Pulled Oats – Nyhtökaura

A wonderful new sustainable protein product suitable for vegans and vegetarians was launched in Finland earlier this year and it has become a real sensation. It's Nyhtökaura aka Pulled Oats by Gold & Green. The product resembles pulled pork with the texture, consists of oats, broad beans and peas and it's sold as a cooled product from the fridge. There are currently three pulled oat flavours available: nude / kaffir lime sesame, ginger / tomato, smoked paprika, leaf parsley. The texture of pulled oats is pleasant, quite chewy and not too dry. The product itself doesn't require much preparation and through quick frying can be added to all sorts of dishes.

As most of my readers aren't from Finland, I thought I'd write about this product to introduce it. It may be a while yet before they break into the international market. It's very popular in Finland at the moment and normally sells out from supermarkets within a few minutes from stocking the shelves. It seems that the production can't quite keep up with the demand yet. Pulled oats have also boosted the sales for other veggie products in Finland and helped people to consider more vegetable based diets, which is a very good trend, as Finnish diets are still much too meat centric these days. Due to the high demand and rarity I wasn't sure beforehand if I'd be able to taste the product at all during my holiday, but quite unexpectedly I was lucky enough to have a several pulled oats experiences and can therefore report back to you. Gold & Green's web page is also in English, so do have a look, if you want more information.

I tried pulled oats for the first time when eating out in Helsinki in a veggie restaurant called OmNam. I had their pulled oat burger and sweet potato wedges: Brioche, pulled oats with OmNam BBQ sauce seasoned with orange, vegan hoisin mayo, fresh tomatoes, pickled cucumber and kale slaw and wedges of organic sweet potato, vegan smoked paprika mayo. Both were really excellent dishes and the restaurant was very cosy located a little bit hidden in an inside yard of a housing block. Pulled oats suit veggie burger dishes very well and there are so many possibilities to make different burgers and breads.

Already the next day I got the chance to taste pulled oats again as festival street food and this time it was cooked by the manufacturer themselves. Gold & Green had a stand at the Flow Festival offering some great vegetarian and vegan dishes. I had a Nordic rainbow bowl with dill & lime pulled oat, beetroot quinoa, vegetable chips, sweet peas, root vegetable coleslaw, red kale & sunflower dip, corn & seed cracker. It looked absolutely stunning and tasted the same way. I loved the currants in the salad and could eat this dish all day long!

 

There was another company serving pulled oat dishes at the festival called Fat Tomato – Nordic Twist. I had their Rootz Reiska, a flatbread with pulled oats, half dried plum tomato sauce, homemade cheddar, butternut squash, roast garlic, chanterelle mushrooms and wild thyme. It was another brilliant dish that I would happily eat every day and another successful pairing for the pulled oats. Both portions were incredibly colourful and cheerful and I'm really happy that I chose them.

 

After these tastings I got even luckier and found a few packets of pulled oats in a supermarket so that I could do some homecooking with it. From the tomato, smoked paprika and leaf parsley flavoured pulled oats I made Rye breads with tomato sauce, chanterelles and pulled oats. These were very tasty and filling breads and I got to use my self foraged chanterelles in them.

From the nude version of pulled oats I made a Reindeerless fry, a dish also recommended by Gold & Green transforming a classic Finnish dish to a veggie version. The pulled oats were just fried with some onions and served with potato mash and lingonberry jam. It was a nice and very Finnish style dish.

I really hope that these pulled oats will make it internationally. There can never be enough interesting vegetarian protein products and these happen to have an excellent texture, are versatile and very easy to use. I took one packet with me back to England and will post soon what I cooked with it.

Have you heard of pulled oats before or even been able to taste it? What do you think of it?

Your VegHog