“Eating vegetarian meal can be so interestingly delicious!”
Yesterday, 19th of Lunar September, the day of Guan Yin’s (in Sanskrit words: Avalokiteshvara; Chinese words: 观音) Renunciation, considered an auspicious day for Buddhist.
For me, I prohibited myself from ‘killing’ lives, means meatless diets for the day. It became my another day of vegetarian cooking.
It’s not difficult to trick our taste bud with some mock meat, and have it cooked in a way mimicking the taste of the ‘real stuff’ as close as possible. In fact, it’s very convenient to eat vegetarian dishes and taste or look like the real meat, nowadays, as there are so many artificial/ mock meat and seafood for vegetarian diets sold commercially out there in the market. In Singapore, not only vegetarian shops are selling these raw/ uncooked mock meat and seafood, even supermarkets are selling them, too. Mock meat and mock seafood are mainly made of flour, soy and/ or gluten. Some of these mock meat/ seafood items are made to look and taste almost the same as the real meat.
Do you think it looks and tastes like real fish fillet slices? Yes, not just its appearance, even the texture is close to the real fish! I liked the taste of the seaweed coated as its ‘fish’ skin. I think the purpose of making the mock meat so interestingly is to encourage more vegan, and they are trying to make it a way that eating vegetarian has no difference from eating real meat, yet it is generally healthier and lighter to take mock meat than the real ones.
This mock fish fillet was originally in whole large piece, and I cut it into slices only when I decided to cook with this recipe. This dish stands up well on any occasion, regardless vegetarian or non. It takes only 15 minutes to get it ready and serve!
Ingredients
2 large pieces of mock fish, sliced
6 pieces of canned pineapple rings, diced
50ml of sweet pineapple water in the pineapple can (*increase amount, if more gravy preferred)
3 tablespoons of ketchup sauce
1 tablespoon of pineapple jam
1 teaspoon of lemon juice
Pinch of salt
1 tablespoon of corn starch, made into slurry (*mix with 2 tablespoons of water)
2 tablespoon of vegetable oil
1 cup of vegetable oil (for deep frying use)
Method:
1) Heat wok with 1 cup of oil over high heat. Sprinkle some salt. Add mock fish fillet slices and quickly fry till just lightly browned will do. Remove mock fish fillet from wok and drain on kitchen towel.
2) Discard excessive oil in wok, leave only about 1 tablespoon oil. Heat on medium flame, put diced pineapples into wok and stir fry for few seconds. Pour in sauce mixture, and return fried mock fish fillet into wok. Stir to combine all ingredients well. Sprinkle salt and stir fry fit another few seconds.
3) Lastly, stir in cornstarch slurry to thicken the sauce. The sauce should appear thick and smooth, before heat off. Serve with hot steamed rice.
A decent portion of this fried mock fish fillet and pineapple sauce counts about 280kcal.
Tips: Use any decent brands of pineapple jam easily available off the shelves. Those jams which already blended into ‘jelly-like’ consistency is preferred in this recipe.
* Mock fish comes in packet of large slices and it’s available at supermarkets e.g. NTUC Fairprice, Sheng Shiong, Shop n’ Save, and etc. Price: S$3-4
