I am looking to understand the nature of how binders work.
I made patties the other day. A potato, two carrots, a can of black beans, a bit of bread crumbs. It blended to a decent grainy slush and fried up nicely.
Then I tried a sweet potato, broccoli, and chick peas. The mixture felt right, but it did not hold together when I tried to cook it up, either in a pan or baking it. (Although, my vegan daughter said the taste was great, so I was on to something)
Is there a process vegan cooks use to (a) choose the right mix of ingredients that need no special binder or (b) is there a decent universal binder that works within reason when the other ingredients are chosen right?
Best Answer
In case of vegan kitchen, you would need to use ingredients with high levels starch or binding proteins, such as gluten. One important thing to remember about starch is that it is removed (into the water) in the process of cooking. So, if you pre-cook your potatoes before adding them into patties, they will provide less starch than raw potatoes. The same goes for beans, chickpeas and any other starchy food.
Adding gluten, either in more or less pure form or in form of wheat flour, helps too but requires some 'development time' for its chemistry to work.
Also, the amount of water in your patty influences its consistency. The more water you have, the more starch/flour you would need.