Meatless Meatballs - How to Create a Good Patty Base With no Egg
Hey everyone!
I wanted to include this recipe because I had a bit of a mad time when I filmed this in May, I was out and about as one does, someone ran up to me and asked me for a lighter, I had my phone out to get into my bag and they stole my phone and ran away! What a fucking prick.
Anyway, my photos I took for this recipe were in the bloody phone so I don’t have the step by step of this one, and a couple of the others that week. But alas, we shall continue. For this dish, I've given you pretty much a basic recipe for tomato sauces in my pasta from before, I’ve also given you a bit of a basic about using rice pasta and it’s pretty much the meatballs that are the star of the show and the hardest for getting right.
Ingredients
Vegan Parmesan
Chickpea Flower
White Flour
Almond Milk
Olive Oil Butter
Nutritional Yeast
Onion Powder
Garlic Powder
Chilli Powder
Liquid Smoke
Shallots
Mushroom Mince OR Vegan Mince Replacement
So the key to this is simple is way better than any elaborate recipes because meatballs are really impossible to keep in their shape if they don’t have eggs, and it’s harder the more you add to the recipe. You basically want to fry off some very finely chopped shallots, they give a sweetness that caramelises when cooked so it’s pretty awesome to add instead of fine onions, you’d use about three to one onion, but they have to be fine whatever you choose.
Next, you add to the onions the mushroom mince or the vegan mince. I used a vegan mince replacement from Quorn, it’s not my favourite by any stretch but I try and keep everything accessible for people as these aren’t some sort of gourmet, they’re how to try things for the first time. I used the 250g bag of mince, but if you’re using mushrooms use 300g or so and you can dice any of your choices. Don’t throw five different types of fungi in the dish and expect it to bind great, keep it simple and normally the mushroom minces you can get from supermarkets are like pretty good to straight into a pan but prewash and do your routine. Once that’s cooked set aside to cool.
We need to make the binder, so mix half a cup of chickpea flour with half a cup of almond milk, you can use water but I think milk works better. Add 1tsp of nutritional yeast with chilli, garlic, onion powders and seasoning to your taste. I would also say you could add oregano or something else but it’s totally up to you, there is also like a touch of sulphur salt which you can grab from Indian food stores that is like a tiny bit of egg, this is good if you’re making an egg replacement but it’s also gonna give a slight cheese tint and add to the flavour. Up to you!
Set that to one side again and go back to your cooked mince and onion mix, try and push kitchen papers into the mix so that the moisture from the dish is pulled out as it doesn’t work as well if theres wet, the steam as it cooks will pull the meatballs apart but it just helps a touch. Sprinkle some of the parmesan into that part, it works in two ways it flavours and it absorbs extra moisture. There’s a fabulous brand I met at the Vegan Festival called Good Carma Foods that I really liked so check that one out, you need a couple of tablespoons.
Now it’s time to combine the chickpea egg-like paste with the meat and the trick here is to grab one of those cake baking tins! line the tins with olive oil and start dividing the mixture into balls, I did this with the Gnocci recipe before so you can check that one out in past recipes but it is so much easier. Then bake for about 20 minutes on 180c and once the meatballs have slight browning to them in some liquid smoke, you can transfer them to a pan with some more olive oil and seal them properly. They should be held together perfectly. If they start to fall apart when cooking, they’re too moisture heavy and if they turn crumbly there will be too much flour so you have to trial and error. This is the pretty straight forward combo of ingredients so it should be perfect!
Add your sauce, throw over some pasta and have an easy, meaty treaty with some vegan cheese.
Let me know in the comments what you think and if you’ll try this one out at home!