Options abound for plants disguised as meat
Whether for health or the environment, options abound
I’ve always been a dietary dilettante. Over the years, a combination of Catholic upbringing and culinary curiosity has found me vegetarian or vegan or gluten-free for 40 days at a stretch, but I’ve always returned to my omnivorous ways. A life of exclusion has limited appeal.
Though vegetarianism comprises a wide array of philosophies, I’ve always found one in particular stands out, and I’ve long associated it with fake meat. It is a dietary pathway built from a foundation of absence. Rather than focusing on the boundless pleasures of the vegetable world, some eaters of this ilk seem to embrace a simulacrum of what they shun.
My preferences do not set the pace for global dining trends, of course. Once relegated to specialty restaurants and your weird cousin who always brought his own field roast to Thanksgiving, plantbased, meatlike products now occupy a thriving sector of grocery and dining markets.
The past few years saw more than a few major developments in the world of fake meats, with laboratory-concocted burger challengers from companies such as Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat. Houston-area restaurants such as Hopdoddy and Hay Merchant have dabbled with the Impossible Burger — which attempts to mimic the characteristics of a beef patty — with mixed success. (Hay Merchant stopped carrying the product several months ago, citing cost.) Carl’s Jr. recently launched a Beyond Meat vegan burger nationwide. My neighborhood H-E-B sells a variety of plant-based patties, chops and nuggets.
According to The Good Food Institute, the plantbased-meat industry is now worth more than $767
million, and sales grew more than 23 percent in 2018. That growth makes finding meat substitutes a whole lot easier but presents challenges for purveyors of more traditional proteins. To shore up the beef industry’s market share, the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association petitioned the USDA last year to officially define meat as coming from an animal “harvested in the traditional manner,” objecting to the use of the term both for plant-based and lab-grown animal proteins.
The forces driving this shift are multifaceted and likely change from eater to eater. Some see health benefits in reducing meat consumption more broadly, whether or not the beef steaks they avoid are replaced by textured vegetable protein. Others see possible environmental ramifications in their diets, with recent studies suggesting that a broad reduction in meat consumption and livestock farming might help alleviate a looming climate crisis. With an increase in ready-made options and more resources for those who want to go the DIY route, the path to a meatless — or less meaty — diet is easier than it’s ever been.
Virtuous choices?
Registered dietitian Kristin Kabay of Houston nutrition-consulting firm Advice for Eating sees a sort of feedback loop between increased availability and quality of plantbased-meats, and the level of interest among consumers. As more products come on the market, more people seek them out. As more diners choose vegan cutlets over chicken, the market is motivated to provide higher-quality options.
“I think more people are open to it,” Kabay said. “They hear their friends talk about how they tried this thing, or they’re going on this vegan diet and trying it out, and they’re seeing the benefits to it.”
Though health may be one benefit of migrating to more plant-based foods, the environment is another factor. With recent reports from both the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the U.S. government highlighting the growing risks of unchecked greenhouse-gas emissions, concerned citizens are looking for ways to make an impact.
“You don’t convert grain into meat with 100 percent efficiency,” said Andrew Dessler, professor of atmospheric sciences and Reta A. Haynes Chair in Geosciences at Texas A&M University. “In fact, the efficiency is quite low. It takes a lot of grain. And given that raising grain releases greenhouse gases, that means you’re going to release a lot more greenhouse gases in the production.”
Though Dessler sees climate value in the notion of broad-based reduction in meat-eating, he is less inclined to put much weight on the impact of individual diner choices, noting that the kind of broad change indicated in recent climate reports requires large-scale political will supported by legislation. “That said,” Dessler continued, “I think individual virtuous choices — you know, compact fluorescents, walking instead of driving — those are all things that have cobenefits.”
A study published in January in the medical journal Lancet supports Dessler’s concerns regarding scale, suggesting that a 50 percent reduction of red-meat consumption is necessary, for environmental reasons and to optimize individual health. This commingling of health and environmental concerns speaks to Dessler’s co-benefit approach to the issue; even the study’s authors see stronger possible impacts from individual choices.
