The Mystery of Magic Meat – Revealed

Magic Meat Basic Recipe

What you need:

Ingredients:

1 x cup/glass porridge oats

1 x cup/glass mince

1 x cup/glass Vital Wheat Gluten (VWG from now on)

1 x cup mushroom stock (actually you can use whatever stock you want, just make sure you use the same throughout)

The key principle is therefore to stick to the ratio of 1:1:1:1 to make as much or as little as you want. Obvs.

1 x mushroom (see above) stock cube – this will be crumbled into the dry mix

1 x tbs of yeast flakes – this adds a real savoury depth and is chockfull of Vitamin B12, too

1 x roughly chopped portobello mushroom or a couple of small/medium mushrooms

1 x roughly chopped small onion or medium size shallot

1 x clove garlic

Cold water

What you do:

Sling the mushroom, onion garlic and stock into a whizzer and blitz until completely smooth. This will also add colour to the magic meat.
Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl, don’t forget to crumble in the stock cube
Add all the stock/shallot/onion/garlic liquid
Mix well with a metal spoon
Start kneading by hand – like it was bread
Check the consistency – it will probably be a little dry, so add some cold water, but very slowly, you do not want this sticky.
Keep kneading for two to three minutes until its an elastic blob

Note: You can add whatever you want, extra flavouring like kerbs (we make wicked sausageless rolls)- be careful as flavours intensify as you cook – pumpkin and sunflower seeds, chopped chestnuts, anything you fancy – and it will increase the protein punch too – good for all the climbers from Big Rock out there 🙂

How to cook it:

You have three options:

Steam
Simmer in stock
Bake

I prefer to steam it as the consistency seems better. However, I will explain all three methods.

Steam

Get a big saucepan and a steamer rack, if you don’t have one of those, use a sieve.

Anyway, the principle is dead easy:

You tear off a hunk of magic meat,
If you want meatballs, roll the dough it into a meatball shape (doh): slightly smaller than a golf ball,
If you want burgers, make burger shapes,
If you want a hunk of magic meat you can slice, make a block
Load the steamer/sieve with the meatless balls/burgers/block
Add about two cups of boiling water to the saucepan, bring to the boil, turn down to a simmer and put the lid on
Steam for 30 minutes – check the water level and add more as needed, just make sure the water does not touch the sieve/steamer
Steam for a further 30 minutes

Remove the saucepan from the heat, using oven gloves or some other don’t-get-burned method, remove the steamer/sieve from the saucepan and put the meatless balls on a drying rack, and let them cool. When cool pop them in the fridge. They will be firm and meatlike after about 6-8 hours.

They go brilliantly in home made Italian tomato sauce and haricot beans – just use them like you would use meatballs.

Simmer

Bring a litre of water flavoured with stock to the boil, and then put in the prepared dough, turn it down to a simmer and let it bubble for 45 minutes; check the consistency, if it has firmed up, then cook for 15 minutes and then follow the directions above.

Bake

Pre-heat the oven to 200C, load the dough into a baking tray in whatever shape you want, cover the baking tray with silver foil, bake for 30 minutes, check consistency, if it is fairly firm to the touch, bake another 15 minutes and check again. It is done when the colour is even and when you push it with your finger tip it feels the same as when you push your chin with your thumb. Take out of the oven let cool, and pop into the fridge.

And there you go.

IMAGE GALLERY

Top is an iPhone video of magic meatballs cooking in rich tomato sauce;

Second one down is is baked blocks (for rolls/ sandwiches or adding to stew);

Third are baked meatballs with sunflower seeds;

Fourth one down are magi meatballs with blitzed rice added to make them very light (really good in rich stock for a substantial lunch);

Fifth is a magic meat brunch in toasted home made bread with gherkins, mayonnaise and mustard;

Numero Six is meatballs in homemade tomato sauce and haricot beans (aka beans and meatballs);

Magnificent Seven is magic meat cubes cooked with tomato. red peppers, garlic, chilli, chickpeas and finished with fresh coriander – eat with basmati rice.