Breakfast links

I'm always looking for ways to make my own mock meats, 1) because I'm cheap and 2) because I'm a home-body and would rather stay at home and create something with ingredients I've got that run out to the grocery store. Recently, The Everyday Dish posted a video and recipe for vegan sausages and challenged other bloggers to give them a try. The recipe was quite similar to the seitan-o-greatness that's been around the internet many times over, but what intrigued me was the cooking method: steaming. Now, that's a good way to keep the sausages moist.

However, I wanted to use ingredients that would have a more varied and less dense texture than sausage made with just gluten and seasoning. So, I used a combination of crumbled firm tofu, panko bread crumbs and gluten. I really like how the texture turned out: it's lightened by the use of panko and varied between the chewiness of the gluten and the softness of the tofu. If you look closely at the picture above you can even see white flecks throughout the sausage, which reminds me of the fat in meat-based sausages....but in this case it's tofu and far healthier. Finally, the fact that these are sweetened with maple syrup make them really reminiscent of breakfast links. I hope you'll give them a try and let me know what you think!Breakfast Links
makes approximately 8 links

Ingredients:
3/4 cup firm tofu, crumbled
1/3 cup vital wheat gluten
1/2 cup panko bread crumbs
1 tbsp granulated garlic (or 1 tsp powdered garlic)
1/2 tsp fennel seeds
1/4 tsp chili flakes
1 tsp dried sage
1/2 tbsp vegetarian dried beef (or chicken) stock powder

2 tbsp canola oil
3 tbsp maple syrup
2 tbsp ketchup

Directions:

• Mix dry ingredients together
• Add wet ingredients to dry and thoroughly mix
• Squeeze the mixture with your hands in the bowl for 1 minute to help develop the gluten
• Drop 2 tbsp of the mixture onto a piece of tinfoil measuring approximately 4"X6" (10cmX15cm)
• Shape the mixture into a breakfast link sized log
• Wrap the foil around the log and twist the ends lightly (like a tootsie roll)
• Steam for 30 minutes
• Unwrap and eat them right away or leave them to cool in the fridge overnight for a firmer sausage link

Optional step 2:

• Dust the unwrapped and steamed sausages in flour
• Fry in a lightly greased frying pan on medium heat until the outside of the sausage links become browned and crisp.