Roasted jackfruit rolls

January 23, 2016

I usually bookmark appealing recipes from other blogs - right now I've got 820 untried dishes, some of them dating back 8 years. But I was so keen on this one that I made it just 3 days after it was published on Like A Vegan! Chelsey's novel use of jackfruit as a roast chicken substitute was potentially much more my style than the common pulled 'pork' approach.

The canned jackfruit is simply drained, slathered in a herby paste I can make from pantry ingredients, and baked for half an hour. Since I only had one can of jackfruit I changed the ingredient quantities, and I'll tinker with them further for future batches - this version was a bit too sharp with brine and lemon juice for my taste.

Serving the jackfruit in soft long rolls with lettuce and mayo brought back Red Rooster memories I'd locked away for 20 years. This alternative is a bit lighter and fresher, and I'm pleased to have a new way with jackfruit in my repertoire.

Roasted jackfruit rolls
(slightly adapted from a recipe on Like a Vegan)

565g can jackfruit in brine
1 tablespoon olive oil
juice of half a lemon (would reduce to a small squeeze)
1 tablespoon brown sugar + extra for sprinkling
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
2 teaspoons dried green herbs (I used parsley, sage, rosemary & marjoram)
pinch of ground nutmeg
pinch of cayenne pepper
shake of white pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons nutritional yeast flakes
4 soft long rolls
1/3 cup vegan mayonnaise
2 cups shredded iceberg lettuce
spray oil

Preheat an oven to 160°C.

Drain the jackfruit in a colander (next time I'd also rinse the brine off a bit). Use your fingers to break apart the stringy fibres a bit. Squeeze off the excess water and place the pieces on a chopping board. Cut away the cores and finely dice them.

In a large bowl, whisk together all the ingredients from the olive oil down to the yeast flakes, to form an oily golden-brown paste. Add the jackfruit (fibres and cores, the lot) and toss it through to evenly coat it in the paste. 

Lightly spray a baking tray with oil. Spread the jackfruit out on a baking tray, spray it with a little more oil and sprinkle over a bit more brown sugar. Bake the jackfruit for around 30 minutes, until it's golden. It should be a bit brown and crunchy around the edges but still moist in the middle.

Slice the rolls lengthways and scoop the jackfruit into them. Spread or squeeze over the mayonnaise and then layer up the shredded lettuce. Eat straight away, or wrap up for later if you must.