Vegan Kimchi Cheese Chips

Vegan Kimchi Cheese Chips

Serves 6 - 8

Ingredients

1 recipe of cheddar cheese sauce from Teri Gentes
750 g frozen chips
300 ml kimchi

Method 

1. Make the cheddar cheese sauce. Cook the chips according to packet directions.

2. Drain the kimchi. Chop into 1 cm pieces. Fry in an oiled pan over medium heat for about 5 minutes.

3. Top the chips with the cheddar sauce and kimchi.

BBQ Mushroom Burgers

These mushroom burgers are simple but delicious. The pearl barley gives them bite, while the soy sauce and pepper bring out the flavour of the mushrooms. They also satisfy fast-food cravings - the BBQ sauce and mushroom play together well, and you can add some vegan bacon if you want.

BBQ Mushroom Burgers

Makes 8 7cm wide patties

Ingredients

burger patties
70 ml pearl barley
250 g mushrooms (900 ml chopped)
1 potato
1/2 onion
1 clove garlic
1 tbsp soy sauce
salt and pepper

to serve
BBQ sauce
burger buns
arugula/rocket
tomato
radishes

Method 

1. Bring barley to a boil with plenty of water and cook until tender. Peel, chop and boil the potato until soft, about 15 minutes. Mash it.

2. Finely chop the onion and mushrooms and mince the garlic. Heat an oiled pan over medium heat. Fry the onion until glassy. Add the garlic and cook for a minute. Add the mushrooms and fry until done.

3. Combine all patty ingredients and mix well. Form into patties. Fry in an oiled pan over medium heat for a few minutes until browned on both sides, flipping once.

4. Wash the arugula. Slice the tomatoes and radishes. Chop the burger buns in half and toast both halves in a pan until lightly browned. Top with patties, vegetables and BBQ sauce.

Latkes

I could eat latkes every day, if making them didn't involve grating the potatoes. If you have one, you can use a food processor with a shredder attachment to speed up the route to delicious crispy latkes.

Latkes

Makes around 25 latkes

Ingredients

1100 ml potatoes
1/4 tsp salt
150 ml flour
vegetable oil

Method

1. Peel and grate potatoes, by hand or with the shredder attachment of a food processor. Put them in a colander and squeeze the water out them as best as you can.

2. Heat a pan over medium heat. Add a few tablespoons of oil. Mix the potatoes with the flour and salt. Put a few latkes in the pan. Wait until one side is browned and the latkes move easily before turning them. Brown the second side. Cook the rest of the latkes, adding oil between batches as needed.

3. Drain on paper towels. Sprinkle with some more salt. Serve with apple sauce or vegan sour cream.

Churro French Toast

This churro french toast is an easy way to get the taste of churros without making them by scratch. So if you want something greasy and sugary for breakfast, make this! If you have cinnamon sugar left over afterwards, you can pop it in a jar and then sprinkle it on buttered toast later. If you don't want to use as much oil, you can definitely use less, they just won't have quite the same deep fried flavour.

Churro French Toast

Inspired by this recipe
Serves 4

Ingredients

1 small loaf white bread
3 tbsp cinnamon
6 tbsp sugar
vegetable oil
350 ml soy milk
2 tbsp flour
1 tsp nutritional yeast (optional)
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Method

1. Remove the crusts from the bread and cut into thick fingers. Mix the 3 tbsp cinnamon and 6 tbsp sugar together on a plate.

2. Heat 120 ml of oil in a pan over medium heat. Combine the soy milk, flour, nutritional yeast, sugar and vanilla extract in a large bowl.

3. Dip a few of the fingers in the soy milk mixture using tongs or chopsticks. Add them to the pan and fry until browned on all sides, then drain on paper towels and roll in cinnamon sugar. Repeat for the remaining fingers in batches. Enjoy with fruit, chocolate or caramel sauce, cream, or whatever else takes your fancy.

Beer Battered Onion Rings

These crunchy onion rings make a great accompaniment to burgers, for example my New Zealand Beer Battered 'Fish' Burgers. The batter for the tofu and onions is the same, so you can fry your tofu and then use up the rest of the batter on the onions. If you don't want to make burgers, you can probably get away with half a recipe of batter. I find it handy to dip the onions in the batter using chopsticks.

Beer Battered Onion Rings

Ingredients

120 ml vegetable oil
250 ml flour
250 ml beer
1 tsp salt
a dash of pepper
several onions - as many as you want rings

Method

1. Heat the oil over medium heat in a pan. Mix flour, beer, salt and pepper until smooth.

2. Peel the onions. Chop width-wise into rings, and separate the rings. I like to leave the middles whole and use those too - like doughnut holes.

3. Check if the oil is hot. Heat it for a few minutes more if it's not. Dip several rings in the batter, shake to remove excess batter, and add to the hot oil. Cook until brown on both sides, then drain on paper towels and salt. Fry remaining rings. Nom.

