Shimeji and vegan feta crackle

Shimeji and vegan feta crackle

I’ve been experimenting with vegan cheese for a few months now, and it’s been quite a journey - I must’ve read a thousand recipes and watched a hundred videos on YouTube. I’ve added ingredients, taken ingredients out and made a ton of cheese, some of them better than others. I’ve got two recipes now that I’m happy with, one is for vegan feta cheese, which I’m going to share with you today, and the other is for cheese sauce, which makes a mean vegan macaroni and cheese that I’ll share in the next recipe I post.

I wanted to make a light crunchy snack using my newly minted feta, so I decided to use a stem of exotic mushrooms ( that I couldn’t resist buying), red onions and phyllo pastry to make a party snack that looks and tastes as if it were made with cheese. The feta is a no-cook variety that I’ve developed and it doesn’t taste half bad at all - I’m super pleased with the result, actually. Of course, this feta can be used as a substitute for dairy feta in any recipe you choose, even in salads and over pasta.

Ingredients

Vegan Feta

200g of firm tofu
3 teaspoons of salt
¾ cup vegetable oil
Level tablespoon of garlic powder
Level tablespoon of onion powder
1 teaspoon thyme
1 teaspoon oregano
½ tablespoon chili flakes
4 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
3 tablespoons lemon juice
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 tablespoon of marmite ( or nutritional yeast)
2 ½ tablespoons of olive brine
1 cup of water

Exotic mushroom crackle

8 layers of phyllo pastry
200 g of Shimeji mushrooms
3 baby red onions
1 teaspoon 🧄 garlicpowder
½ teaspoon 🌶 chilli flakes
4 tablespoons of vegan margarine
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Vegetable oil for sautéing

Method

Vegan Feta

Melt the marmite in 1 cup of water, reserve. Add the oil, lemon juice and vinegar to a container that has a lid you can seal. Add the onion powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper, chilli 🌶 flakes, olive brine, thyme and oregano to the container and blend with a fork. Add the marmite water and stir.

Press the tofu under something heavy in a colander. Leave for half an hour so that the water drains off the tofu. Cut the tofu up into cubes once it’s drained and add to the marinade. Seal the container and leave at room temperature to infuse for around two hours.

Shimeji filling

Wash and break up the stem of mushrooms, cutting off the hard edge that holds the mushrooms as a group. Divide the mushrooms. Slice the baby red onions into quarters. Sauté the mushrooms and onions in a little vegetable oil with garlic powder, Black pepper and a sprinkling of chilli flakes for around 5 minutes until just browned.

Phyllo pastry

Unfurl the phyllo pastry and separate the layers. Cover the pastry with a clean dishcloth while you work so that it doesn’t dry out. Melt 4 tablespoons of margarine in a saucepan and using a pastry brush, brush each layer in a stack with the margarine.

Grease a mini muffin tin (I use silicone). Cut the pastry using a pizza wheel into squares. Line the muffin tin with the squares. Spoon a little of the mushroom mixture onto each square. Top with a piece of feta from the container and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cover each “cup” with a piece of the phyllo stack. Brush the top with the leftover cooking oil from the mushroom pan. Bake in a medium-hot oven (180 degrees Celsius) for 15- 18 minutes until nicely browned and super crunchy.

All images shot by me using my iPad
Recipe developed by me