Rare vegan ingredients and where to find them Maquafaba. For all budding vegan bakers: aquafaba is for you. This strange and wonderful fruit is found in some of our most popular dishes. Nourishing yeast or “nooch” is a magical ingredient that adds an umami and cheese flavor to dishes.
If you're new to vegan cooking, get some of this in your kitchen. Nutritional yeast comes in the form of a flaky, yellowish powder that you can add to sauces, soups, vegan cheeses or mashed potatoes, or simply sprinkle on food as a condiment. If you want to discover nutritional yeast in all its glory, try this recipe for easy pasta and cheese sauce. Have you heard of seitan? Vital wheat gluten (the protein element isolated from wheat flour) is where it comes from.
Exceptionally rich in protein, vital wheat gluten is popular in meat substitute products and for recreating meat-like dishes at home (see my attempt at vegan steaks above). Aquafaba is essentially the liquid from a can of chickpeas. This magical substance acts as a substitute for egg whites and appears in recipes such as vegan meringues and marshmallows. Also known as flaxseed, flaxseed offers an excellent way to replace the properties of the beaten egg in recipes.
Just apply it, mix it with water and you have a sticky mixture ready to use. Like flaxseed, chia seeds are an excellent egg substitute. There is no need to mix them with water and use the resulting gel for baking. Henderson's Relish is a Sheffield institution.
This vegan-friendly condiment, found in homes and restaurants across the city and beyond, is often compared to Worcestershire sauce. Whey, a by-product of milk, is another non-vegan ingredient to consider, as it is often hidden in certain bread and candy products. This seems absurd, but it's true: some brands of soy cheese include ingredients such as casein, a milk protein, in their ingredients. It doesn't make much sense for us to include dairy products in a product aimed at those who don't consume traditional dairy products, but there are still many brands of soy cheese that are vegan, so read the labels carefully.
Some breads, such as challah or brioche, contain eggs and dairy products in their recipe, but there is an even more astute ingredient that includes other types of bread on the list of foods that vegans cannot eat. Then there's the topic of gray areas, controversial foods that some vegans choose to consume and others don't, such as almonds, avocados and other crops that use bees for artificial pollination. Some foods are obviously forbidden for vegans: if you eat some cheese or eat chicken, you're clearly off the bandwagon and staying somewhere in the realm of flexitarianism.
