Breaking
FoodNerdy Recipes Management System
Tag

alternative

Browsing
Food

Vegan Duck: A Recipe for the Alternative Christmas Roast

Vegan duck based on seitan, with side dishes such as potato dumplings and red cabbage – and you have a delicious Christmas menu without any animal cruelty. With this recipe you can prepare the plant-based Christmas roast.

Whether for Christmas, Easter or another special occasion such as a birthday: On some days, a fine meal is simply part of it. You don’t necessarily need an animal for a juicy roast. We will show you how to prepare and serve vegan duck.

Vegan Duck: The basis for the recipe

Theoretically, you can also make seitan yourself and use it to make your own vegan duck – but this takes time and skill. It’s faster if you use ready-made products. Some manufacturers now have vegan seitan-based duck in their range. This is similar in consistency and appearance to a duck breast fillet – and with the right preparation, it tastes the same. We recommend, for example, the vegan duck from Veganz. You should plan around 500 grams of vegan duck for three to four people.

You can serve the vegan duck with side dishes of your choice. Potato dumplings and red cabbage as well as a dark gravy are ideal for a classic Christmas menu. We’ll show you how to do it.

Ingredients for the vegan duck:

500 g vegan duck

Vegan duck with red cabbage: Recipe for the side dish

It is best to start the menu with apple and red cabbage: this tastes particularly delicious if it can still infuse a bit. For about four large servings you need the following ingredients:

a red cabbage (medium size)
2 onions
oil for frying
3 apples
3 oranges for squeezing or 250 ml orange juice
250 ml red wine
500ml of water
2 bay leaves
6 juniper berries
4 cloves
1 tsp cinnamon
pepper
Salt

Potato dumplings with vegan duck: recipe instructions

You will also need the following ingredients for about twelve smaller potato dumplings:

1 kg of potatoes
250 g potato flour
150-200 ml lukewarm water
Salt

Vegan gravy for the duck: recipe

To ensure that the vegan duck tastes juicy, a hearty gravy is a must. The porcini or shiitake mushrooms in the sauce provide the umami taste. For the vegan version you need these ingredients:

600-700 ml vegetable stock, preferably homemade
30 g dried porcini mushrooms (or 200 g fresh mushrooms such as button mushrooms or shiitake)
2 medium onions
3 cloves of garlic
2 tbsp organic olive oil
3 tablespoons cornstarch or flour
1 tsp thyme
3 tsp rosemary
salt and pepper to taste
fresh parsley for garnish (optional)

Roast and serve vegan duck: instructions

When you have prepared the side dishes and sauces, you can prepare the vegan duck:

Heat enough oil in a pan and then add the vegan duck breast fillet pieces.
Fry the vegan duck on all sides for several minutes until it is crispy.
Remove the roasted duck pieces from the pan and place them in the warm gravy until ready to serve. Tip: Leave the vegan duck in the sauce for a few minutes. So it absorbs a little more aroma and tastes particularly juicy in the end.

Keep Reading
By
Food

Mashed Potatoes Without Milk: You Can Use This as an Alternative

You can also prepare creamy mashed potatoes without milk. We will tell you which ingredients are suitable for the potato main course or side dish.

Mashed potatoes without milk can be just as creamy as the classic recipe. Traditionally, mashed potatoes are made with cow’s milk. However, if you avoid dairy products, you can prepare the homemade mashed potatoes with alternative products.

In addition to milk alternatives, you need potatoes and spices of your choice. Potatoes are healthy because they contain protein, fiber and important micronutrients, among other things.

When choosing your ingredients, make sure they come from organic farming. In this way you avoid residues of chemical-synthetic pesticides in and on your food. You also reduce your carbon footprint if you choose regional potatoes.

Tip: Easily plant potatoes yourself.

Plant-based milk alternatives

To cook mashed potatoes without milk, you can switch to plant-based alternatives. These lactose-free and vegan products are particularly suitable:

Oat milk: Easily make your own oat milk from oatmeal and water. The oat milk has a slightly tart taste and goes well with the hearty recipe. You can also get oat flakes and oat milk from regional cultivation.
Soy milk: Milk made from soy is a popular alternative because it is nutritious and tastes creamy. However, soy milk is mostly imported and therefore contributes to more CO2 emissions.
Almond milk: With our simple quick recipe you can make almond milk yourself. It is a bit sweeter than other alternatives and gives the mashed potatoes a nutty note.

