Cindy and I have been quite taken with our soy bombs - we've made and enjoyed the repeatedly. Each time, Cindy has made some muttered comment about using the soy bombs as meatballs in a spaghetti 'n' meatball style dish. We decided it was worth giving the idea a crack, and Cindy drummed up this bolognese recipe from More to Love Vegan. Cindy's a little overwhelmed with work at the moment, so I took on the cooking duties - my first attempt at making these little balls myself. Just to complicate things, I decided to find out whether these bombs would work baked as well as fried.
I won't run through the whole recipe again - we've blogged it before here. Basically I followed all the steps up until the frying, and baked them in a preheated (180 degree) oven instead of plopping them in the frypan. They probably had about half an hour all up, with numerous stops to rotate them about. Baking them probably leaves you with slightly drier bombs than frying does, but you're also saving yourself a decent amount of oil. It's your choice really.
Then it was time for the bolognese - I followed Buttons' directions to the letter - only substituting some chilli flakes for the fresh chillies she'd used (and dropping the tempeh of course - its place being taken here by the soy bombs). It's a pretty great sauce recipe - the sun-dried tomato, chilli and artichokes fight it out for flavour dominance, but they end up sharing themselves around in a delicious taste compromise. All that was left to do was some speedily-boiled spaghetti and we were good to go. Pour the bolognese over the soy bombs (or delicately submerge them in the sauce, depending on how many pots you want to use), and scoop them up onto a pile of spaghetti. Gold!
Hey Cindy & Michael, nice to know they can be done in the oven, I want to make a big batch next weekend and I may try the oven method this time! Vida x
ReplyDeleteI've also found that if you don't put them in flour your can dry fry them. I actually prefer them that way, due to the oil factor.
ReplyDeleteThat's supposed to read YOU (rather than your) can dry fry them.
ReplyDeleteOhpps
I hope they turn out well, Vida! Ours were definitely a bit drier this time, but were probably in the oven too long.
ReplyDeleteKristy, I'm glad you commented again about this - I searched your blog and our comments before remaking these and couldn't find what you'd previously said! I knew you skipped the flour but mistakenly thought you oven-baked rather than dry-fried. :-)
Woohoo glad you liked the sauce, all credit to Mark of veginity.com of course!
ReplyDeleteLove the combination of strong flavours in it.
Wow! Looks good. I wish I was adventurous enough to try new things like this.
ReplyDeleteButtons, it was definitely the strong flavours that attracted me to this one - I will have to try more of Mark's recipes.
ReplyDeleteAnna, the taste is worth it. The only challenge is finding the time!
This looks great! Ever since I saw your soy bombs recipe I have wanted to try them with spag bol! Still working towards it and drooling over the idea :-)
ReplyDeleteIt has taken us a while to take that extra step, Johanna - it is often too tempting to eat straight out of the pan. :-)
ReplyDeleteFinally!
ReplyDeleteI made the balls and the sauce and the whole whole thing.
Firstly the balls (besides some falling apart in the pan) are AMAZING.
They go so well with the sauce.
Great combo.
Thanks for sharing
Great, Jodie - better late than never. :-) A few people have had issues with crumbling soy bombs - if you're not vegan you could try adding an egg, Vida said that worked well. Usually I find that throughly distributing the peanut butter and some gentle handling work quite well.
ReplyDeleteAwesome, Jodes! I reckon just about everything gets better with pastry. :-)
ReplyDelete