Making Bologna

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drmoss_ca
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Making Bologna

Post by drmoss_ca »

Any interest in a home made version of this that just happens to be vegetarian? (I guess it's vegan too, but I don't care; if pigs have to die so I can eat I'm OK with it. I love black pudding!) It turns out that I am making all sorts of okara as a by-product of making soy milk. I use it to make oatcakes, granola, okara balls, muffins and biscuits. It has protein, calcium and fibre, and acts a bit like eggs as a weak rising agent. But it looks like I am expected to make a pizza tonight, and I do rather like to slip some carnivorous tastes under the vegetarian radar. I know that some knowledgeable chefs choose to crumple some thin slices of mortadella bologna on a pizza as a preferable alternative to that goddam pepperoni, which is an obvious invention of the devil. So here I am, with a food processor, some okara and some spices. Can I make a bologna ('polony' to the Brits), that will simulate a decent mortadella somewhat?
Currently I have three of them steaming for 1½ hours. I didn't measure quantities exactly, but went by my nose. The stuff smells strongly and it's rather easy to be guided by scent. However, I can probably make decent estimations of the amounts by volume.
And for critical minds who might think of it, yes, I have considered making mozzarella from the soy milk. I don't know if it is possible, but it probably wouldn't be worse than the frozen "mozzarella" shreds one picks up in a supermarket, which have no relation to fresh buffalo milk cheese. I don't have any rennet, and especially no vegetarian equivalent, and there's no point making anything my wife cannot eat. So that's out for now.

The pizza will have homemade dough, homemade tomato sauce, homemade pesto (I know, there are basil leaves on a margherita, but considering the time of year, I thought some frozen pesto we made last summer would do), and bought mozzarella. IF the ersatz bologna (let's get all the Axis powers in there - there is soy sauce in it!) works out, I may slice it thin and crumple it up on there too.

F*ck, it's bloody snowing again! Oh, well, the frozen north is doing what it does best.
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fallingwickets
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Re: Making Bologna

Post by fallingwickets »

if all else fails, you can hire yourself out as a chef!!! :)

clive
p.s. polony is much nicer than balogne even if only for the name
de gustibus non est disputandum
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drmoss_ca
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Re: Making Bologna

Post by drmoss_ca »

It worked out OK. I think there ought to be a deliberate addition of fat, both to help bind it, and to help intensify flavours as presented to the taste buds. Currently, the only fat in it is what is in the okara, and that's not much at all: most of the oil in a soy bean goes into the milk.

The amount I made was divided into three sausages and wrapped in foil, steamed for 1½ hours. Once cooled, it does slice, but is a bit blander than an actual bologna. Likely fat and salt would solve it. I've put slices of it on the pizza for testing, and my wife has taken one of the three sausages for trial by her vegan adult psychiatrist colleague (a completely cuddly cutie, so I don't mind).

The more I think about it, the more I see fat and salt in the future of the remaining sausage. It will be easy to rework it with those additions. Currently it is a slightly crumbly and rather red sausage, with the appearance of sobrassada:

Image

or, if you prefer, the Italian soppressata:

Image

Both of those are considered 'spreadable' rather than having the backbone to be sliced and then fried, eaten in a sandwich, or placed on a pizza. My sausage is quite happy to be sliced:

pizza.jpg
pizza.jpg (179.08 KiB) Viewed 7491 times
Let's see how it eats this evening.
"Je n'ai pas besoin de cette hypothèse."
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drmoss_ca
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Re: Making Bologna

Post by drmoss_ca »

Well it turned out pretty decent. Doesn't taste quite like bologna, but smells just right. Pesto on a pizza is sensational! Pippa is going full Nova Scotian this morning and going to have fried baloney for breakfast.

The recipe:
2 batches okara (~3 cups, could substitute tofu)
½ cup ketchup
3 TBSP soy sauce
1½ TBSP onion powder/flakes
1½ TBSP garlic powder
1 TBSP mustard powder
1 TBSP smoked paprika
¼ tsp nutmeg
2 TBSP cornflour
½ cup breadcrumbs/panko/rusk
Quick oats till texture looks right (½-1 cup)

Mix in food processor and blend till as smooth as possible. Add and mix in oats till it looks firm enough to form into a sausage (I made three about 8" long by 2" diameter, so they would fit in my steamer). Turn out onto floured surface, roll into sausage, coating the outside with flour I used wholewheat), wrap each in tin foil and twist ends to seal. Place in steamer and steam for 1½ hours. Allow to cool before slicing and using.

Here is one of mine after half of it went on the pizza:
IMG_2215.jpg
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fallingwickets
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Re: Making Bologna

Post by fallingwickets »

thumbs up on the successful experiment :)
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Re: Making Bologna

Post by drmoss_ca »

Thank you! Pippa's fried baloney on a ciabatta roll with a handful of fresh parsley was really good - I got to have a nibble. I'm sure it's not related to my <sarcasm>rich diet</sarcasm> but I seem to have woken up with gout in my left foot. Not the bologna*, I swear! My next experiment with okara is going to be making hummus. For this I need tahini, but the supermarkets here don't carry it. So I guess I'm going to be looking for sesame seeds, toasting them, and blending with olive oil.


*Actually, my white count has plummeted from 82 to 18 over the last few weeks of chemo, so it's the dead lymphocytes' DNA being metabolised into uric acid.
"Je n'ai pas besoin de cette hypothèse."
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fallingwickets
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Re: Making Bologna

Post by fallingwickets »

I had a bout of gout once that was really bad....a doc prescribed ketorolac which thankfully seemed to work instantaneously

clive
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Re: Making Bologna

Post by John Rose »

I had to look up "okara". I always thought it was a typo for "okra".
Wikipedia wrote:Okara contains some antinutritional factors: trypsin inhibitors (mostly destroyed by cooking), saponins, and soybean agglutinins, which cannot be easily digested.
:-k Am I the only one who thinks of using the failed recipes for shaving soap? :whistle:
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