Showing posts with label fake sour cream. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fake sour cream. Show all posts

Friday, August 29, 2014

Fabulous Friday -- Lesson Learned

Further to the fake sour cream post:

Some experiments fail and that's okay.
It wasn't a proper failure as Thursday's experiment with extra psyllium fibre in the mix tasted okay, if a bit mild.
I decided to use it as gravy. I marinated steaks in wine and after cooking them as well as mushrooms I poured the marinade in the pan.
After several seconds of stirring I put in the 5-6 ounces of fake sour cream.
Psyllium fibre is a great gluten substitute. It holds things together beautifully when cooked.
The consistency of the gravy was disgusting.
The whole mess of it held together well enough it could be picked up with a fork. It was edible as long as one didn't look at it.
Even my husband noted it looked gross and this is a man currently working at the local landfill.

We ate it and we're here to tell the tale and that's good.
Bu best of all I had a failure of sorts.
Failing is a great way to learn and learning is fabulous.

Thursday, August 28, 2014

My Fake Sour Cream Mission

My current food mission is to create a tasty, easy, viable fake sour cream.
I believe I am on to something.
In the past I've used tofu to which I've added vinegar and lemon and canola oil. It worked well. I was very happy with it and even happier when I decided to add a wee bit of salt and sugar to moderate the flavour and happier yet when I discovered a bit of tahini gave it great body.

I've cycled away from tofu. I've nothing against it; I've simply moved on.
What I moved to was coconut milk. It makes a great substitute for milk and cream depending on the thickness of the product.  Though available already made up in a carton in the milk section of stores I prefer to buy canned and make it the way I like without sugar or stabilizers or what-have-you.
My favourite brand has added guar gum. This is not a crime.
I whir it together with about one-third of a can of water and get about three cups of coconut milk. It's great on fruit, baked goods, and my morning oatmeal.

I checked out a few recipes for making it into sour cream. Most say to drain off the water and then mix in vinegar and/or lemon and/or salt and let it sit.
This makes a reasonable facsimile of sour cream. Because I'd already added water to mine it was runnier that I'd like, but it still did the job.
Yesterday I played around a bit with the recipe. I mixed up some tahini for body for it and then added it to about a half a cup of coconut milk.
It was still fairly runny so I mixed it psyllium fibre. All together it may have been half a teaspoon of it.
It helped a bit, but I think I should have added it in with the tahini. I'll try that next time.
Guar gum may be a better addition, but for now I am going to play with the psyllium fibre. I am convinced it will work.
As to the taste, it is pretty good. I have to play around more to get the souring correct for my tastes, but a) experimenting is fun and b) you get to hide the failures by eating them.

The batch I made yesterday was for a Scandinavian style cucumber salad:

It's tasty and it worked.