As for the co-benefits of reducing our meat consumption, Kabay — herself a vegan — has a few thoughts that drive her consulting advice: “It’s a great way to lose weight. Most plants are pretty low calorie but pretty nutrient dense. So that’s one of the biggest benefits,” she said. “The other thing that I see with clients walking in is that their energy levels go up.”
Making ‘meat’ at home
As is true with most things, not all faux meats are created equal. If you really want to have control over what goes into your jackfruit pulled pork slider, you’re going to have to do it yourself. That’s what Robin Asbell encourages in her new cookbook, “Plant Based Meats: Hearty, High-Protein Recipes for Vegans, Flexitarians and Curious Carnivores” — a thorough instruction manual for all manner of meat stand-ins, offering basic mock-meat specs and full recipes for how to employ them.
So I decided to give it a go, settling on three basic types of recipes based on my interests and practical concerns.
No. 1: recipes with which the finished product imitates a meat-based original where a stand-in seemed likely to succeed based on the fundamental nature of the dish. It might seem counterintuitive, but I went with pâté. For starters, pâté is a sum-of-its-parts sort of thing. Unlike a steak, where there’s very little to hide behind in terms of flavor and texture, pâté already relies on a host of modifications that take meat out of its normal mold and place it into an entirely different one.
Here, a tray of roasted parsnips and mushrooms meets walnuts and miso before being blended into a paste set with an agar gel, an algae-based thickener and gelling agent common in “modernist” cooking and increasingly found in the meatless cook’s bag of tricks. Mix-ins of pistachios and cracked peppercorns add flavor and texture, and a puff-pastry wrap gives it a cinematic flair.
Did it taste like meat? Not really. But it tasted pretty good, with plenty of umami. I’d do it again, but without the en croute extra. Wrapped in pastry and baked, the pâté took on a wetter, mushier character than its spreadable real-meat counterpart.
No. 2: recipes with an element of technique that piqued my interest. I opted for a dish involving a freeze/thaw process that promised to alter the texture of firm tofu, rendering it springy and meaty.
To make her Hacked Tofu, Asbell instructs home cooks to marinate drained-and-pressed-firm tofu in tamari soy sauce before freezing it for 24 hours. Once thawed, the tofu is baked until crispy, then tossed with a peanut/ tahini sauce and justcooked vegetables that retain an edge of crispness. It takes some time to pull together, but most is hands-off time. Unfortunately, none of my tasters noticed a significant difference between the texture of the frozen and thawed tofu, compared to their experiences with simply pressed and cooked tofu.
No. 3: recipes my family found interesting. Let’s face it: If the people for whom you’re cooking aren’t into it, it doesn’t really matter what your goals are. I have a wife and three kids to feed, and they’re really the ultimate test of whether a food — or a dish — makes it into rotation. I handed Asbell’s cookbook to my 15-year-old daughter and asked her what looked good to eat. She came back to me with Thai Meatballs in Red Curry.
In terms of fundamentals, this was the recipe that took me closest to the basic craft of faux-meats. The meatballs took some effort. Cook and cool brown rice; brown chopped onions in coconut oil (I really wish recipe writers would stop lying about onion-cooking times; this one was short by a good 15 minutes); blend in aromatics; mix the whole mess with vital wheat gluten and chickpea flour. It should come as little surprise that the fauxmeat pantry requires a few oddballs you may well not have lying around.
It was not a difficult recipe, though it was time consuming. It also led me to an odd thought about the tack of the book in general. Though the recipe has you go through a good hour of prep and cooking for the meatballs themselves, fashioning your own custom protein, it shortcuts the sauce, relying on storebought curry paste. Given that the sauce provides the overwhelming majority of the dish’s flavor — the recipe omits basic seasoning for the meatballs themselves, too — it would seem prudent to apply as much care there as required for the meatballs. But no. It felt as if the flavor itself were actually an afterthought, taking a backseat to the idea of the dish; an idea centered around replacement rather than fulfillment.
My daughter’s assessment: “I don’t understand why they even need the meatballs; I’d be just as happy with the curry and vegetables. Why can’t it just be a vegetable curry?”
