Proteins

Grandmas’ Grave Vegan Cutlet

A Low Carb Vegan Take on an Eastern European Classic

No, this recipe name is not meant to suggest that the dish will send you into early retirement. Rather, I imagine this vegan version of one of my favorite Eastern European meat dishes — the pan fried cutlet — would have generations of my Polish, Russian and Ukrainian babcias rolling in their graves, or at least rolling their eyes, if they had eyes of course (hence the placement of the apostrophe in the name of this dish).

I think they would object to a) the lack of meat in this cutlet and b) the decisively non-Eastern European spices (if following this recipe to a T, which is still a T even in Cyrillic!). You can of course spice it how you like.

2 tbsp avocado oil
2 cups of the refried black soybean taco filling
½ cup almond flour
½ cup sauteed finely chopped onions
½ cup mushrooms (any kind), pulverized in a food processor
Salt and pepper to taste

Makes 2 cutlets aka 2 servings

Have a batch of the refried black soybean filling from the Chickpea Flour Soft Taco recipe already made, but without the mushroom option in that recipe.

Heat 1 tbsp of the avocado oil in a small skillet at low heat. Finely chop a small onion (or half a medium one) and add it to the skillet. Halve or quarter the mushrooms — I like brown cremini for this — and make a mush out of it in a food processor. Add the mushrooms to the onions and stir, sauteing and stirring regularly until the onions are soft. Place in a bowl to cool.

Heat the other tbsp of avocado oil in another small or medium sized skillet.

Pour the almond flour on a large plate and distribute it evenly across it. With one hand, grab an almost cutlet-sized chunk of the refried black soybeans, and with another hand, grab a bit of the cooled mushroom and onion mix. With your third hand, set the timer for, oh wait, sorry, wrong planet (this blog is also read in other solar systems).

With your two human hands, smoosh the refried beans mixture into the mushroom and onion mixture, making a new composite mixture into a ball shape. You can of course do this in a more civilized way, by combining these two substances in a mixing bowl using a DJ mix wand, but I never outgrew playing with my food. Salt and pepper to taste at this stage, or add the S&P on top after it’s done frying (I like it that way, actually, which I call “salt and pepper palette forward style.” Remember that for the quiz).

Roll that ball around in circles in the almond flour, to evenly coat the whole surface of the ball and it’s ok to roll it around more than you need to because it’s kinda fun.

Place the floured ball into the skillet and press down on it with a spatula to make it assume cutlet shape. Cook covered for a few minutes then flip over and do the same. Then, move to a plate, let cool and eat.

You can also pan fry this pancake style, if you want to impress people with your strange breakfast ideas.

You may want to omit the onion and mushroom component of this recipe, which will simply yield a drier cutlet without the onion and mushroom flavors, but which might work better if you are wanting to eat this more as a burger sandwiched between bun halves.