Fakin' Bacon

A convincing bacon is supposedly the holy grail of vegan food. I'm not entirely sure this is the be all and end all, but this is a pretty darned nifty vegan recipe that tastes smokey and salty and has a bacony crunch. Not trying to fool anyone here, but it does more or less look the part, too!

I heard about this recipe from a friend, but have modified it because the one I tried ended up not crispy but cracky, way too hard and brittle. I've used chickpea flour (AKA besan) for a more proteinaceous taste. The flavouring has got to be salty and smokey to get a bacony taste, so we're using soy sauce, smoked paprika, and liquid smoke to bring out these elements.

You'll need:

BASE

1/4 cup (32g) chickpea flour (besan) [you can probably use wheat flour if you don't have besan]

1/4 cup (32g) starch [I used tapioca starch but corn or potato should work just as well]

4 Tbsp (60mL) water

FLAVOUR

2 tsp (10mL) liquid smoke [I used hickory]

2 tsp (10mL) soy sauce [I used flavoured Maggie soy sauce]

1 tsp (5mL) garlic powder

1/2 tsp (2.5 mL) smoked paprika [regular paprika is fine if you don't have smoked]

and the cooking oil of your choice.

We're going to make 2 batters here, one white and one red to make "streaky" bacon. Here's how:

1. Mix your chickpea flour and starch together in a small bowl.
2. Transfer equal parts of this mix into 2 other bowls.
3. Add half of the liquid smoke, soy sauce, and garlic powder to each bowl.
4. Add the smoked paprika to one of the bowls.
5. Stir together, then add half the water to each bowl (about 2 Tbsp each).

Use a separate spoon to mix each of the 2 batters until smooth. You want them fairly runny, a bit thinner than white glue.

What you want to do here is make striped crepes out of the 2 different-coloured batters.

First heat a frying pan and brush lightly with oil.

Then create your streaks. I used the red batter first, making a set of red streaks parallel to each other.

Then I used the white batter to fill in the gaps and create a crepe that will stick together.

Be messy and streaky and it will look more like real bacon, if that's your thing ;)

You can cook the crepe on each side for about 1-2 minutes on medium heat. You just want the crepe to cook through but not get crispy.

Not yet!

Once the crepes are done, you have 2 choices.

You can fry them up right away, or save them for later and have bacon ready in just a few minutes when you want it hot. These crepes freeze well and you can double or triple the recipe so you have bacon on demand when you need it.

But let's assume you want it NOW!

Slice the bacon crepes into strips.

Then fry the strips on medium-high heat in lots of oil. Don't skimp - bacon is a luxury bad-for-you food anyway!

Let the bacon bubble and crisp up nicely, frying on both sides, but don't let it burn.

When it's done, set it on some paper towels to drain.

This fakin' bacon is pretty good hot and crispy right out of the pan, so don't delay.

Makes a killer vBLT or as a replacement for any other bacon delights.

Is it good for you? No.

Does it taste good! Heck yeah!