vegan wings?

I really like hot wings, I love them in fact. Since I didn't want to go 30 days without any I just made up a recipe that I believe is pretty damned good.

Take a box of firm or extra firm tofu and press the water out. You can place the whole block in a towel and set something heavy on top to press out more liquid. After that I cut each block into 8 strips and pressed them between two paper towels to get out more moisture. It's important to get out as much moisture as possible so that the tofu will be crispy.


Yucky nasty plain cold tofu strips.

After that I battered them in one of two ways:

Way 1:
3Tb yeast nutrient
2Tb flour
2tsp garlic powder
1/2tsp salt
1/2tsp pepper

Way 2: (really good for onion rings too)
1/2 cup flour (plus a tad more)
1/2 cup beer
1tsp paprika
1tsp seasoning salt

After battering them I dropped them into hot safflower oil and fried them on medium high heat, 4 minutes on 1 side and 3 on the other. A few pieces stayed in a bit longer to become crispy. It's important to get these pretty crispy or they'll still be gross.



Getting better....

While all this is going on I had my wing sauce going which was:

1/2 can beer
3TB margarine (normally butter)
3TB Hot sauce, more if you like it hot (I use tapito)
1-3TB bbq sauce, I make my own but your favorite is fine
1 block vegetable broth cube (normally 2 chicken stock cubes)
1TB favorite bbq rub or seasoning salt
crushed red pepper flakes (optional)

Melt butter in saucepan. Add stock cubes and whisk till dissolved. Add rest of ingredient and bring to rolling boil. Bring down to strong simmer stirring occasionally until it coats the back of a spoon or you like it.


Add sauce to fried tofu and enjoy.

Now one might ask why not just do this to a chicken wing? I'd admit that's a good point. Here's a few reasons why:

Tofu is cheaper than chicken wings
Tofu has less fat
It's something different, why not?

Also these were by no means better than the hot wings I make. That said they were really good. I made them at a party and I had 3 different guys come up that have no interest in anything to do with being vegan and told me they might as well be eating chicken because they were so good.

Don't knock it till you try it. I love meat and these were good. I'm only 7 days in so I don't believe I can be crazy from a protein deficiency yet.