I’ve been vegetarian for 8 years now and love it. However, I grew up in South Carolina low country and a local delicacy is called hash, but it’s not like corned beef or breakfast hash, it basically is mush but has really good flavor, like savory and vinegary. You usually have it on a sandwich like bbq pulled pork or over rice. It looks and sounds disgusting but trust me it was a fav of mine growing up. It can be made with any meat but was usually shredded beef or pork and sometimes deer during hunting season (never chicken). The recipe basically involves a huge pot (usually made by churches or fire departments or for fundraisers) and stewing the meat with potatoes, sometimes onions, and other flavors until it’s homogenous and soft and its own thing. Anyways, I’ve been racking my brain trying to think of a substitute that would break down in that way (obviously no substitute will take as long as meat probably) so I can try some semblance of it. Just obviously can do the vinegar, potatoes and if I need to some sort of buillon. I feel like tofu would def be too eggy, and I just don’t know if beyond beef or pork will break down like that. I’ve never used jackfruit or setan, would that do anything? Please let me know!
by wellreadnonsense
14 Comments
You’d probably need several ingredients to replicate that texture. I’m thinking jackfruit for the stringy parts, TVP and wheat gluten for the chewy parts… something like that. Maybe a little nutritional yeast for that gamey flavor.
Impossible burger meat; seitan could do it; meati mb
The Trader Joe’s soy chorizo works very well for this depending on what you’re going for. It just crumbles to pieces.
Lentils or split peas make a good mush cooked with potatoes.
I make lentil burgers from lentils, soy flour and whole wheat flour. Maybe you could use the dough for that.
830g water, 200g green lentils, 200g soy flour, 200 g whole wheat flour, 30g tahini, spices and herbs
Cook the lentils in the water for 25 minutes. Add the other ingredients to it and kneed it into a sturdy dough.
I use a Kenwood kitchen machine for kneeding.
After that I turn it into patties that I bake in the oven for 20 minutes.
You might roll it out into a thick sheet and cut it into small strips and move on to your own preferences from there.
Instead of tahini you could also use margarine for a slightly different texture.
I think you would have to use less whole wheat flour if you want it to break down. Or maybe even leave it all out.
The picture looks very tasty.
Green lentils have a nice meat like texture.
Instead of soy flour you could also try chickpea flour.
The picture looks very tasty. In the Netherlands we would call it goulash.
I would think pulled oyster mushrooms would work, though you might not add them in until later in the stewing process.
Yellow or red lentils and maybe added oyster mushroom?
Jackfruit
Meati steaks work. I made a beefless Stew and cooked it a little too long and the Meati chunks broke down quite a bit into shreds. Still tasty!
Squeaky bean chargrilled steak and cajun fillets break down like this. Pretty sure they do a frozen roast chicken one that also does but it’s flavour is crap on it’s own.
Good question. I thought about this when I tried to recreate an Indonesian stew like rendang.
I know a vegan Indonesian take away that has the most amazing stewed meat, don’t know how they do it!
So far I had okay-ish (7/10) results with seitan.
When using a recipe with beans and a bit more water, it will result in a very soft buttery and shreddable ‘meat’. It doesn’t break down however.
Never tried the recipe with green lentils, but maybe that would be perfect.
Beyond Meat steak strips work great for making a beefless stew.
Thank you for asking this question! It’s something I’ve been searching for so I’m interested to read all the responses. Lots of vegan meat substitutes focus mainly on the chewy texture so it’s hard to find something that breaks down and ‘melts’ in the way I want for a stew.
So far the best I’ve found is jackfruit, I’ve bought some vegan pies that use it and it really pulls apart nicely. Am yet to experiment with it in my own cooking though. I’m thinking combined with a really cooked down lentil base it might be the right direction.
Juicy marbles loin steak