Vegan "scrambled eggs'

 

No tofu; no chickpea flour

Blender Alert (but there is a possible suggestion in the Notes if you don’t have one).

I really love scrambled eggs for breakfast, and since I became vegan, they are something I miss.  However, there are many reasons for the ethical vegetarian not to eat eggs, so I rarely buy them.  I have been working on this recipe for scramblers for some time.  What I wanted to achieve is something with a similar appearance, colour and texture as the Real Thing, which to my mind is soft and barely set.  All the vegan recipes I’ve tried produce a very dry, rather rubbery result.  I’ve never tried making it with silky tofu – I can’t buy it locally, and when I get to a larger town where it’s available, it comes in packs that are too big for me to use.  I’m prepared to eat a lot of failed experiments in search of the Ideal Recipe, but I’m not prepared to waste food!  Besides, how many voyagers are going easily to be able to buy silky tofu or are likely to have it on board? This recipe comes from ingredients that you are likely to have in your lockers.

Veganism is still a fringe way of living, especially away from the Western world (although of course many people are vegan without even thinking about it!), so in all these recipes, I am trying to avoid branded or really weird ingredients, which might well be expensive and/or unavailable to the average voyager.  If you’re interested, see the notes below for a discussion as to how and why I’ve chosen these particular ingredients and some substitutes.  I am sure this recipe can be improved, so please leave a comment if you have a suggestion.

 

I can see an argument for mixing all the dry ingredients together in quantity and keeping a supply in a jar, so that you can make this more quickly: just add water!

Serves 2

1/2 cup blanched peanuts

1 cup water, divided

4 tsp tapioca flour

2 tsp nutritional yeast

1/4 tsp black salt

1/4 tsp turmeric

1/4 tsp garlic granules OR 1 large clove, roughly chopped

2 tbsp olive oil

salt and pepper

• Put the peanuts into the blender and whizz them into a coarse meal. 
• Now add 1/2 cup water, the flour, nutritional yeast, black salt, turmeric, garlic and olive oil.   
• Blend quickly - you don’t want to pulverise the peanuts: this gives the scramblers some texture.
• Scrape the contents into a small saucepan and rinse out the blender with another 1/2 cup of water (put it back together and give it a good shake) and pour this into the pan. This is the easiest way to make sure everything goes in the pan!
• Heat the mixture over a moderate flame and stir regularly until the mix is hot and starting to thicken. Turn the heat right down, continue stirring occasionally, taste and season with a generous amount of black pepper and more salt if you think it needs it.    Add some more water if it is getting too thick.

Serve hot on fried bread or toast, or with fried tomatoes, mushrooms, etc as part of a cooked breakfast.

Notes:

• Blanched peanuts are cheap; they are also better for both workers and the planet than cashews, which would be most people’s choice.  Peanuts require much less water than most nuts, they are nitrogen-fixing and their preparation doesn’t generally exploit low wage-people working in poor conditions.  I don’t understand why they aren’t used more often. However, use cashews if you prefer them or can’t get peanuts.
• Tapioca flour doesn’t seem to need cooking the same way as cornflour, once it starts to thicken, which is why I suggest it.  Uncooked cornflour has a definite taste and sensation to it.  Using a little flour creates a more convincing texture as does the slight ‘stretchiness’ of the tapioca flour.
• The small amount of nutritional yeast does, I think, improve the flavour, but you could leave it out if you don’t have any.
• The black salt is to give the sulphur scent that eggs have.  Don’t use it with a heavy hand and if you like your scramblers more salty than the recipe, add some more normal salt. Again, you could leave it out, but the result will be a less convincing substitute for eggs.
• The turmeric is necessary for colour: again, use a light touch – it’s a powerful dye! This amount makes the scramblers a light yellow.
• I love a little bit of garlic in my scramblers. Leave it out or substitute 1/2 tsp onion powder if you can’t face garlic at breakfast. Neither is crucial.
• If you don’t have a blender, this might work with 1/2 cup ground almonds, but they have a much stronger flavour than peanuts.

