Tuesday 13 May 2008

cashew and mushroom nutloaf

On the plane to Singapore, at 0200, we were served a meal that D could not identify. We remarked upon its tastiness, and I surmised that it was a nutloaf of some sort, though I had never before eaten one or seen one.

On Saturday I tried to make one. Though it takes quite some time, it's all oven time, so I thought it would not be a problem. Alas, using a blender on the nut mixture proved problematic, as the nuts crushed down to form an almost solid wall of tiny pieces of cashew beneath the blades. Aside from this, and the frustration as we grew hungrier and hungrier and the delicious smell permeated the house, the nutloaf was tasty and it is an experience I would like to attempt again, though perhaps there is a better way to grind the nuts down.



As my base recipe I used this nutloaf recipe by Ricki at Diet Dessert and Dogs. I only used about a quarter of a cup of coriander, and still I found the coriander flavour a little strong, and will probably omit it next time I try this recipe. I also found that the loaf didn't quite hold together straight out of the oven, though it held together fine when I was cutting it cold the next day, which makes me suspect I didn't leave it to cool long enough - but what can I say, we were very hungry. I only used cashews, no other sorts of nuts, and forgot the soy sauce. I also only used about half the amount of wine suggested.

There are a whole lot of nutloaf recipes here, as Johanna at Green Gourmet Giraffe conveniently held a nutloaf challenge just recently. A number of them are not vegan, but they are all vegetarian and most of them seem easily modifiable. Some of them are even gluten-free! I look forward to giving more nutloafs a go, so far they've been tasty.

Yesterday we had some leftover nutloaf, and some leftover dahl from mother's day, and as an experiment we combined the two and they were delicious.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Pen!
Thanks for giving this a try! I bet using a blender would be frustrating (I think the original recipe called for a food processor), but glad you persevered! I had the same experience with it holding together better once it had cooled a bit.

Thanks, too, for your comment on my blog, and for visiting. Glad I now have a chance to explore your fairly new blog--welcome to the world of blogging!

steph said...

Thanks for coming to check out my attempt, Ricki! It was really an interesting experience, especially as I'd only eaten nutloaf once before ever.

I've actually got another blog, and I have a previous food blog that I used to share with a friend, but I sort of grew out of it and wanted a fresh start, to talk about my city and my ethnicity and my veganness. I hope it continues to be interesting! And thank you for the welcome. :o)

Anonymous said...

Hi AVAT as an avid nut loaf maker I thought I would share some of my ideas.
I use brazil nuts as a base and then add in a stonger tasting nut like cashews or almonds. I also throw in some linseeds, pepitas or sunflower seeds. For binding I use an organic vegetable stock powder and Organ no-egg. I also make bread crumbs using Margret River Organic Stoneground Wholemeal bread.
For vegies I always use an onion and a clove of garlic sauteed in evoo then I might throw in a grated zucchini, chopped tomato I even used roasted beetroot last time so I suppose any veggies will work.
I also use nutloaf uncooked to make 'sausage' rolls and leftover cooked nutloaf tossed though the tomato sauce for pasta.
Enjoy!! :)

Anonymous said...

....Oops one more thing....

I bought a 'rocket' blender from Crazy Clarks in the city for about $40 which is just as god as a food processor but doesn't take up as much space. Grinds nuts etc very well.