New Zealand Beer Battered 'Fish' Burgers & Tartar Sauce

This is a vegan version of the kind of burger you find in a New Zealand fish and chip shop: Crunchy battered 'fish', fresh vegetables and creamy tartar sauce.

New Zealand Beer Battered 'Fish' Burgers & Tartar Sauce

Makes 4 burgers and 150 ml tartar sauce

Tartar Sauce Ingredients

150 ml vegan mayonnaise, ready-made or made according to this recipe with silken tofu
2 tbsp minced onion
2 tbsp minced pickle
1 tbsp minced capers

Burger Ingredients

250 ml flour
250 ml beer
1 tsp salt
a dash of pepper
450 g tofu
120 ml vegetable oil
4 burger buns
red onion (optional)
tomato
lettuce
tomato sauce

Method

1. First, make the tartar sauce: mix all the ingredients and set aside.

2. Heat the oil over medium heat. Mix flour, beer, salt and pepper until smooth. Pat the tofu dry with paper towels. Cut the block into four slabs of tofu.

3. Make sure your oil is good and hot. If it's still not hot, give it some more time to heat. Dip two of the tofu slabs in batter, shake off excess batter and place them in the oil. Cook until golden on both sides. Drain on paper towels and salt. Scoop out any bits of batter still in the pan. Fry the other two slabs.

4. Wash the lettuce and cut the tomato and onion into slices. Cut the burger buns in half and toast the cut sides briefly in a pan.

5. Stack the burger with tofu, tomato, tartar and tomato sauces, a few rings of red onion, and lettuce.

Pambazos

One day, when I was sloping around the internet looking for recipes, I stumbled across this delicious-looking one for Pambazos by Warren Elwin, and thought I have to make this vegan. Pambazos are salsa-coated fried sandwiches from Mexico. I filled this one with vegan sausage, capsicum and potato and topped it with coleslaw. Wrapping them in paper before you eat them is a good idea if you don't want to be covered in sticky salsa.

Pambazos

Inspired by this recipe.

Serves 4

Ingredients

500 ml red cabbage

1 tbsp white wine vinegar

1 tbsp sugar

1 tsp salt

1 onion

1 capsicum

2 cloves garlic

1 pack vegan sausages or chorizo

3 potatoes

1 tbsp smoked paprika

1/2 tsp cayenne powder

1 tsp salt

a pinch black pepper

4 big ciabatta-style rolls

lots of salsa

vegan margarine

Method

1. Thinly slice red cabbage. Toss with vinegar, sugar and salt. Set aside. Peel, dice and boil the potatoes.

2. Dice onion and capsicum and mince garlic. Heat 1 tbsp margarine in a pan over medium heat. Fry vegetables for 10 minutes, or until soft. Chop up the sausages, add and fry for 5 more minutes. Remove mixture from the pan.

3. Add 1 tbsp more margarine to the pan and fry potatoes until browned, about 10 minutes. Add the spices to the pan, along with the fried vegetables and sausages. Mix well and fry for a few more minutes. Remove from the pan.

4. Cut rolls in half, remove some of the dough from the inside, and coat completely in salsa. Add 1 tbsp margarine to the pan. Fry two at a time on both sides until browned. Add more margarine between batches as needed.

5. Put the filling on the rolls and top with coleslaw. Wrap in paper or foil and enjoy!

Jjajangmyun (Korean-Chinese Black Bean Noodles)

Jjajangmyun is a Korean-style Chinese takeaway meal of meat and vegetables cooked in a delicious thick black bean sauce on noodles. I'd been looking forwards to trying it for ages, so I adapted it to be vegan by using some baked tofu. It turned out pretty good!

If you have leftover sauce the next day, but ate all the noodles, you can make jjajangbap by eating the sauce on rice. I topped my version with cucumber, but it's also nice to eat with yellow pickled radish.

Jjajangmyun

Serves 4

Ingredients

450g tofu
2 tsp sesame oil
2 tbsp Korean soy sauce or tamari
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 pack udon or sutamyun
2 onions
2 potatoes
1 zucchini
2 carrots
vegetable oil
250 ml chunjang (Korean black bean paste)
500 ml water
2 tbsp cornstarch
1/2 tbsp sugar
1/2 cucumber

Method

1. Dice the tofu, toss with the sesame oil, soy sauce and pepper, and put in the oven at 200 C for 30 minutes, turning once.

2. Cook noodles. Dice the onions and zucchini. Peel and dice the carrots and potatoes. Heat oil over medium heat in a pan and add all the vegetables except the cucumber. Fry for a few minutes.

6. Add some more oil and the chunjang. Fry for 5-10 minutes, stirring frequently. Add the water, bring to a boil, and simmer until the vegetables are done. Add the tofu.

8. Mix the cornstarch with a few tablespoons of cold water. Add it and cook for a few minutes, until thick. Add sugar and turn off heat. Julienne the cucumber.

9. Place the noodles in bowls. Top with sauce and garnish with cucumber. Mix up and eat!