Muesli

Most people eat a cold breakfast. I’m not fond of commercial breakfast cereals: they’re either sweet or tasteless, are bulky and expensive and usually not particularly nutritious. Muesli – preferably home-made – is a much better bet.

Oats are one of the darlings of the Healthy Eaters at the moment: Folic acid, complex carbohydrates, good for blood pressure – the whole nine yards. In addition to oats in your muesli, are all the other goodies, which are delicious and Good For You and ideally include apricots, pumpkin seeds, prunes, Brazil nuts (for selenium) raisins and dates, all of which give you quantities of essential vitamins and minerals as well as tasting wonderful. A quarter cup serving of my muesli, together with milk and/or yoghurt will give you a superbly nutritious breakfast, which is filling and will keep you going until lunch time, without wanting a snack.

The recipe below makes enough muesli to fill a 3 l (3 qt) container – 48 single servings, 24 if you like a hearty breakfast. As it’s a bit of a schlep to make, it’s worth doing in quantity. Before buying dried fruit, ensure that they’re pitted; health food versions often are not. They’re a nuisance to do yourself and a hazard to teeth if left in. I prefer seedless raisins, too.

Incidentally, I find scissors the best for chopping the fruit and nuts. This makes a rich and filling muesli: some people might prefer a higher ratio of grains to fruit and nuts. Vary the latter according to cost and availability.

Ingredients

 

about 6 cups jumbo oats, for Gluten Free

OR a mixture of oats, rye and barley flakes

1/2 cup pumpkin seeds

1/2 cup sunflower seeds

1/2 cup Brazil nuts

1/2 cup mixed hazelnuts, walnuts and almonds

1 cup raisins and/or sultanas

25 dates

20 dried apricots

12 prunes

 

Method:

• Half fill the container with the oats or mixed flakes.
• Add the pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and raisins. Mix everything together.
• Halve the nuts, add and mix.
• Chop the dates, add and mix.
• Chop the apricots, add and mix.
• Chop the prunes, add and mix.
• Top up the container with oats/flakes and mix one more time.

Variations:

• Muesli is very good with hot milk in cold weather.
• Top with slices of fresh fruit – nectarines, raspberries and strawberries are particularly good.
• In colder weather, I like to heat some fruit to put over the muesli. Squeeze a large orange into a small pan, add sliced banana and scoop out the contents of a kiwi fruit or persimmon or anything else you can lay hands on.
• Serve with thick yoghurt. I like a quarter cup of muesli mixed with a good dollop of yoghurt and no milk.
• Use any other nuts or dried fruits that take your fancy. Add desiccated coconut, too.
• Use fruit juice instead of milk.
• You can also put your muesli into a pan with milk or water and cook it like porridge (see recipe).

Porridge

I rather like porridge, with a dribble of honey and a spoonful of mixed seeds sprinkled over it. I truly enjoy real porridge: made with oatmeal, as the Scots know it – but am not so fond of that made with rolled oats. Oatmeal seems to be unavailable in a number of places: it looks like cream-coloured, coarsely ground corn and is sometimes described as ‛steel-cut’: if you can get it, try it instead of the rolled oats in the following recipe. Why it’s not used more frequently and is not more generally available, I don’t know, because it is more compact, cooks more quickly, produces a smoother result and tastes better than rolled oats.

Quick-cooking oats do not have the flavour and texture of jumbo oats. If you’re eating porridge simply as belly timber, use the quick oats; if you enjoy it, use traditional, slow-cooking oats.

Serves 2

⅔ cup oatmeal OR 1 cup rolled oats

2 cups water

pinch of salt

• Put the ingredients into a small saucepan and mix.

• Bring to the boil, stirring constantly.

• Turn down the heat as low as possible and cook, very gently, for about three minutes (more like ten for jumbo oats). Whatever you do, don’t burn it. It will taste dreadful if you do.

• Pour into bowls and eat immediately, with some milk and either salt (for the purists) or brown sugar (for most other people).

Variations:

• Try treacle, golden syrup (my dad’s choice), honey or dulce de leche (see recipe) to sweeten it.

• Use cream rather than milk. Who would have thought that porridge could be luxurious? (Yoghurt and porridge do not go together, in my opinion.)

