Vegan Mofo #30 - Taymer’s Eggplant and Seaweed Accras...

Vegan Mofo #30 - Taymer’s Eggplant and Seaweed Accras 

The Region - The Caribbean
The Book - Caribbean Vegan
The Author - Taymer Mason
The Recipe - Eggplant and Seaweed Accras
Page #60
Difficulty - Easy
Duration - Roughly 1 hour

Okay, so the finished product may not be pretty, and the photos don’t do it justice but please don’t let that stop you from making these delicious Eggplant and Seaweed Accras.  Since Eggplant is not my favorite vegetable this recipe never really appealed to me, it never stood out, but my opinion of it changed dramatically at the Toronto Vegetarian Festival. The Festival was back in the first week of September, and so my husband and I decided to shorted our stay in Montreal so that we could go. It was a great time but I’ll give you a full recap after Mofo. For now I’ll say that Taymer Mason herself was there doing a cooking demo. We went to her Demo on Sunday which was the last day of the festival and these eggplant accras were one of the things she made. Watching the demo I saw how quick and easy it was to make, and that got me curious about it. Then I tasted the finished product and was blown away. They were so freaking good! She served them with a slightly sweet nutmeg sauce that really brought them to a new level of awesome. I knew right then, still chewing the piece of Accra in my mouth that I would have to - HAVE TO - make these for Mofo.

Incase you don’t know what an accra is it’s like a savory fried fritter, usually fried and sold by vendors on the street as a quick and easy street food. Sometimes it’s eaten as is, and sometimes it’s eaten in a bread. The traditional way to make an accra is to use fish, but Taymer uses nori to get that fishy flavor and it works! Of course the day I made these I had something else going on the stove, and seeing as how I don’t like to deep fry things anyway I decided to taker her recommendation and bake them instead. That’s why they don’t look as good as on the cover of the book, or as good as they did in Toronto. When you bake them they don’t get that crispy brown shell but they’re still freaking good trust me!

They really are simple to make. It’s just eggplant, salt, oil, nori, onion, green onion, habanero, thyme, black pepper, flour, baking powder, and water. Baking time is about 25 minutes but I baked them an extra 20 just to get them extra crispy. As for the nutmeg sauce, well that’s not a recipe in the book. I sent Taymer a message on Facebook asking her what was in it because I’d loved it so much at her Toronto demo and wanted to recreate it. She replied that it was a mix she’d been whipping up for years that didn’t really have a recipe. Mayo, ketchup, mustard, nutmeg, sugar etc.. so I did my best to recreate it. It didn’t taste exactly like hers but it was still great. Loved the addition of nutmeg. If you own a copy of Caribbean Vegan and haven’t made these yet, do it and I promise you won’t be sorry.