Are you achin’ (Yup Yup) for some bacon (Yup Yup)

…..He’s a big pig, you can be a big pig too, Oy! Enough of this witty banter from The Lion King.

Someone once said that bacon is the gateway meat. Bacon was the hardest meat for me to give up when I began to think about where food really comes from and decided to stop exploiting animals for my own purposes. I loved the salty, crispy  feel of it. The smoky flavour. The sometimes maple flavour if you were lucky to find maple cured bacon. The savoury-ness of it. After I stopped eating it for a while I would find that the smell still really got me salivating but watching it fry up in a pan with all that fat and grease made my stomach turn. There is nothing that really tastes of bacon that is not made from slaughtered animals and I am not willing to go forgo my morals just for a momentary pleasure. But when you think about it--what is it that was so good? Salty, crispy, smoky, maple, savoury. Could that be replicated in a way that was satisfying to one’s taste buds and one’s moral code?

In quick succession 2 blogs that I visit showed the same recipe for gluten free/soy free vegan bacon made from adzuki beans and buckwheat groats (which despite the name buckwheat are actually gluten free.) One claimed to have adapted it from the other blog so I decided to try it and do a taste test. When I was a wee nipper one of my favourite magazines was Consumer Reports because I loved how they tested every product and rated the results. The recipes were fairly similar--both had the same amount of adzuki beans and buckwheat and the method for preparing them the same. What was different was the other ingredients. One had more maple syrup, tomato puree and smoked paprika than the other, but they both had the same amount of  liquid smoke, salt and oil. One had tamari (soy) sauce and the other had some rubbed sage. I decided to do up both and compare.

The first one I chose was the version from The Ordinary Vegetarian’s blog http://www.ordinaryvegetarian.com/   who adapted it from No Meat Athlete’s blog.  

This is version one:

Amazing Homemade Vegan Bacon
(adapted from No Meat Athlete)

1/2 cup dried adzuki beans, or other small red beans
1/3 cup whole grain buckwheat groats (not buckwheat flour)
1 tsp onion powder
1/3 tsp garlic powder
1/3 tsp rubbed sage
1/2 tsp thyme
1-1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp liquid smoke*
3 tbsp pure maple syrup
1-1/2 tbsp coconut aminos (if no need to be soy-free, sub bragg's, tamari, or soy sauce)*
1 tbsp tomato paste
1-1/2 tbsp nutritional yeast (optional)
1 tsp coconut oil (may sub any oil you prefer)
1/2 tsp salt

Rinse the beans and buckwheat, place in large bowl covered with several inches of cold filtered water; let soak overnight.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Drain and rinse the soaked beans and buckwheat.  Place in the bowl of a food processor fitted with an s-blade, along with all of the other ingredients. Pulse several times to combine, scrape down the sides and bottom of bowl and continue pulsing until uniform, but not completely pureed.

Line a 9 x 13 casserole dish or rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper and spray with baking spray. Place bacon batter in pan and spread evenly with a spatula. You may choose to spray another piece of parchment paper lightly with baking spray and press the paper on top of the mixture and flatten with your hands. Remove and discard the top piece of parchment paper, then use a spatula to spread over and fill in any bare spots.

Bake for 10 minutes.  Remove from oven and let cool for 10 minutes. Slice into 24-32 strips, whatever size you prefer, I cut mine into 1 inch by 4 inches slices (Do this by making one lengthwise cut down the center, and then 12-16 cuts across the shorter side. See photo above).

At this point freeze any strips your don't plan on eating immediately. Frozen strips can go straight into the skillet at a later date, no need to thaw first. To fry, heat a skillet with a small amount of oil and fry both sides to desired level of crispiness. You may also choose to fry slices in cooking spray, for a less crispy, but still very delicious result.

It was easy to do and cut up nicely into strips. I fried some and they were delicious--crispy, smoky, sweet and savoury. They were fairly sweet from the 3 TB maple syrup so I was interested to try the other version which had less maple and a bit of tamari which would give it a bit more salty flavour. But first I needed to use up most of version one and then when I was down to the last few strips, make version two and have a taste test.

So then I made version two which comes from No Meat Athlete’s blog  http://www.nomeatathlete.com/  . Yes I realize if this were a real test then I would have tried this one first as it seems to be the original but I had printed the other one and this one was still stuck on my memory stick so it got done second. So there.

This is version two:

Homemade Vegan Soy-Free Bacon

Ingredients:

·      1/2 cup dried adzuki beans or other small red beans

·      1/3 cup hulled wholegrain buckwheat (not buckwheat flour)

·      1 teaspoon onion powder

·      1 teaspoon hickory liquid smoke

·      4 teaspoons nutritional yeast

·      1 teaspoon smoked paprika

·      1 tablespoon Braggs Liquid Aminos (May be substituted with soy sauce)

·      1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

·      2 teaspoons tomato paste

·      1 teaspoon coconut oil

·      2 teaspoons maple syrup

Rinse the beans and buckwheat,  place in large bowl covered with several inches of cold filtered water; let soak overnight.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F/200 degrees C.

Strain the soaked beans and buckwheat and rinse.  Place in the bowl of a food processor.  Add the onion powder, liquid smoke, nutritional yeast, smoked paprika, aminos or soy sauce, salt, tomato paste, coconut oil, and maple syrup.  Pulse several times to combine, scrape down the sides and bottom of bowl and continue pulsing until uniform but not as pureed as hummus.

Line a 9×13 casserole dish with parchment paper and coat pan with baking spray.  Place bacon mixture in pan and spread as much as possible with a spatula.  To get the mixture very thin and evenly spread, spray another piece of parchment paper lightly with baking spray and press the paper on top of the mixture and flatten with your hands.  Remove and discard the top piece of parchment paper, then use a spatula to spread over and fill in any bare spots.

Bake for 10 minutes.  Remove from oven and let cool for 10 minutes, then slice into 24 strips, about 1 inch by 4 inches (Do this by making one lengthwise cut down the center, and then twelve cuts across the shorter side).  Remove the strips with a small spatula.

Heat a tablespoon of oil in a frying pan on medium-high heat.  Fry the bacon slices for 2-3 minutes, flipping once.  Alternatively, before frying, you can freeze the bacon, then fry when ready to serve (no need to thaw first).

The results were this: Version Two from No Meat Athlete wins hands down. It seemed to make slightly less—I got 22 not 24 strips out of it, but the results were not so sweet—just a kiss of maple—and definitely savoury/salty enough to satisfy a bacon craving. Version One was more "bready" compared to Version Two which was more "bacon-y."

I’ll be honest, no pig eatin’ omnivore is going to squeal with delight and exclaim, “OMG, dude! This tastes just like real meat bacon!” But they are good. They fulfil all the criteria of salty, smoky, maple, crunchy and savoury. They are weirdly addictive and easy to prepare as they really do cook up from frozen in a jiffy. They remind us of these Linda McCartney sundried tomato sausages that we used to buy that seem to be discontinued. They didn’t taste anything like sausages, but tasted rather like sundried tomato hush puppies--these have that same sort of flavour. They are delicious fried up on their own as a snack or beside other “breakfast” dishes.

So no, it is not exactly like bacon or even something like bacon, but they are yummy strips of vegan goodness and no beautiful, intelligent pigs had to die to make a BLT.