• Add 1/4 cup of raisins with the oats.

• Use 50/50 milk and water to cook it. This makes a much richer version.

• Of course, substitute 2/3 cup of seawater for the fresh.

• Serve with sliced, fresh fruit.

Toast - and how to make a stove-top toaster

 

 

Toast is always popular at breakfast, but not everyone has a grill. You can make acceptable toast by simply heating a good-quality frying pan and toasting the bread on both sides, but it's not as good as that made with an open flame.  You can, however, make excellent toast on top of the cooker using a specially-made toaster. There are many so-called toasters fobbed up on the unwitting public by sadistic manufacturers. They’re apparently designed so that you can cook four slices at a time. In fact, they’re usually too small to take more than one piece of bread at a time and all they do to that, is to make it vaguely warm and slowly dry it out. In a word, they’re useless. The best way to toast a slice of bread quickly is to support it horizontally over the flame.

Camping toasters that work, do exist and are easy to buy in Oz and NZ. Unfortunately, the wire mesh is far too thin and soon burns out. 

 

Your best bet is to copy the style, but make it yourself. To make a toaster, what you need is some fine stainless steel mesh and some 3 mm (1/8 in) brass wire. Cut the mesh 175 mm (7 in) square. Make a wire framework about 150 mm (6 in) square, with a leg at each corner. The legs need to be about 40 mm (1½ in) high and are fabricated by bending the brass at right angles and then back along itself, thus creating a loop. Cut the corners of the mesh and wrap it over the framework you have just made, leaving a 10 mm (1/2 in) overlap, which you squeeze flat with pliers. Now take some more brass wire and thread it through the legs so that you create another 150 mm (6 in) frame. Cross it with two or three more lengths of wire. You may need to heat the brass to get it to bend and it’s probably easier to seize the cross wires on with some thin wire rather than trying to bend the brass wire. The result may not be particularly elegant, but never mind. A final refinement is to take another length of brass wire and form it into a handle.

To use the toaster, simply put it mesh side down over the flame and put your bread on the wire rack. It can also be used for poppadums, which will cook perfectly and very quickly this way and I also use mine for roasting aubergines, for Mock Caviare, and peppers (see recipes).

WHAT TO PUT ON TOAST FOR BREAKFAST

Well, there are heaps of things to choose from and they also vary from culture to culture. Sticking to the more usual spreads:

• Just butter

• Marmalade
• Jam/jelly/conserve/preserve
• Peanut/sunflower/nut butter or tahini
• Honey
• Marmite/Vegemite/yeast extract
• Hummus
• Lemon curd
• Dulce de leche (for those with a really sweet tooth) (see recipe)
• Mashed bananas

Or any of these in combination: for example I love peanut butter and Marmite; a friend enjoys tahini and honey; and USAnians apparently combine peanut butter and jelly.

Things like cream cheese are also appealing, but generally require either eating every day or refrigeration.

A really wonderful spread is Pic's Big Mix. I’m not sure if it’s available outside New Zealand (yet. His peanut butter, some of the best I have ever eaten, is now being exported to many countries).  So I have made up a recipe you can make yourself.  Pic's business, by the way, is one of the few B Corp outfits in New Zealand: another reason for buying his peanut butter.

Boiled eggs

 

I don’t wish to seem condescending, but actually, not everyone does know how to boil an egg and one or two points may be pertinent for sailors.

1 or 2 eggs per person

1½ cups water

• Bring the water to the boil. Seawater works just fine and seems to make no difference to the timing. It also has the advantage that if the egg is cracked, it will instantly set the white so that it doesn’t escape all over the place. With the tine of a fork or a sail needle, pierce a hole in the wide end of the egg. This will help prevent it from cracking, particularly in cold conditions.

• Carefully lower in the egg and cook for 4 minutes if you like a soft white, 6 minutes if you like the white firm and the yolk still slightly runny. These times assume a large egg. If you like your egg hard boiled, put it in the pan with the cold water.

• Remove from the pan as soon as the time is up and serve immediately, with bread, crackers or toast.

