Thursday, July 12, 2007

Vegan Souvlaki, Potatoes & Rice



When I was doing up my grocery shopping list on the weekend, I decided to see if I could successfully veganize a typical fast-food Greek meal so I went searching for recipes on the internet. I found lots and veganized the ones that I thought sounded close to what I remember from restaurants and then made adjustments where necessary. I think I came pretty close!

The souvlaki was made with TVP "nuggets" which were rehydrated in a mild vegetable stock, drained and squeezed and then marinated for a few hours and then grilled on a grill pan (not a real "grill" but just a pan that has raised grooves). The potatoes and rice I made several adjustments to and threw in some green beans into the potatoes for some extra vegetables since this meal was heavy on starch. The tzatziki could have been better. I ended up buying sweetened plain soy yoghurt because I couldn't find any unsweetened plain. I tried to compensate with salt and other additions but it didn't quite turn out exactly like tzatziki (though it was still decent).

The taste of the TVP was pretty good. Still, it was missing "something" from what I remember... not really sure what though. Maybe more salt or something more "rich" tasting. Hard to say but I think it would have benefitted from a little melted margarine in the marinade.

I was pretty pleased with the rice and the potatoes & green beans. They were really yummy.

I'll post my version of the recipes later. Next time I make the souvlaki, I think I'll use seitan chunks because the TVP was just a tad chewy despite being rehdyrated for like, forever. The next time I make tzatziki, I'll just use sour surpreme.

All in all, I think it turned out pretty well!

4 comments:

inks said...

Ooooh, it looks so good. What herbs did you use to marinate the TVP?

I found some vegan tzatziki recipes which used vegan sour cream or silken tofu. Would you need to drain the sour cream a bit to get a nice thickness?

ms. veganorama said...

I'm posting the recipe today! But it had onion, garlic, oregano, mint and parsley in it.

Yeah, I think I would probably drain the sour supreme the next time I make it too. I did drain the soy yoghurt for a few days over paper towel in a sieve in the fridge.

foxy vegan said...

wow you rock! yummm! =)

ms. veganorama said...

Thank you foxy vegan! If you have any tips to make it more authentic, please let me know. :)

Blog Widget by LinkWithin