Egg Experiment

Hubby Tony and I are trying to make whole foods a major part of our diet.  As part of that effort, we eat a lot of beans.  However, I get tired of eating every meal out of a bowl, and I'm always on the lookout for new and different ideas.  Last week when I saw a recipe for Spicy Lentil Patties with Sun-Dried Tomatoes on Lisa's Kitchen blog I thought it would be a great alternative to yet another bowl meal.  Yesterday when I went to the bulk store, one of the things I bought was a big bag of lentils.  Guess what I made for dinner tonight?

Lisa's original recipe called for red lentils, sun dried tomatoes, a shallot, fresh parsley, red bell pepper, fresh jalapeno, nutritional yeast, brown rice flour, and spices.  I had many of the ingredients, but didn't want to make a special trip to the store for the things I lacked.  Instead, I swapped out minced onion and garlic for the shallot, dried parsley for fresh, green pepper for red, a combination of pickled jalapeno slices and red pepper flakes for the fresh jalapenos, and chickpea flour for the brown rice flour. The recipe also called for a "flax egg" (which Lisa described as a mixture of ground flax seeds and warm water), which I had never heard of before. Some internet research was in order.

The information was easy to find.  I learned on Veganbaking.net that:

Flax seeds have an outer hull consisting of five layers. The outermost layer, called the epiderm, contains a mucilaginous material which makes up about 8% of the flax seed by weight. This goopy material, known in the food science world as a mucilage, or gel, can be drawn out of the seed in several ways and used as an egg replacement.

We use flax seed in and on a lot of things, and I always have it in the pantry.  After I chopped all the other ingredients, I followed the directions to make the flax egg (which had to set for five minutes before it could be used).  At the end of five minutes I stirred the mixture and was surprised just how much it had thickened up. I mixed it into the lentil mixture and Son Donald helped me shape the mixture into patties.  I baked them according to the recipe.  The patties held their shape beautifully and were easy to turn.  When the patties were done Donald took a nibble of one and said it was a little heavy on the pepper flakes, so I served the patties with dollops of Greek yogurt.  

Of course using flax as an egg substitute wouldn't work in something like an omelet or fritatta, but I'll definitely remember it for those times I want to bake something on the spur of the moment and realize there aren't eggs in the house.

Five years ago today: Road Test