NOTES

If you are using fresh water and in spite of your making a hole in the end of the egg, it still cracks, immediately add a tsp salt, or a couple of tsp vinegar or lemon juice to the water. This should stop the white from leaking out into the water. In very rough conditions, it’s worth doing this as a precaution, anyway.

Scrambled eggs

Experienced cooks will not need to learn how to cook these, but may find the prefatory remarks of interest. Scrambled eggs, as we all know, stick better than epoxy and most galleys simply do not have the room for a small, non-stick saucepan dedicated solely to the scrambling of eggs. A good alternative is to use your wok, if you have such a thing. I have a small enamelled pan that I regularly use for popcorn and that works like a charm, too. The new-style, hard-anodised, cast aluminium pans are perfect, so consider one of these if (a) you need another pan and/or (b) you love scrambled eggs. Cleaning a scrambled egg pan is probably one of the best arguments for trying a vegan alternative!

For the voyager new to cooking, I include this recipe because scramblers are so lovely when well made and so liable to turn out disappointingly. To ensure success, don’t let yourself be distracted while cooking them; have the hot plates, toast, etc ready in advance and everyone sitting down in anticipation; use a little milk or water to help them stay moist; don’t use too high a heat.

The best tool for scrambling eggs is a flat, wooden spatula, if you have such a thing.

Serves 2

a large knob of butter – equivalent of a heaped tbsp, or olive oil 

a generous grinding of pepper

seasoned salt

4 eggs

2 tbsp milk/thin cream/water

• Over a low heat, melt the butter and stir in a pinch of salt and the black pepper.

• Add the milk and eggs; beat quickly together for a moment until the yolks are broken and blended with the whites. You don’t want them to be totally incorporated as in an omelette.

• Cook gently, occasionally scraping the setting eggs from the bottom and sides of the pan – don’t stir too vigorously because you want to create soft, smooth curds.

• When all the egg is set, but before it starts drying out and turning rubbery, serve immediately, usually with hot toast, but it’s also good with freshly-baked bread.

Variations:

• A little dried, minced garlic is delicious in scramblers at any time, and particularly if the eggs are getting past their best.

• Add a little grated cheese to the pan, as soon as you’ve put in the eggs.

• A few fresh herbs go well, especially parsley.

• Try some cracked black pepper, for a change.

• A couple of sliced mushrooms, fried in the butter/oil are delicious.

• Add a sliced tomato, or several sliced cherry tomatoes.

• If you add a little curry paste to the eggs, before beating them, the result makes a delicious snack on toast or crackers.

• If you are lucky enough to find wild garlic, this goes beautifully with scrambled egg

Poached Eggs

I love poached eggs, but surprisingly few people make them. I hate those little poached egg devices that are sold: they produce a result completely different from a real poached egg, with its lovely, lacy white, surrounding a perfectly set yolk. So if you feel that you have no room for your egg poacher, take heart: there is a better alternative.

There are two requirements for flawless poached eggs: (1) plenty of salt in the water (or a tbsp of lemon or vinegar, if you prefer, although they flavour the egg quite strongly), which guarantees the white setting; (2) the water must be at a full, rolling boil before the egg is lowered into the pan. For this reason, eggs should be at ‘room temperature’, ie about 18°C (70°F). In very cold places, you may have to cook the eggs no more than two at a time.

Serves 2

2 cups seawater

4 eggs

• If the seawater isn’t very clean, use fresh water and a tsp salt. Put the water into a large saucepan and bring to a rolling boil.

• When the water is rapidly boiling, carefully break an egg into it, at one side of the pan. (If you are worried about breaking the yolks, break the egg onto a small plate first, and then slide it in.)

• Set the timer for three minutes, for a soft yolk.

• When the water comes back to a vigorous boil, add another egg. Continue in this way until all the eggs are in the pan.

• Reduce the heat and cover.

• When the timer pings, remove the eggs from the pan with a slotted spoon, in the same order as they went in.

• Serve immediately, generously seasoned with black pepper, on hot, buttered toast.

If you find that everything froths up too much, move the lid sideways, to partially cover the pan or turn off the heat as soon as you've added the final egg. Let the pan stand for 6 (soft) or 7 (firmer) minutes and then take the eggs out.

