The Ultimate Vegan Bacon Bloody Mary

 

Hey everyone!

I wanted to give you a bloody mary recipe as an excuse to show you how to make bacon from aubergine, as I saw these really ridiculous things going viral on Facebook that looked like it had half an abattoir on a cocktail stick hanging out of a tomato juice. I thought they were super stupid so I thought, let’s be equally as silly but show a different want to make a blant based smokey, crispy and delicious bacon alternative.

So the basic recipe for a bloody mary is tomato juice, celery salt, chilli powder, pepper, tabasco, Worcestershire sauce, honey if you eat honey and vodka. I did half a tsp of the dry ingredients and a drip of the wet. How much you want to make it up to you because I’m definitely that meme of a splash of vodka so I really couldn’t advise how much you want to add because I’d do it with a litre of tomato juice and a couple of shots worth of vodka and you’ll have a more traditional taste.

For the glass, you use the lime to basically coat the top of the glass, in a dish mix some salt and some chilli flakes and the salt will basically stick to everywhere the lime has touched. It’s a nice touch and gives that umami flavour when drinking.

With the garnish, I wanted to give you a quick list of what to prepare because it’s an easy one, but the flavor is a combo. You begin with salting a strip of aubergine and leaving it to dry out for about half an hour per strips. You want the moisture to be drawn out and the bitterness to subside.

Ingredients

  • Celery

  • Aubergine

  • Maple Syrup

  • Tomato Powder

  • Light Soy Sauce

  • Dark Soy Sauce

  • Liquid Smoke

  • Toasted Sesame Seed Oil

  • Black olive

Next, all you do is get the pan very hot with toasted sesame oil, when it cooks it haves a burnt flavor which is quite nice in this instance. Throw the ‘bacon’ in and in the pan and coat with three drops of liquid smoke, tomato powder enough to coat the top, two splashes of light soy sauce, one splash of dark soy sauce, half a tsp of maple syrup and fry on both sides.

The texture is crispy and then goes into a sort of softer fleshier texture, and the flavor is just amazing. It might not be what bacon tastes like but I wouldn’t ever want to eat the beind of a pig in my experience of life, so this is just a garnish that adds something to the cocktail.

Serve with celery and olive, and enjoy!

 
Joseph Harwood