This is really Crab and Avocado Roulade with Watermelon revisited, following some discussions about vegetarian/vegan alternatives to meat or fish ingredients in the The CookingBites Recipe Challenge. Its my attempt at replacing crab for a vegetarian alternative. After much deliberation, I thought I'd found a solution. I have this wonderful Japanese Seaweed Jelly. This would provide the seafood taste! Tofu would provide the right texture. However, on inspecting the label of the Seaweed Jelly I realised it contained scallops. Oh well... back to the drawing board. I'm sure there must be a seaweed extract out there which doesn't contain fish but sadly, I don't have it in my cupboard.
So.. I had miso paste in the cupboard. That provides the umami taste. A touch of sugar (leave it out if you want) to ape the sweetness of crab. Well I wouldn't expect anyone to be fooled into thinking this is crab, but it does taste quite good. Here is how it came out:
Ingredients
for each roulade:
25g firm tofu
1 small red birds eye chilli deseeded and finely chopped
Lemon zest
1/2 tsp miso paste loosened in a little water
1/2 tsp caster sugar (optional)
1/2 a ripe avocado
1tsp of yoghurt or mayonnaise
Watermelon (optional)
Spinach leaves and fennel (or dill) fronds to garnish
Lemon juice
Olive oil
Sweet chilli sauce (I used home-made but by all means use a ready made sauce!)
Method:
So.. I had miso paste in the cupboard. That provides the umami taste. A touch of sugar (leave it out if you want) to ape the sweetness of crab. Well I wouldn't expect anyone to be fooled into thinking this is crab, but it does taste quite good. Here is how it came out:
Ingredients
for each roulade:
25g firm tofu
1 small red birds eye chilli deseeded and finely chopped
Lemon zest
1/2 tsp miso paste loosened in a little water
1/2 tsp caster sugar (optional)
1/2 a ripe avocado
1tsp of yoghurt or mayonnaise
Watermelon (optional)
Spinach leaves and fennel (or dill) fronds to garnish
Lemon juice
Olive oil
Sweet chilli sauce (I used home-made but by all means use a ready made sauce!)
Method:
- If using watermelon, cut five or seven stars of watermelon using a pastry cutter (odd numbers look better on plates).
- Mash the tofu and mix with lemon zest, chopped chilli and miso paste with just enough yoghurt or mayo to bind. Season with salt, to taste.
- Slice the avocado thinly (I used a mandolin) and lay the pieces, slightly overlapping an a large square of cling film.
- Form tofu into a cylinder and place at one end of the layered avocado. Use the clingfilm to roll it away from you and form a roulade. Keep rolling the roulade way from you whilst gripping the ends of the clingfilm so that they twist and the roulade becomes firm and encased in the clingfilm.
- Assemble spinach and fennel leaves on the plate and drizzle with oil and lemon juice.
- Unwrap the roulade and gently press some fennel (or dill) fronds onto the surface and drizzle lemon juice over.
- Decorate the plate with the watermelon stars (if using) and sweet chilli sauce.
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