Variations:

• For Eggs Florentine, cook and drain spinach, season with pepper and serve topped with a poached egg.

• Instead of butter, spread the toast with Dijon mustard

• Sprinkle the eggs with a mild ground chilli powder, such as Kashmiri

• If you like the heat, spread the toast with chilli paste

Fried egg sandwich

I suspect that this sounds pretty revolting to my more fastidious readers, but as they happen to be a personal favourite of mine, I am including them. For perfect fried egg sandwiches, you need decent bread – preferably home made, good-quality tomato ketchup and eggs whose yolks are set, but whose whites are not frazzled.

Serves 2

8 slices bread

tomato ketchup

1 tbsp olive oil OR butter

4 eggs

pepper

Annie’s Mixed Herbs

• Toast the bread on one side only.

• Spread a thin layer of tomato ketchup on the untoasted side of each slice of bread.

• Place a frying pan on the burner. Add the olive oil or butter and before it gets hot, carefully break in the eggs so that they are spread evenly around the pan. Tilt the pan, if necessary to keep them so, or gently move them with a spatula.

• When the whites start to set and are lifting up and down, break the yolks. Then sprinkle with Annie’s Mixed Herbs and a generous grinding of pepper. Lower the heat and cover.

• Cook for several minutes until the whites are set. Watery whites are horrible in fried egg sandwiches.

• As soon as the eggs are cooked, cut the pan full of eggs into four equal portions with a knife and then lift out a piece of fried egg, placing it on the ketchup side of one piece of bread. Put another slice on top and serve at once. If you didn’t cook the yolks hard, fried egg sandwiches can be a bit drippy, so ensure that a plate and tissues are to hand.

Variations:

• A small onion can be diced and quickly stirred around before adding the fried eggs. Don’t let it cook too long, or the pan will get hot and the whites will then end up crisp.

• A full-flavoured, but mild mustard makes a pleasant alternative to tomato ketchup. Or try another type of sauce.

• Some wild garlic, if you come across some, is delicious, snipped over the eggs while they set.

Plain Omelette

These make a pleasant change at breakfast. Ideally, they should be made individually, in 150 mm (6 in) omelette pans, but most boats would not have room for such a luxury. They come out a bit on the thin side, if you make them one at a time in a larger pan, so better to make a four-egg omelette and share nicely.

Serves 2

 

4 eggs

salt and pepper

1 tbsp olive oil

1/2 tsp Annie's Mixed Herbs

 

Method:

• Break the eggs into a bowl and beat them lightly with a fork or whisk so that the whites and yolks are combined. Add salt and grind in some pepper. 
• Heat the oil in a frying pan until it’s runny but by no means smoking. Tip in the eggs and tilt the pan so that the mixture spreads itself evenly around. You can lift up the edges of the omelette as it sets so that the liquid egg trickles underneath. 
• When the top is almost set, sprinkle on the herbs and as the last of the liquid egg firms up, fold the omelette in half with a fish slice. 
• Quickly cut it in half and then put each section onto a heated plate. Serve at once.
  

Variations:

• Of course, there are innumerable variations on the theme, but for breakfast, you probably don’t want anything too exciting. A little grated cheese would be very acceptable. Add just before you fold the omelette. 
• You might like to spoon over some jam, if you have a sweet tooth, in which case, leave out the herbs. 
• Another useful idea is to preheat any of last-night's leftovers and put those in the omelette. But the few herbs are really all most people would want, first thing in the morning, especially if you are fortunate enough to have some fresh herbs on board. 
• If you fancy something more substantial, make a Spanish omelette or a frittata (see recipe).

Perfect fried egg

For perfect fried eggs, break the eggs carefully into a frying pan with a little oil that is wam, but not yet hot.  Too high a heat makes the base crisp – which some people quite like. However, most people prefer the whites soft, but not runny.  If you like the yolk hard, just pierce it with the point of a knife and let the yolk spread out a little. 

Season with Annie's Mixed Herbs, freshly ground pepper and salt, if you like. Once the white is setting and starting to lift, lower the heat and cover the pan.  This saves you from either having to turn the egg over, or flip hot oil over it to set the eggs.

