Saturday, March 22, 2008

Vegan Black Pepper Pork Chops


Importer: Taiwan Vegetarian Inc.
Tel: 626-579-3338


This post is going to be the first in a series testing various frozen meat analogs. The Asia World in Plano carries a huge selection of fake meats, about half of which are vegan. We spent $80 or so to fill up our little deep freeze so that we could try a wide variety of soy and gluten based fakes. Some of the choices are more...exotic...than others. I won't go through them all now, but the selection includes duck, pork belly, squid and even mutton. I have to say that some of the items make me a little queasy, but for the sake of, uh, food science--I'm willing to give them a go. I'll be sure to take photos of the packaging to help you find them in your local Asian market, if you are so inclined.

kind of gyro-y

For our first test, we went a bit safe by pan frying the Black Pepper Pork Chops. Mason grilled some flatbread, spread it with Miso Mayo (probably my all time favorite condiment), added the chops and topped them with some sliced tomatoes and onions. We were both pleasantly surprised. They were really tasty. So much so that we sat around for 20 minutes talking about what we could do with the rest of the bag.

Disclaimer:
I know that this project isn't very green or at all local, but we thought it would be fun to try. I doubt that we'll be buying much of these products on a regular basis. So don't worry, we won't be living solely on a diet of what basically amounts to vegan McDonald's. It's still veg and homemade foods for us most of the time.

3 comments:

Joanne said...

mmm...this food would go so well with veganized Greek garlicky tzatziki sauce...start with 'sour supreme' sour cream as a base, add grated cucumbers(squeeze excess water out first), add minced garlic and salt...let stand for a few hours to allow flavours to blend together...mmm...I need to take my own advice and make this with tzatziki :D

megan said...

You're right--that sounds delicious. I was thinking about marinating the rest of them in gyro-y spices, too, so that would be perfect!

Vegan_Noodle said...

My husband loves to try faux meats... I think it somehow comforst him and makes him feel more normal (he is still an omnivore). He recently bought veggie-scallops which I'm a bit scared to try! I should try checking out the asian markets here and find stuff like this that's a little less scary for me!

Are you going to the ppk Texas gathering in Austin??