The tofu and bean sprout fritters recipe that I posted previously was very good and the resulting cakes very subtle and delicately flavoured. Today I wanted to make some with more punch and depth of flavour, so I fried some finely chopped shiitake mushrooms and fried them with the onion and garlic. Then, as I already had it sitting in the fridge, for the spices I used a tablespoon of the green curry paste that I made for the vegetable curry. And finally to allow for the extra moisture of the mushrooms I added extra egg and rice flour. The cakes did hold together in the pan a lot better than the previous ones with bean sprouts.
I will write the whole recipe for the fritters below, followed by the recipe for the sweet spicy sauce which was a bit of a last minute throw together, but worked really well as often is the case.

SHIITAKE MUSHROOM FRITTERS

Makes 2 portions

200 grams plain tofu

1 spring onion – finely chopped

1 clove garlic- finely chopped

100 grams shiitake mushrooms – finely chopped

peanut or other light vegetable oil

1 tablespoon vegan green curry paste – see previous post for recipe

4 tablespoons – 60 ml rice flour

1 egg – lightly beaten

Fry the onions and garlic in a couple of tablespoons of oil until translucent.

Add the mushrooms and continue frying slowly for another 5 minutes.

Meanwhile break the tofu into a bowl and then mash it with a fork. Add the curry paste and mash more to mix thoroughly.

Add the mushroom and onion and again mix thoroughly.

Add the rice flour and mix, then finally the egg and mix again.

Form into six cakes squeezing the mix together with your hands so it holdS it’s shape.

Fry gently in oil until nicely light brown, about five minutes, then turn over carefully and cook the other side.

SWEET AND SPICY SAUCE

200 ml coconut milk

50 ml chilli jam – you can find the recipe on this site

juice of 1 small lime

1 tablespoon cashew cream

Heat all the ingredients in a small pan stirring them together. If the sauce seems a bit thin, coconut milk varies so much in density, add more cashew cream to thicken.

I have been experimenting with cashew cream, and in general I’m not so excited by it. It was great for thickening this sauce, but as a cream I find it works better for sweet things than savoury. I think in the next blog I will do a comparison of various vegan creamy sauces with recipes of course so you can try making whichever ones appeal.