My mother always told me to use the back of the knife to crack the egg.  She was right!

Banana skin bacon

 

 This sounds like veganism gone to extremes, but is actually extraordinarily good!

Serves 2

Skins from two bananas

1 tsp smoked paprika

1 tsp soy sauce

• Take the banana skins and cut off the stalk and the base. Scrape the white ‛pith’ off the skins so that they are almost translucent.  Cut them into strips along the ridges.
  

• In a wide bowl, or on a dished plate, lay out the skins. Spoon equal amount of smoked paprika and soy sauce over the skins mixing and turning until the skins are completely covered with the mixture. Add more if necessary.

• Leave the skins to marinade for a quarter of an hour or so.

• Add olive oil to a frying pan. Scrape in the skins with any leftover marinade and fry over a fairly high heat, turning them as necessary until they are nicely browned on both sides and turning crisp.

• Add to a traditional ‛English Breakfast’, or use in Bacon Sandwiches.

Fried bread

As well as being delicious with the 'cooked breakfast' and with eggs, this is also an acceptable substitute for toast, if you have no toaster and aren't counting calories.  Indeed, you can make passable toast in a good quality frying pan, without the oil.

1 tbsp olive oil

1 slice bread

• Heat the olive oil sizzling hot in a frying pan.

• Put in the bread, move it around to mop up the oil and then turn it over. There should still be some oil in the pan and you should mop this up, too.

• Keeping the heat high, cook the bread until it starts getting crisp and some of the oil that has been absorbed starts to run out again. Turn the bread. If it isn’t sufficiently brown, flip it back for a bit longer.

• Then cook the other side. When it’s properly cooked, it should be crisp on both sides.

Refried Potatoes

These are so delicious, that I often cook extra potatoes the night before so that I can have them for breakfast next day.

Ingredients

 

Cold boiled potatoes

1 tbsp olive oil

salt and pepper or Annie's Seasoned Salt

 

Method:

• Cut the potatoes into chunky pieces, while heating the oil in a frying pan.
• Ensuring that the oil is hot, put the pieces of potato into the pan. Although it’s a bit fiddly to do them one at a time, it actually makes sense, because all the pieces are in contact with the oil and can be turned over to brown the next face.
• By the time you’ve put every piece in the pan, you can start turning the ones that were put in first. Ideally, they fry brown and crisp. Grind salt and pepper over them while they’re cooking.
• When they’re all heated through and crisp, serve with fried or boiled eggs, a fried tomato – or just one their own!

Breakfast pancakes

 

Serves 2

1½ cups milk OR water

2 tbsp olive oil OR melted butter

1 egg OR ¼ cup water

1 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tbsp ground flax seeds

• Measure 1¼ cups of the milk into a jug or bowl. It should be at least ‘room temperature’, because if it’s too cold, even a hot frying pan will be insufficient to raise the batter. If in doubt, warm it until it’s ‘hand hot’.

• Add the oil or butter and then whisk in the egg or flax seeds/water. Dump in the flour and then whisk.

• Add the baking powder and whisk again. Check the consistency. Made with wholewheat flour, this can vary, depending on the absorbency of the flour. For thick pancakes, the batter should drip off the wires of the whisk, but only just. If it seems too thick, add some more milk or water. If you’re uncertain, test a teaspoon or so of batter and see what it looks like. Normally, you will need all the milk. Leave it to stand for about 10 minutes.

• Put your frying pan over a high heat. If you feel it might stick, put in a few drops of oil – the pan acts as a griddle: you don’t fry pancakes.

• Sprinkle a few drops of water onto your frying pan. If it’s the right temperature, they should dance across the surface before evaporating. Now drop a couple of tbsp of batter into the pan. It should immediately start to bubble and then cook dry around the edges.

• When about a third of the pancake looks dry, turn it over to cook the other side. You should be able to get a production line going and cook about three at a time. Keep them between two warm plates, or in a low oven until they’re all cooked. Regardless of what the pundits say, they seem to stay fine like this and don't need to be layered with greaseproof paper.

Serve with jam and yoghurt, preserved fruit and cream, or whatever takes your fancy.