Moron, what's wrong with you, don't you know that lemon meringue pie is made almost exclusively out of eggs? How are you going to make that vegan, you must be some kind of a dumbass.
Well anyway, it's my dad's birthday and because the Orthodox season of fasting is upon us he's going vegan/pescetarian for the month of December. Fun! (I'm so glad I don't live there anymore).
So cast yer eye on this sorry collection of objects. What possible cohesive dish could be conjured up from the bunch or nonsense?
I'm using the austere pie crust recipe from
Sugar Blues (with a few modifications), a war time lemon curd recipe with marrow substituted for eggs, and a really bizzare sounding mix of what I would call chemicals (but really aren't) for the meringue top.
The crust is easy and boring and goes in the oven for blind baking.
Then, as illustrated in this delightful cartoon from Marguerite Patten's 'We'll eat again'
you take your marrow, skin and gut it (or 'peel and seed' if there are any children reading this), weigh the pieces and then casually weigh out the same amount of sugar! Um, no. Normally I would follow a recipe even if seemed wrong to me, just out of curiosity, but I am not the sugar baron and haven't got piles of it lying around in my yard.
My marrow ended up being 500g and I measured out a scant 150g of sugar and that's your lot. I suppose if you were canning it to keep for the winter, you'd want more sugar to help preserve it. But I'm planning on eating mine.
You mash the steamed marrow add in the lemon and sugar, and cook for half an hour. If you close your eyes and hold your nose it's just like lemon curd.
If you open your eyes, it looks like this and smells like cabbage soup. But nobody's really interested in the curd! It's the egg-free meringue that you really want to see.
I had to go to Planet Organic for the xanthan powder, which is a thickener, 8 times more potent than cornflour, and made from sugar.
And I had to drag my ass to Holland and Barrett for the soy protein isolate which is made into a drink for body builders and vegetarians to get more protein, I think. This is my favorite summation of it's many uses, gleaned from Wikipedia
"Soy protein is used for emulsification and texturizing. Specific applications include adhesives, asphalts, resins, cleaning materials, cosmetics, inks, pleather, paints, paper coatings, pesticides/ fungicides, plastics, polyesters and textile fibres."
Yum yum, I'm ready, lets go!
The recipe I used is from
this blog, but if you're too lazy to click I'll write out the whole thing at the bottom of this post.
At first it really thew me that the measurements for the topping are in teaspoons, really, good luck trying to whisk two teaspoons of anything together.
It's wierd and annoying. But then you gradually add in more and more ingredients end it thickens up and starts to approximate whipped eggs, it's pretty amazing (and also, your arm falls off from whisking for a solid 20 minutes - use an electric whisk)
Result:
Here's two things I learned whilst making this thing, the blow torch your friends gave you for your birthday won't work unless you fill it with lighter fluid first, and if you leave a pie under the grill for too long it will burst into flames and you'll have to start again from scratch.
Anyway, the second pie was pretty amazing. I swear to God, you can't tell the difference between this and the real thing. Visually, the topping is flatter and less solid than a meringue usually is but the taste and chewiness is identical. The curd has a slight whiff of the vegetable before you cover it up with with meringue and isn't quite as thick and glossy, but I would imagine, much better for you. Try it, really it doesn't take any longer than a real lemon meringue pie would.
Recipe for Vegan Lemon Meringue Pie
Pie crust (makes enough for two small sandwich tins)
2 tbsp semolina/ cornmeal
1 cup plain flour
1 tbsp icing sugar
2 tbsp sunflower/ rapeseed oil
water
Combine the dry ingredients and mix in the oil until well blended. Slowly add water until the mix forms into a firm dough. Set in the fridge for 30 minutes, then knead, roll out, line your pie dish and blind bake on a high heat for 20-30 mins. (until cooked)
Lemon curd (makes a lot, half a litre)
1 marrow, peeled, seeded and steamed. Around 500g
1 lemon, juiced and zested
150g caster sugar
1 tbsp vegan margarine
Mash the marrow and gently simmer for 30 minutes with sugar, lemon juice and zest, and margarine. If the mixture isn't thickening up as much as you want, add a little cornflour mixed with cold water. Taste and add more sugar, lemon juice if you'd like to.
Meringue topping (makes just enough for topping one pie)
Sugar mixture - 6 tbsp caster sugar, 1 tsp soy protein isolate powder, 1/2 tsp xanthan powder
4 tsp soy protein isolate powder
5 tbsp water
2 tsp cider vinegar
1 tsp vanilla essence
Mix up the sugar mixture and set aside. In a large bowl whisk together the soy protein powder and water until thick and well blended. Add the vinegar and vanilla and whisk until it begins to thicken. Gradually whisk in the sugar mixture, one tablespoon at a time, until it thickens ups and becomes white.
We finished the meal with the pudding I made a month ago. The boyfriend is really funny about his pudding, he threw some kind of a diva strop when he found out that I hadn't put any currants in it - he's the only person I know who actually looks forward to the pudding at Christmas. I was in the kitchen with his mum and she quietly suggested that maybe here was too much food already and we could save the pudding for New Year's, well, anyway, somehow he heard her from the other room and put a stop to that little plan. It was worth it, I'm really being sold on the pudding agenda, it was delicious.