Alternatives to dairy products

If you want to cook your mashed potatoes without milk or milk alternatives, you can choose the following products:

Catch the cooking water from the potatoes and mix some of it with the potatoes as you mash. This preserves the aroma of the potatoes and you avoid wasting nutrients in the potato water. The starch contained in the water makes the mashed potatoes particularly creamy.
Vegetable broth is a flavorful alternative. Make your own vegetable broth and cook a hearty puree with it.
In addition to the vegetable broth, you can also use yeast flakes. They are flavorful and add a creamy texture to the mashed potatoes without milk. So that the mashed potatoes don’t get too dry, it’s good to mix the potatoes with yeast flakes and some water.
Use fats or oils. Vegan margarine and olive oil are flavor carriers and bind the potatoes into a smooth mass when pureed.
The amount of ingredients depends on the amount of potatoes you have. It’s best to drain off the cooking water, catch as needed, and then gradually add the milk alternatives until you get a creamy and smooth consistency.

Keep Reading
By
Food

Pinsa Romana: This is How the Easily Digestible Pizza Alternative Succeeds

The Pinsa Romana is similar to an ordinary pizza, but is said to be more digestible. We will explain to you what is behind the trend from Italy and how you can prepare Pinsa yourself.

For several years, a trend dish has been spreading from Italy that not only resembles pizza in name: the pinsa. They are also called Pinsa Romana, because the Romans are said to have enjoyed eating the pastry. But the recipe was forgotten until it was rediscovered in the last decade.

What makes the pinsa romana so popular? Above all, it is their dough that is said to be more digestible than pizza dough. It consists of a mixture of wheat, rice and soy or chickpea flour and Italian sourdough (“lievito madre”). The rice flour is supposed to loosen up the dough, the soy flour ensures good binding and proteins and the sourdough is supposed to make the pinsa romana easier to digest.

The long rising time also contributes to this: the dough of the pinsa should rest for up to 72 hours or more. The ongoing fermentation processes not only make the dough very airy, but are also supposed to relieve the digestive tract of some of its work. However, there are still no systematic scientific comparative studies between the digestibility of pinsa and pizza. More about this here: This is why many people can no longer tolerate bread.

In the next sections you will find out how you can bake and topping Pinsa Romana yourself without Lievito Madre.

Pinsa Romana: The recipe for the special dough

For four pins you need:

350 g flour type 405 or 550
50 g wholemeal spelled flour
75 g rice flour
25 g chickpea flour or soy flour
0.5g of fresh yeast or 0.2g of fresh yeast and 50g of Lievito Madre
approx. 300 ml cold water
1 tsp salt
1 tsp olive oil

Directions:

Mix the flours together in a large bowl.
Dissolve the yeast and salt each in a portion of the water.
Add yeast water, salt water, olive oil and, if necessary, Lievito Madre to the flour mixture. Knead the ingredients for about ten minutes until you have a smooth dough. Add some more water if needed.
Cover and let the dough rest for 30 minutes, kneading it briefly every ten minutes.
Place the dough in a large sealable container and refrigerate for 48 to 72 hours.
On baking day, take the dough out of the fridge 2-3 hours before you use it to let it come to room temperature.
Knead the dough briefly and divide it into four pieces of dough. Cover them with a tea towel and let them rise again for an hour.
Preheat the oven to 240 degrees circulating air. Note: For most dishes you can do without preheating the oven and thus save energy. Preheating the pinsa romana (just like pizza or tarte flambée) makes sense, however, because it only needs to be baked for a short time, but it should be nice and crispy. The ovens of professional pizzerias reach much higher temperatures.
Pull the dough pieces apart in an oval or round shape. Be careful to break as few air bubbles as possible. The dough does not have to be as thin as pizza dough.
Place the pins on an oiled baking sheet and top them with ingredients of your choice.
Bake the pins for about 10 to 15 minutes.

Tasty toppings for pinsa romana

You can eat the Pinsa pure or top it like a pizza, for example with:

  • tomato sauce
  • fresh seasonal vegetables
  • cheese or vegan yeast melt
  • fresh herbs
  • aromatic olive oil

The only thing to keep in mind is that the Pinsa Romana is only briefly in the oven, just like a pizza. This means that you should pre-cook vegetables or cut them very thinly. It’s also a good idea not to cover the pinsa too thickly, as that could make them mushy (and harder to eat).

Keep Reading
By