Vegan carbonara: a thing?
When January 1 came around this year and, with it, the start of Veganuary, I think the biggest obstacle I faced in staying committed to a vegan diet was spaghetti carbonara. Yup, you know the one: with the bacon, parmesan, and depending on your philosophy, egg or cream. And if you so choose, fresh egg pasta. It couldn’t be less vegan if it tried (don’t start thinking of ways).
This dish, for a long time, since before university, has been my favourite dish, signature dish, go-to dish, comfort dish, dish to rule all dishes. Ask anyone who I’ve ever lived with to name one meal they’d associate me with, and I doubt you’d get any answer other than ‘carbonara’. One of my long distance friends who I keep in touch with via emails will, invariably, sneak in a reference to carbonara somewhere in the email. “How was the carbonara last night?” “How many times have you had carbonara this week?” You get the idea.
So I was pretty intrigued, and in equal measures, sceptical, to hear news of there being a ‘vegan carbonara’ out there. But how? Where to even start ‘veganifying’ such a dish? It’s not like you’re switching out one ingredient. With some versions, for a vegan ‘rebuild’, all you’d have for foundations is some black pepper. And we all know the parable about the wise and foolish builders…
Last night, nearly two whole months into being vegan, I sampled my first taste of vegan carbonara, at Fed by Water, a vegan Italian restaurant in Dalston, seemingly one of the most vegan-friendly suburbs in London. So, did it deliver an authentic carbonara taste, and offer the safety and comfort of that oh so familiar fare?
It wasn’t exactly the carbonara I remember, but it was very tasty. In these two months, something I’ve often thought is that the key to a successful vegan meal is not trying too hard to imitate meat, and instead, do its own thing. So this dish had, to start with, really nicely al dente cooked spaghetti. Nothing taken away from it, no substitute, just proper spaghetti. Please don’t take away my gluten, at least for now. In the sauce was smoked tofu, turmeric and soy cream topped with crispy seitan chunks. It worked really well, the sauce pleasingly creamy and the seitan chunks delivering on the slightly salty fried topping front.
I’ve also seen a few other vegan carbonara recipes out there. Plenty seem to use liquid smoke to recreate the bacon taste, using a number of different vehicles for the smoky taste. So pretty soon, I expect I’ll be making my first vegan carbonara. I didn’t see that one coming, not so long ago!