Second opinion
That mirrored my thoughts as well, so I sought a second opinion. My in-laws have been vegetarians for most of the time I’ve known them. I brought leftovers of the tofu and meatballs to gauge the responses of eaters more attuned to the tastes and textures of faux meats.
The dishes received markedly higher praise. My sister-in-law praised the texture of the meatballs in particular, going so far as to indicate that they ranked easily on par with what she’d expect from a store-bought or restaurant-cooked meat sub. My nieces were split. I watched the 4-year-old fork up a meatball, announcing “it’s good” before bouncing off. The 9-year-old preferred the tofu. My sister-in-law wanted to merge the sauce from the tofu with her preferred meat substitute.
My general approach to cooking relies less on meat with every passing year, but I don’t think this book has moved me further toward relying on plantbased meat. There are a few things in here I haven’t tried and want to (mushroom bacon!), but I still feel fundamentally the same about fake meat. I want to eat healthfully, but I can do that without seitan, a wheat-gluten-based meat substitute with origins in ancient China. I worry about climate change, but I have my rep’s phone number and a valid voter registration.
Besides, the dietary dilettante in me is already thinking about a few weeks of raw foods.
‘Plant Based Meats Hearty, High-Protein Recipes for Vegans, Flexitarians and Curious Carnivores’ By Robin Asbell Countryman Press, $23.95, 184 pages
Thai Meatballs in Red Curry MEATBALLS
½ cup water
¼ cup medium-grain brown rice Canola oil for greasing
2 tablespoons refined coconut oil 1 cup chopped onion
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 tablespoon minced fresh
lemongrass
1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger 1 tablespoon freshly grated lime zest 1 cup water
¼ cup apple juice
2 tablespoons red miso paste 1 tablespoon dark sesame oil
1½ cups vital wheat gluten
½ cup chickpea flour
¼ cup finely chopped fresh cilantro
leaves and stems
SAUCE
1 (13½-ounce) can coconut milk 1 tablespoon red curry paste ½ medium lime, sliced 2 tablespoons light brown sugar 2 tablespoons tamari soy sauce 4 cups chopped raw vegetables
Instructions: Make the meatballs: In a small pot over high heat, combine the water and rice, bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to low, cover and cook for 40 minutes, or until tender. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Ready a deep roasting pan by lightly greasing it with the canola oil. Tear off a sheet of foil to cover and set aside.
In a medium sauté pan over medium-high heat, warm the coconut oil. Add the onion and sauté, stirring constantly, until it starts to sizzle. Reduce the heat to low and sauté for 5 minutes, or until soft and lightly golden. Add the garlic, lemongrass, ginger and lime zest and sauté, stirring constantly, for 2 minutes. Remove from the heat. Scrape the contents of the sauté pan into a medium bowl.
Add the water, apple juice, miso and sesame oil to the bowl and stir until well combined, mashing the miso until it is well incorporated. Add the cooked rice to the bowl and stir until well combined.
In a large bowl, stir together the vital wheat gluten, chickpea flour and cilantro. Add the contents of the bowl containing the rice mixture to the dry mixture and stir them together until a dough forms. Once the dough becomes thick, knead it with your hands for 3 minutes, or until it is stringy and elastic.
Using a 1-ounce scoop or a tablespoon, form the dough into balls and roll them between your dampened hands until smooth. Place them in the prepared roasting pan, making sure they do not touch one another. Cover with the foil and bake for 40 minutes. Remove from the oven and keep warm.
Make the sauce: Pour the coconut milk into a large pot over mediumhigh heat. Add the curry paste, mash it until well combined and bring the mixture to a simmer. Add the lime slices, brown sugar and tamari and stir. Add the raw vegetables and, cook, stirring occasionally, for 3 to 5 minutes, or until crisp-tender.
Add the meatballs to the pot, gently folding them in to ensure they are coated with the sauce. Remove from the heat. Serve hot.
Makes 8 cups meatballs and sauce (1½ pounds)
From “Plant Based Meats” by Robin Asbell