'Fish' in batter.

[vegcurry]

For anyone that was at Bristol Vegan Fayre this weekend and tasted the fishless fish in batter you'll know why I had to try and recreate a recipe for it. It's not perfected yet, and still needs some work on it, and I don't yet have any measurements but if anyone feels like joining in on the 'research' here's what I've got so far.

Apologies if something like this has been posted before.

For the 'fish'

Freeze a block of tofu, and when defrosted, squeeze out as much liquid as possible. Slice into into several large thick pieces.
Soak the slices overnight in a stock mixture of soy sauce and kelp powder.
When ready for cooking, squeeze out as much liquid as possible. Slice a sheet of Nori seaweed into several pieces, brush the tofu with a flour and water paste (or the batter) and wrap the nori around the tofu.
Dip into the batter and fry at a high temperature until browned.
Drain off the fillets on kitchen roll and serve with chips.

For the batter:
Flour, salt, kelp powder, sunflower oil, soy sauce, soya milk.
Mix into a thick batter and season well with the salt, kelp and soy.

Photos here

[auntierozzi]

Yummy vegcurry!!!! I'm defiinitely going to have a go at this. Where do you get kelp powder? Would smoothly ground up seaweed do, do you think?

[vegcurry]

I got the kelp powder from a healthfood/wholefood shop. I guess you could try ground up seaweed, or alternatively just soak the seaweed in soya sauce and water overnight along with the tofu, as it should flavour it.

[RebeccaDye]

Oh my god that looks delicious, thanks!
What brand of Nori do you use (I can only find ones from Chinese supermarkets with no ingredients list, and apparently loads of them contain fish..)?

[vegcurry]

Just ordinary Nori sheets. It's only roasted lava seaweed in sheet form.
I didn't think they'd contain fish

[Joeybee]

Vegcurry they look ace, just like the ones at the vegan fayre, and they were yummy

[Gwydion]

and they were yummy

Indeed they were!

Thanks a lot vegcurry, awesome....

[RebeccaDye]

Just ordinary Nori sheets. It's only roasted lava seaweed in sheet form.
I didn't think they'd contain fish

Yeah, I only recently found out;

FISH IN YOUR NORI
by Jeremy Safron (www.lovingfoods.com)

Nori (the sea vegetable) grows as a lettuce in the ocean.

It is harvested often in big nets and with it, many fish are scooped up. This combination of seaweed, shrimp, crabs, snails, barnacles, and small fish are all ground up and made into sheets (like paper)

In the large industry they do not take the time to remove these sea animals. Most of the nori in the world comes from Japan.

The two main suppliers Nagata and Yamamoto (who supply most of the smaller companies) claim that the animal contamination is minimal.

Any contamination is unacceptable. Some smaller companies
(including a kosher certified kibbutz in Israel) are beginning to offer fish free nori. So be aware.

[Mahk]

The thing is all vegetable matter, grown on the land or under the sea, is teeming with animal life. All animals, even strict carnivores, need vegetation to survive and it is the natural habitat for many, if not most. [Carnivores need their prey to be nourished or they too die.] A corn field for example has thousands of different animals living on, in, and among the corn stalks: insects, their larvae, spiders, snails, slugs, worms, butterflies, visiting bees, small lizards, tree frogs, toads, field mice, etc. It would be impossible to cultivate vegetables in the yields we need without disturbing, killing, and yes, partially contaminating our food with some animal matter. One could attempt, in theory, to live on "hand picked" vegetables only (good luck )or just accept the fact that the majority of food is processed by machines like this 16-row-chomping corn combine (harvester):


Nori is no different than corn, wheat, etc.
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Vegcurry, it looks yummy it that photo, I think I will add it to my to-do list. Please explain something to me, an ignorant American, are the chips in your photo the traditional shape? I thought chips are more elongated like what in the US we call "steak fries":



Fried potatoes such as yours (made as round disks) at least in my part of the US, New England, are called "cottage fries", by the way.

[RebeccaDye]

Yeah that's true Mahk, though in the case of nori, the animal contamination is not only on a larger scale but it is also avoidable. So I will avoid it as best I can.

[Mr Flibble]

Assuming you refer to the potato product and not the penne pasta then yes, you are correct: those are chips.

[Stu]

I'm always surprised when vegans are so eager for foods which taste like meat etc (in this case - fish). I tried one when when everyone else was, at Bristol, but I'm not sure why. I never have any desire to taste those fake meats.

[Mr Flibble]

I've always despised everything about dead fish, the stench and the taste. Thus recreating it isn't even remotely on my radar.

However, out of everyone I knew when younger I was by far the least likely to ever turn vegetarian based on love of the taste of meat. Thus whilst I would not due to the ethics of doing so want to eat actual flesh (the repulsion of the thought would make me physically ill), I totally get it from a taste and texture point of view.

[vegcurry]

I like the idea of freeking out meat eaters when you can create something that they recognise but it isn't dead. Even better, if it tastes good, that's all that matters in my book.