My wife and I are trying to go vegetarian for a month. We enjoy fish quite a bit. Is there any way to replicate the taste of say salmon, tuna, or cod with vegetarian, or better yet vegan, ingredients?
Fish – Vegetarian Fish
fishsubstitutionsvegetarian
Related Topic
- How to make vegetarian marshmallows
- Fish – the proper way to brine fish
- Fish – Would pre-sliced, pre-packaged fish be considered sushi grade if I freeze it for at least a week before consumption
- Fish – Will texture of fish cooked sous vide change, when cooking times increase
- Fish – Ideas for a pescetarian Turducken (aka a fish in a fish in a fish)
- Fish – What are the categories of fish
- Fish – On heating smoked salmon
Best Answer
I have been around vegan meat/fish substitutes for a while being vegan myself, and often you can find (in specialized vegetarian stores - especially asian vegetarian stores or online) stuff labeled as "vegan fish" which most of the time refers to soy, seitan or some other protein pieces with a seaweed "skin". Sometimes recipes call for linseed oil ... presumably adding a fishy flavor. None of this really tastes like any fish I ever ate ... but I guess it comes quite close in texture and some components of the flavor, for people who really don't want to give those up.
I like japanese cuisine where a lot of seaweed is used ... which gives a "sea" taste to food, but again I wouldn't really call it fish flavor (whereas a longtime vegan friend of mine wouldn't eat seaweed cause it reminds her of fish too much, so I guess it depends on your taste).
I agree with what @SAJ14SAJ says in the comment above. And I believe it would be really hard to perfectly imitate the fish texture and flavor. And for me, being vegetarian means giving up eating animals, and to accept that this means not eating a couple of foods that might taste very delicious. However, if giving up fish is hard for you, I hope some of the "mock fish" products are close enough to make it easier for you to keep up the vegetarian path/cause!
Just as a fun side note: recently I watched a (otherwise horrifically annoying) TV show where a young chef using some fancy high-tech machinery pressed dashi (which is a kind of japanese seaweed or fish broth) into cubes of watermelon and the people who ate it (none of which seemed to be vegetarian) all thought the texture and flavor were like tuna (hard to test if you don't get catered to by someone owning the machine).