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Vegetarian bacon?

incorporating Recipes and Cooking
Slarti
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Vegetarian bacon?

#12131

Postby Slarti » December 5th, 2016, 3:49 pm

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/researchers-discover-seaweed-that-tastes-like-bacon-and-is-twice-as-healthy-as-kale-a7455071.html?cmpid=facebook-post

Has anybody tried frying the stuff they make lava bread from, over in Wales?

We need to know, does it taste of bacon when fried?

Slarti

GJHarney
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Re: Vegetarian bacon?

#12148

Postby GJHarney » December 5th, 2016, 4:19 pm

It reads like a bit of advertising hype from this US grower. Not to say that seaweed is not very tasty in a lot of uses (including nori, which is not too far removed from lava, in Japanese sushi). The problem though with a lot of meat substitutes is less about taste and more about texture and cooking behavior. E.g., most chicken flavor crisps are veggie, taste like chicken (using artificial flavorings), but they are still crisps. Some quorn products aren't bad (much better than the soya textured stuff) when it comes to chicken and turkey-like products, or for sausages and pies, but fall down I think when trying to copy bacon. I suspect this product would be very similar. Personally I don't really care for pretend meat products anyway I have to say!

Slarti
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Re: Vegetarian bacon?

#12191

Postby Slarti » December 5th, 2016, 5:16 pm

To my taste, very few "flavour" things taste like the flavour they claim, other than Ready Salted or Salt & Vinegar.
I have no idea what chicken flavour crisps taste of, but it aint any chicken I've ever eaten.

But I get the impression that this is more of a happy accident rather than an attempt at a meat substitute.


I have yet to be given a meat substitute product that didn't make me want to spit it out again and in a couple of cases I've had to do so to avoid being sick. One of them was a quorn sausage that I bit into, thinking that they'd just got cheap sausages. I dislike cheap sausages, but that was even worse.


I have eaten one thing that has a meaty taste, but isn't meat and that is giant puffball which I have been treated to 3 different times. It doesn't claim to be anything other than what it is, but it does taste a bit like red meat.

Cheers
Slarti

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Re: Vegetarian bacon?

#12229

Postby UncleEbenezer » December 5th, 2016, 6:52 pm

Bacon should intuitively be relatively easy, as most of the taste is just greased salt.

I'm no fan of pretend-meats. Just a few of them can be palatable, usually when used in something suitably flavoursome. I usually have some quorn mince in the freezer, and it tastes good fried up in a mix with, for example, onion/garlic/chilli/tomatos.

For veggie sausages, I've tried the quorn but they were tasteless and gave no pleasure. The one I do sometimes buy and enjoy is the Cauldron Foods Lincolnshire-style sausages (fry with a little onion, pepper and tomato, serve with mashed spud or pasta). Beware: there's also a Cumberland-style sausage in similar packaging but with far less taste.

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Re: Vegetarian bacon?

#12380

Postby redsturgeon » December 6th, 2016, 9:01 am

Bacon should intuitively be relatively easy, as most of the taste is just greased salt.


I think the nature of the "grease" might be crucial though.

I'm guessing a salty axle grease butty would not be popular, with or without brown sauce.

John

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Re: Vegetarian bacon?

#12545

Postby DiamondEcho » December 6th, 2016, 2:27 pm

I tried making 'fake bacon' once for some Middle Eastern dish or another. It involved slicing aubergine thinly lengthwise use a very sharp veg peeler or mandolin, seasoning with IIRC some BBQ sauce diluted with oil, and then grilling it.

It actually did look pretty much like bacon, which amused me. But as a bacon lover it didn't do much for 'impact in the mouth' ... but the guests enjoyed it.

Slarti
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Re: Vegetarian bacon?

#12731

Postby Slarti » December 6th, 2016, 7:53 pm

UncleEbenezer wrote:Bacon should intuitively be relatively easy, as most of the taste is just greased salt.


Perhaps, perhaps not as I have had some pretty terrible bacon, most recently last week when Mrs S bought some Danish bacon which was pretty tasteless and dribbled snot.

Also I've never had any decent bacon in USA or Canada.


Slarti

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Re: Vegetarian bacon?

#12825

Postby Hallucigenia » December 6th, 2016, 11:57 pm

Tasteless snotty bacon is less about the meat and more about the amount of polyphosphates put into industrial bacon to allow more water to be injected into it to bulk it up. Who doesn't want to pay £5+ per kg/litre for water?

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Re: Vegetarian bacon?

#17512

Postby voelkels » December 22nd, 2016, 5:10 pm

“I've never had any decent bacon in USA or Canada.”
And
“Tasteless snotty bacon is less about the meat and more about the amount of polyphosphates put into industrial bacon to allow more water to be injected into it to bulk it up.”

Most of the bacon produced now-a-daze in the U.S. is made by injecting a solution of curing salts (salt, sodium nitrite & sodium nitrate) and smoke flavoring into “pork belly”, allowing the excess liquid to drain off before slicing and packaging it. The better stuff is dry cured, which takes five days to a week and then is smoked for 12 to 24 hours over hardwood before cooling and slicing. Unlike the mass produced “bacon”, the good stuff is only made by a few custom producer and is quite expensive to make and buy.
;-)
C.J.V. - tempted to try making my own IF I can buy some pork belly, me

Slarti
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Re: Vegetarian bacon?

#17513

Postby Slarti » December 22nd, 2016, 5:17 pm

voelkels wrote:“I've never had any decent bacon in USA or Canada.”
And
“Tasteless snotty bacon is less about the meat and more about the amount of polyphosphates put into industrial bacon to allow more water to be injected into it to bulk it up.”

Most of the bacon produced now-a-daze in the U.S. is made by injecting a solution of curing salts (salt, sodium nitrite & sodium nitrate) and smoke flavoring into “pork belly”, allowing the excess liquid to drain off before slicing and packaging it. The better stuff is dry cured, which takes five days to a week and then is smoked for 12 to 24 hours over hardwood before cooling and slicing. Unlike the mass produced “bacon”, the good stuff is only made by a few custom producer and is quite expensive to make and buy.
;-)
C.J.V. - tempted to try making my own IF I can buy some pork belly, me


Much the same here, though dry cured is readily available, smoked or otherwise. Though the supermarket dry cured still dribbles.

But, I much prefer back bacon to streaky.

For those in the UK http://www.wicksmanor.com/farmshop.cfm?id=14 is a good supplier if you don't have a decent local butcher.

Slarti


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