“I am at the moment writing a lengthy indictment against our century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip.” John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces
I've been wanting to make vegan cheese for ages. There are so many recipes on the internet, and today I had MOST of the ingredients, but not the one that requested the culture, so I had to hunt for something that suited my cupboards.
Then, of course, I adapted that again to what I had - the recipe called for liquid smoke, but I didn't have any, plus, I've heard bad things about it. I was also really worried that I didn't have enough agar agar, and at the time of writing this recipe, I haven't checked to see if it had set or not. I'll let you know by the time you read through the instructions.
Vegan Cheese
This is the kind of recipe that you need to get all your stuff together first. Then, you can take a sexy photo for Steemit with some funky bowls. That's not a necessary part of the recipe, by the way.
2 tablespoons of agar flakes (or make according to pack directions)
1.5 cups water
2 tbsps of lemon juice
1 tablespoons of coconut oil, melted
1 tbsps white miso paste
1 cups raw cashew pieces, soaked in water overnight, rinsed & drained
2 tbsps nutritional yeast
.5 teaspoons sea salt
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
Firstly, sprinkle the agar agar over warm water in a saucepan and bring to a gentle boil for about 5 minutes until it's completely dissolved.
Meanwhile, whizz the cashews in a blender - don't worry about getting them smooth - that will happen. Add the lemon juice and miso paste and coconut oil, blend some more, then add the salt, turmeric and nutritional yeast.
Add about 1/2 of the agar liquid and whiz. Then add the rest and SUPER whiz - at this point it will be nice and creamy and you can dip your finger in for a cheeky taste and be pleasantly suprised that yes, yes indeed - it TASTES CHEESY!
Then, pour the mixture into bowls - stupidly, I had just taken the ramekins I NEVER EVER used to the op shop (charity shop) and damn it, they would have been PERFECT.
At this point, you can fold through some herbs or chillis to flavour it. I used garlic chives. A lot of cheese recipes call for garlic powder and/or onion powder, but I can't use these as two family members required a FODMAP diet so they can't eat onions. Thus, I always use garlic chives, but I was thinking jalapenos would be good in this too.
Pop into the fridge until set.
Slip out onto a plate and voila... vegan cheese! Was it tasty? Drum roll, please!!
Yes!! It tasted really cheesy!
Sadly, as I didn't have enough agar agar, it didn't set as firm as I'd like, so I thought it would be a good spread or a pasta stir through sauce! And it was - perfect for "I can't be bothered cooking on a Friday night" kinda knock up dish. Sorry about the awful photo, but it was pretty dark last night - ugh, damn you daylight savings Winter in Victoria time. And yes, Mum, I did eat salad with it.
Of course, the real burning question for vegan cheese is.... will it melt? My friend's exclamation was:
The challenge has been set - excuse the 'lack of agar agar' pun - (groan) so I'm definately going to try for a cheese that melts. I'm going to start a Steemcheese series of my efforts - what do you think? Except 'steemcheese' sounds disgusting - any other ideas for a cool hashtag, SteemFolks?
