Vegan Mofo #36 - Mark’s Linguine With Clam Free Sauce & Sophie’s Kitchen Vegan Scallops...

Vegan Mofo #36 - Mark’s Linguine With Clam Free Sauce & Sophie’s Kitchen Vegan Scallops 

The Region - Italy
The Book - The 30 Minute Vegan’s Taste of Europe
The Author - Mark Rienfeld
The Recipe - Linguine With Clam Free Sauce
Page #23
Difficulty - Easy
Duration - Roughly 35-40 minutes

And now we’ve reached the end. It’s a bitter sweet end for me, because on one hand I hate to see Mofo end, it’s been so much fun, but on the other I’m finally starting to feel burned out. Not burned out with cooking but burned out because I always have to make sure my camera is handy. Then there’s uploading photos, editing photos, writing daily - sometimes twice and thrice daily - posts and getting everything organized. I love it, but to keep that pace consistently when I have so much else going on is draining too. I’ve loved and enjoyed every minute of mofo, loved reading everyone’s blogs, seeing everyone’s creations, it’s been an inspiration and so I close this mofo with an unexpected dish.

Unexpected because I hadn’t intended to make this for mofo at all. Then last night I came across a box of Sophie’s Kitchen vegan scallops in my local grocery and knew I had to try them. I’ve been hearing great things about this brand for a while now but had never gotten the chance to try it, so I excitedly picked up a box upon making the discovery that it was now being sold in my area. Problem is, I never liked scallops, as I mentioned in my post about the tofu scallops, and short of serving them as I had the Mark Reinfeld way a few days ago I didn’t know what else to do with them. But then, scallops in my mind seem to go with Alfredo, and once I had that idea in my head I remembered Reinfeld’s recipe for Clam Free Sauce and thought why couldn’t vegan scallops work in that dish too?

So tonight, after a busy day, needing something quick and easy for dinner that’s exactly what I decided to do. I made the recipe as pretty well as stated, except I used only a 1/4 pound of shiitake’s instead of three cups since I used a box of scallops as well. The sauce is made of garlic, oil, shiitake mushrooms, arame, vegan butter, non-dairy milk, cashews - which are listed as optional but I used them - lemon juice, salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, parsley - I didn’t have any and so I used some basil instead - white wine, and nutritional yeast. I left the pine nuts out too. I decided to cook the thawed scallops in the pan right along with the garlic and mushrooms rather then cook them separate and I’m not sure if this made any kind of difference in taste or texture but I think it worked fine.

Once the sauce is finished you add it to your linguine except I didn’t have any and so I used Angel Hair pasta instead. No biggie. Overall I thought the sauce was great, rich and creamy. It wasn’t overly seafoody and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I don’t like an overwhelming fish flavor but a little more sea would have been nice. I would definitely make this again and maybe add in some crumbled nori sheets too. Now whether or not this sauce tastes like clams I can’t say, I’ve never in my life eaten a clam and I’m glad of that. Clams to me were always a disgusting culinary oddity, so if you’ve tried this dish and you’ve eaten clams before let me know what you think.

As for the Sophie’s Kitchen Vegan Scallops - well, it’s been so long since I’ve eaten a real scallop I can’t really comment on similarity. The vegan scallops were mild in flavor, and not fishy. I think a stronger flavor would have been better, but texture wise they seemed pretty dead on as far as I can remember. Since scallops were not my favorite thing to begin with I’m not sure I would buy these vegan scallops again myself, but my husband loved them. I suppose scallops, vegan or otherwise just might not be my thing, so in the future I suppose I’ll stick with the tofu version.

And that my friends concludes this years Vegan Mofo. Thanks for reading, thanks for commenting and thanks for participating. It’s been a blast. Stay tuned tomorrow for my Vegan Mofo 2013 Recipe Round-up of my top 10 Favorite dishes from this year’s mofo event!

Vegan Mofo #23 - Mark’s Tofu Scallops with Saffron Herb Butter...

Vegan Mofo #23 - Mark’s Tofu Scallops with Saffron Herb Butter

The Region - France
The Book - The 30 Minute Vegan’s Taste of Europe
The Author - Mark Reinfeld
The Recipe -Tofu Scallops with Saffron Herb Butter
Page # 82
Difficulty - Easy
Duration - About 30 minutes

Can I make a confession? Never in my life has there ever been a day where I thought to myself “You know what would be good right now? Scallops.” Ew, yuck, ick! Even when I ate animals and fish scallops were never on the menu. I hated them, absolutely, positively despised them. I thought they were one of the most disgusting things you could put into your mouth - right up there on my gross radar with oysters and veal. - I know people go gaga for these little sea creatures but I never understood the appeal. To me they had the texture of rubber, the flavor of the sea, and a mildly sweet aroma that I found somewhat off-putting. I think I only ever ate scallops twice in my life.

Strange then how veganism changes a person, and opens whole new worlds of possibility. I don’t mean to say that now that I don’t eat animals anymore I crave to try scallops again quite the contrary. It seems that it’s precisely because of the fact that I’m vegan that I want to eat a scallop, not because I miss scallops but because vegan scallops aren’t scallops at all, you dig? In his recipe Reinfeld uses tofu in place of the scallops, and I love tofu you see, so cooking it using the method usually reserved for scallops, and slathering it in a ‘buttery’ herb sauce that is common when serving scallops appeals to me.  As is often the case most people are more interested in the things they put on their food then the actual food itself - Omnivores are particularly guilty of this - and so I was particularly intrigued to try Reinfeld’s saffron herb butter sauce. As for what Scallops have to do with France I’m not entirely sure, and Reinfeld doesn’t say. Although seafood is popular in France and the French are particularly well known for their culinary ingenuity when it comes to sauces and particularly ones based on butter so perhaps this is enough to warrant the inclusion of this recipe in the French chapter. Who knows, but either way it was a delicious meal.

Now, I didn’t go through the trouble of cutting the tofu into little scallop rounds. I figured what was the point? Besides I don’t own any cookie cutters - small or otherwise - anyway. Instead I cut my tofu into squares and then marinated them in the olive oil, cayenne, and lemon juice mixture, before baking them until golden. As the tofu bakes you make your butter sauce which is a mixture of vegan butter, saffron, garlic, white wine, lemon juice, marjoram, and thyme. Once the two are complete you plate your tofu scallops, drizzle some sauce over them and garnish with fresh minces parsley and voila! You have a lovely plate of Hors d'oeuvre! Bon appetite!

So now you’re wondering how they taste. Well, I can’t tell you that they taste like scallops because they don’t. Scallops are disgusting and fishy and these delicate little roasted tofu bites are neither of those things. I think the tofu, and the roasting of it mimic’s the texture of a scallop pretty well, and I love the tart, tangy lemon flavor from the marinade they go into but if you’re looking for a dead-accurate vegan scallop you’ll be disappointed. However adding a bit of kelp powder or nori into the marinade might help on that count. As for the herb butter it is simply magnificent, and it tastes absolutely divine when poured over the lemony tofu cubes. Simply a perfect combination.