Vegan soy curl stew
Hearty slow cooked vegan stew is the perfect when you are craving for a traditional home cooked meal with taste and texture. The recipe is simple and will taste for vegans and meat eaters. Be brave and take this recipe to your kitchen. I promise you cannot go wrong!
I've heard many times that a meat stew is something they'd never be able to drop and therefor wouldn't be able to leave meat ever. I understand and don't claim that this recipe is exactly like a meat stew but it sure gets close! As this recipe doesn't contain any special ingredients, you'll be able to find these from your local shop. The taste comes from celery. vegetable fondi/bouillon and vegetable stock. A whole rosemary branch dissolves in to the sauce to continue to savor it through the next day and that's why the stew is even better the next day.
When it comes to the taste of this stew it starts from the basics. I've built the taste structure of this stew from bottom to the top starting with the basics. Onion, garlic and celery. Celery is not as commonly used in Finland as it is in other countries, but its licorice taste works wonders with onion and garlic giving the taste a wider and fuller flavor. Or dip it with vegan home made Nutella! Nutellan The raw celery is amazing!
I use these soy curls as in my opinion they seem to hold their shape the best but the other brands follow very closely by. Soy curls need to be hydrated before use. The texture is very close to a meat like texture, but they are tasteless on their own. That's why you have to boil them in vegetable stock before using them. I like to boil them in water and a stock cube for about 15-20 minutes so the vegetable stock taste penetrates through the fiber of the soy curl. After boiling them it's important to rinse them and press all the extra moisture out so once you fry them a nice frying crust will appear.
Soy has been under attacks for years for it's health benefits to sustainability. One after another they've been debunked by research. In Europe it's standard that the soy used in the products is grown in Europa so its emission is fairly low. What we do need to keep an eye on is soy farmed for animal feed. Read more in Finnish..
So over all this recipe is easy and its ingredients are simple. When cooking vegan or vegetarian it's important to season your food well. It's important to be consistent when it comes to your spices. If you use too many spices from different spice groups they'll cancel each other out and make your food taste blunt. In this recipe we focus on the taste of celery and add to it with bay leaf and rosmary and pepper that we compliment with smoked and normal paprika powder and a hint of chili flakes. The stock contains ingredient that are already found from the stew such as carrots and celery. If using stock cubes worries you focus on finding cubes that don't contain palm oil.
Ingredients
- 3 dl soy curls hydrated in vegetable stock
- 2 tbs olive oil
- 1 onion
- 4 garlic gloves
- 2 celery stalks
- 2 tbs wheat flour
- 1 ts smoked paprika
- 1 ts paprika
- 1/2 ts chili flakes
- 1 ts garlic powder
- 1 ts onion powder
- 3 tbs tomato puree
- 5 carrots
- 3 potatoes
- 2 tbs vegetable fondi/bouillon
- 12 dl water
- 1 vegetable stock cube
- Rosemary branch
- Bay leaf
- 5-8 whole black peppers
- 1 dl frozen peas
Instructions
- Boil the soy curls in water with one vegetable stock cube. Drain and press dry.
- Set your oven to °C degrees.
- Saute your chopped onion in oiled cast iron pot for five minutes and add your chopped garlic. Carry on for another two minutes and then add chopped celery. Keep on going until the celery is transparentish.
- Add the drained soy curls and fry them for five minutes or until they turn brown. Add more oil if needed.
- When the soy curls have turned slightly brown add your flour, paprikas, chili flakes, onion powder and garlic powder. Mix so all the curls are covered in flour and spices. Add tomato puree and fondi and mix. Pour the water in and let it simmer under a lid for a while.
- When the water is heating up cut all your vegetables to rough size pieces. Add them to the stew with a stock cube, rosemary, bay leaf and black peppers.
- Put the lid on and transfer the pod to the oven. Let it slowly bake in the oven for an hour stirring it once after 30 minutes.
- Once the stew is ready add your peas and let them warm up. Enjoy your Vegan Soy Curl Stew with mash potatoes!
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