Tomato cheatballs

Finally it's the weekend! I hope you have some good plans for it. The sun is shining here, and we are going to take the waterbus to a close by shopping centre, and on the way back, we'll probably fly by the street food market. I hope that I can take some nice autumn shots on my camera while we are out, and maybe even some good food photos. The waterbus is a brilliant means of public transport. It's exciting to take the water route in town and get some fresh air on the deck at the same time. It makes a normal shopping trip feel like holiday. I think that there is a bit of an autumn breeze in the air today, so better wear enough clothing.

Last weekend I made these tomato cheatballs with pasta and tomato sauce. They are called cheatballs of course, because there is no meat in them. It was a very nice dish and a good combination. I used the Finnish protein product “Pulled Oats” in this recipe, but you could substitute it with for example seitan or some soya protein. Whatever you can get hold of. My pulled oats were the ones spiced with tomato, and I made the balls a little bit spicy with chilli.

Ingredients

Cheatballs

This recipe makes about 16 small cheatballs

240 g Pulled Oats Tomato

1 onion

1 clove black garlic

1 tbsp olive oil

1 small yellow carrot grated

½ tsp smoked paprika

½ tsp chilli flakes

1 tbsp vegetable stock powder

2 tbsp tomato purée

2 tbsp breadcrumbs

Tomato sauce

1 tin of tomatoes

1 onion

1 garlic clove

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp sea salt

½ tsp ground black pepper

Handful of fresh basil

Pasta

250g tagliolini, or any other pasta of your choice

Toppings

Grated cheese

Fresh basil leaves

Method

Start simmering the sauce first and then you can prepare the cheatballs in the meanwhile. Chop the onion and garlic finely for the sauce, cook them in olive oil until soft. Then add the tomatoes and seasoning and let reduce.

Chop the onion and garlic also finely for the cheatballs and cook them in olive oil until soft. Grate the carrot and mix all ingredients with the protein.

Shape small balls from the dough and bake them at 200 C for about 20 minutes.

Cook the pasta, and serve it with the cheatballs and tomato sauce. Add some grated cheese and fresh basil on the top.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Pulled oats with Thai flavours

Last month I wrote about a new Finnish protein product, Nyhtökaura – Pulled Oats, and now I have another vegan recipe to share with you that was made with the kaffir lime, sesame and ginger flavoured Pulled Oats. I made a Thai green curry type of a paste with nice coconut creamy jasmine rice on the side and added some carrots and spring onions to the dish. This was a very good dish, the Pulled Oats got the seasoning they needed and I really liked the rice with it. I only wish I could have the Pulled Oats more often. Maybe next time at Christmas.

Ingredients

Paste

2 garlic cloves

1 large green chilli

2 cm fresh ginger

3-5 kaffir lime leaves

Handful of Thai basil leaves

Handful of coriander leaves

Other ingredients

2 carrots

3 spring onions

1 onion

250 g Pulled Oats with kaffir lime, sesame and ginger flavour

Splash of soy sauce

Vegetable oil for frying

1 cup jasmine rice

160 ml coconut cream

1 garlic clove

0,5 cm fresh ginger

2 dried lemongrass stalks

1 tsp palm sugar

0,5 cups cashew nuts

Method

Grind the paste ingredients into a smooth paste.

Cut the carrots into short sticks and the spring onions into rings. Chop the onion finely.

Start cooking the carrots, spring onion and onion in a hot pan. After a while add the Pulled Oats and soy sauce. Finally add the green curry paste and cook some more.

Cook the rice and in a separate pan infuse the coconut cream with the finely chopped garlic and ginger by simmering at low heat. Also add the lemongrass stalks, palm sugar and coarsely chopped cashew nuts. Remove the lemongrass stalks before serving.

Serve the Pulled Oats and vegetables with the rice and enjoy.

Your VegHog

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