Thursday 8 January 2015

Dana's Vegan Fish Sauce - adapted (vegan & gluten-free)

Rocket & Roses Kitchen Play List:

Melissa Etheridge ~ The Prison
Chely Wright ~ Just The Way We Do It
Gossip ~ Coal To Diamonds
Truth Hurts ~ Addictive (Instrumental)
Train ~ This'll Be My Year
NIN ~ Eraser
Rob Thomas ~ Lonely No More
Paloma Faith ~ It's The Not Knowing
Clawfinger ~ Wonderful World
QOTSA ~ The Blood Is Love
Gary Moore ~ Parisienne Walkways
Dead Sara ~ Some Have It Bad
Gossip ~ Yr Mangled Heart
Thunder ~ What A Beautiful Day

Blimey...it's been a week! What with one thing and another. This has meant I haven't made it into my kitchen as much as I'd hoped. The one thing I have managed to make is today's recipe...

...now I come to this fish sauce nonsense as a completely clueless person. Having never eaten fish much less fish sauce I have nothing to liken it to. But nearly all the areas of cooking I am hoping to explore this year use the smelly stuff. In the past I have just omitted fish sauce from recipes but I made the decision to try and find a vegan alternative. I recently was able to pick up some vegan oyster sauce and thought maybe I could do the same with fish sauce but to no avail. ML made some searches and found some online recipes and that is how I came to make the vegan fish sauce from TheKitchn.com. Dana's recipe was easy to make, if not a little stinky, and very soon I had a large colander of wakame mix draining off a salty stock. Now for Dana's original recipe post simply click here. My adapted version is vegan but also gluten-free. I should mention that Thekitchn.com is not a vegan blog.

Given my lack of knowledge of how a fish sauce tastes I am going by the fact that it has a intensely salty and piquant flavour. I can live with never knowing the difference between this vegan alternative and actual fish sauce. I look forward to trying it out in the lists of recipes that I want to make over the coming year. 

Dana's Vegan Fish Sauce

Dana's Vegan Fish Sauce - adapted
(Original recipe from thekitchn.com)

1 1/4 cup dried wakame
5 cups filtered water
8 dried shitake mushrooms
3 garlic cloves, whole, skins on, crushed
1 cup tamari
1 tbsp peppercorns 
1 tbsp brown rice miso 

In a medium sized sauce pan add the wakame, garlic, peppercorns and water and stir well. Bring it to a boil and then reduce to a simmer for 20 minutes. Strain well and add the stock back into the pan. Add the tamari and bring the stock back to a boil and reduce the stock down. Remove from the heat and stir in the miso. 

Decant to a glass bottle and store in the fridge. Use one-for-one to replace fish sauce in vegan recipes. 

Enjoy the salty goodness! 

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you are looking forward to a great weekend? 

~Red~ 

NB: This is not my creation but an adaption of a great recipe by Dana @ TheKitchn.com. I thank her for sharing such a great recipe. ~R~