the rest can be combined with apples and carrots and you'll get a delicious drink.

Step 3 (Seasoning)

Put the beans in a suitable bowl for blending.

Over the beans add: salt, pepper, thyme, garlic and two tablespoons beet juice.

We've finished the seasoning, so we're ready for the next step.

Step 4 (Blending)

After we finished the seasoning, we'll blend the ingredients well until we've got a fine paste.

After having obtained a fine and beautifully colored paste, the composition is ready for the next step.

Step 5 (What it is and how to use agar-agar)

Agar-agar is the best gelatin of vegetable origin, obtained from the red algae of the Asian seas. It has many benefits for the body and is found in the form of powder or flakes in herbal stores. Agar-agar powder or flakes are white and slightly transparent and melt only in water or hot juices. Agar-agar contains calcium, iodine, phosphorus and iron. It does not have calories, fats, carbohydrates or sugar. It's also abundant in fiber, the percentage being about 80%. Agar-agar has no taste, is odorless and colorless! It is much stronger than classical gelatin and can handle higher temperatures.

Preparing the agar-agar
  • pour the water in a suitable pot
  • bring the water to a boil, reduce heat to low
  • add 2 teaspoons of agar powder in the pot and stir frequently
  • allow to boil for about 5 minutes for powder, and 10-15 minutes for flakes while still stirring
  • add the agar mixture over our blended beans and blend again to incorporate

That's the end of step 5! Here's how the agar-agar looks when incorporated properly.

Step 6 (Cutting the vegetables)

Cut the vegetables in the desired size.

The ingredients you see below are optional, you can add your favorite vegetables, but I recommend you do not exclude olives, as you'll get a pleasant taste offered by olives. I have not seen anywhere mortadella with green parsley, but this is my personal touch, I usually add green parsley in almost any dish.

After cutting the vegetables, we'll mix them for a even distribution. Just look at this wonderful color explosion!

Add the vegetables to our blending bowl and stir to incorporate. I've added only half of the cut vegetables as I thought they'd be too many, but then I realized they're not that many ... so after mixing everything and pouring into the cylindrical container, I added the rest of the mixed vegetables.

Step 7 (The cylindrical container)

Our composition is ready, so we'll prepare a cylindrical container and we'll pour the liquid composition into it.

Ans that's it ! For today everything is ready, place the cylindrical container in the refrigerator until the next day for coagulation/thickening.

Step 8 (The next day)

The next day, overturn the cylindrical container. Do not worry :D it will come out slowly and nicely.

It is an excellent way to replace the sausage from your sandwiches. I also recommend it to the children, of course. Here's another good option for breakfast, accompanied by tomatoes or other vegetables. There's also the fact that you can beautify decorate a festive meal <3

The preparation can be refrigerated, and if sealed will last for about one week.
I recommend eating it with tomatoes or other vegetables. Here are some more presentation pictures!

Bon Appétit !

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Why give any vegan products a meat inspired name?
Tofurkey, Facon ...now vegan mortadella.
Vegans naming vegetable dishes after meat strikes me as odd. No offense.

If it were the other around, if I was a pure carnivore, I wouldn't be naming things after vegetables - you wouldn't see me sharing my recipe for meatatos or cowslaw.

Hi @ashspencermd, thanks for your comment!

Well the naming is meat inspired because this recipe is meant to replace the meat desire, and if it looks similar enough to the original meat recipe, it'll satisfy the craving of those people, at least visually :P since most new vegans still have cravings for the food they ate in the past.

Also it can't be the other way around :D if you try to eat only meat, you'll most likely die :| you need essential amino-acids to survive, and they can only be fund in plants ... no offense ;)

Anyway this is just a name, it's not meant to harm anyone or to trick meat eaters ... it's just some familiar name that most of the new vegans will recognize and most surely will appreciate the alternative way of preparing (veggie based) <3

Vegans have a desire for meat? It seems to me if someone's going to the extreme of not eating any meat or animal based products, then their meat desire would be at pretty much zero.
What kind of self respecting vegan wants to pretend they're eating animals whilst eating vegetables?

Seems I didn't get the idea across ... vegans don't desire to eat meat, but most of us grow up eating meat based foods, don't we ?

Being vegan is a moral choice rather than a dietary one. Most vegans won't tell you that meat tastes bad ... only that you shouldn't harm other beings just for your own dietary satisfaction.

The mortadella for example is just a meat based food, but who eats mortadella by itself ? You usually make a sandwich or eat it next to something else .... the desire is for that sandwich ... that you used to eat in the past ... and you can't deny the memories are still there, even tho you decided to stop doing harm to animals :P Most vegans still have a pleasant feeling when thinking about a dish they liked to eat as a child.

And how can you still eat the same sandwich that gave you that wonderful feeling in the past ? It's simple, you use a vegetable based alternative <3

Isn't it still a sandwich ? Is it really immoral to want to eat a sandwich, that looks like a meat based one from your past, if you're not harming any animals in the process ?

If not eating meat is a moral choice as you say, i.e. you use to eat meat, and now you've realized the eating of meat is morally wrong, then the fashioning of a sandwich that allows you to look back at your past moral failings with fondness strikes me as a very odd thing to do.
I'm not saying you are odd as a total person, just the single practice you are describing here.
Sure it's not immoral to eat the non meat sandwich today, of course not. ...but to make the sandwich so that it purposefully reminds you of past crimes you committed against animals, seems like something you'd want to avoid, not seek out because it makes you feel good.

As an analogy...say i'd been smacking my kid regularly up until they were 9 (i don't have any children, but just go with me here)... once they hit 10 I realized what a monster i was and vowed I'd never to do it again because it was morally abhorrent.
You'd say good for me presumably.
But what if i said, i got a large doll that looked like my kid and I enjoyed smacking it just to get in touch with the feelings I used to have when I was smacking my kids for real. It's not immoral to smack a doll... you're not harming any kids in the process. But it'd be a weird thing for me to want to do don't you think?

If you become a vegan the first thing you have to do is forgive yourself for the past mistakes, accept them. This is the key concept that I don't think you're seeing ... my previous reply was informative enough ...

I'm sorry I can't help you understand why a vegan would crave a certain dish from his past :)

My suggestion is to try it for yourself (go vegan!), that's the best way to understand it <3

sooo eating a sandwich with real mortadella is like beating up your kid (the kid feels pain) and eating that same sandwich with vegan mortadella is like beating up a doll (can't feel pain) ... it's an odd comparison, but completely on point (pain wise) ... i'm not sure i care why you'd beat up the doll, if it's weird or not, but i'm 100% positive i'd rather have you beat the doll instead of the kid :D

btw i think it's worse to eat meat than to beat up some1 else :D since the animal has to die first :P

also most ppl that eat meat don't kill animals themselves :P they pay for the final product, they like to eat the final product not raw meat ... so if the final product can be made meat free and you can eat it with peace in your heart ... why wld you NOT do it ? cuz it will "remind you of past crimes" ? really ?

Wow!!! Thank you so much for sharing this! Amazing post! 😘

Thanks a lot @chaseburnett! I've looked at your blog and it's really great, considering that, getting your support really means a lot to me <3 followed ;)

Thank you so much! 💖💖💖💖

So delicious thanks for sharing the tutorial!!
I'm from Venezuela and one of my favorite Dish is arepa with mortadella and queese

Hi there @erickyoussif ! Thanks a lot for your support :D That's some lovely combination you've described <3

Nice post, looks totally delicious <3

@OriginalWorks

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All the spices and olive bits make it look delicious. The pink color not so much. But I would gladly eat three of those sandwiches right now. If I had the means to do so I would go vegan. But I think there is a lot to learn in order to become one and eat tasty.

Where I live people is becoming vegetarian not by choice but because they have no option other that doing so.

Great post. Good quality content. I'm following you you.

👏👏👏👍

Delicious!

And I don't know if you will share this or not, but it definitely deserves.
It will benefit everyone A LOT.

Add 30+ YEARS TO YOUR LIFE!
Go VEGAN!
And SAVE EARTH!

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