A Plant-Based Mum: Plant-based butter chicken alternatives

Journal
Written By Miranda Costello
Butter chicken sauce with jackfruit

Funny fact, until the last couple of years, I have stayed away from Indian food. For over two decades, I tried eating Indian food from all over the world including: Melbourne, Sydney, London and Berlin and every time, I had an extreme adverse reaction to the food. So, I finally gave up trying. Then a couple years ago, we tried a local Indian restaurant in Melbourne and there was no adverse reaction. My partner was ecstatic, as he loves Indian food. I believe there is an ingredient in some Indian cooking that triggers my adverse reaction. Just not sure what!

Pre- COVID, for a time poor family, one of our go to weeknight meals was butter chicken served with basmati rice, with a side of cucumber and naan bread. Not only is it a quick and easy meal to put together, it’s very tasty and has the tick of approval from all family members including my fussy little one.

Now that we have embarked on a plant-based journey, I need to find a plant-based alternative for the chicken. Through my searches in Pinterest, I came up with three alternatives to test: cauliflower and chickpea, baked tofu and jackfruit.

For the past couple of years, we use the classic butter chicken sauce from “The Spice Tailor” by Anjum Anand. For testing purposes, I continued using this base sauce. Once we’ve agreed on a suitable chicken alternative, I will learn to make the butter sauce from scratch. One of the things I love about “The Spice Tailor” brand is the authentic taste and dried spices that’s used. To feed a family of 4, we use two packets so that there is enough sauce to eat with the naan bread.

During the first week of our plant-based journey, we tried cauliflower and chickpea as our chicken substitute. There was not a lot of preparation required other than opening the can of chickpea and rinsing it with some water and cutting the head of cauliflower into smaller pieces. I did par cook the cauliflower before adding it into the sauce. Next time I will try roasting the cauliflower and see whether it changes the flavour of the dish.

 On the second week, we tried butter tofu. I used firm tofu for this recipe. To get a texture similar to chicken, I prepared the tofu by pressing the water out of the tofu. As we didn’t manage to get our hands onto some super firm tofu, the pressing of the tofu took nearly an hour to complete. Once the tofu was pressed and the texture was firmer, I then tore the tofu into pieces so that it resembled chicken pieces. I coated the tofu with olive oil, cornstarch and some salt and then baked them until they were lightly golden and crispy. Once the tofu was ready, I then added the pieces into the base sauce in place of the chicken.

On the third week, we finally got to try cooking with young jackfruit from a can. I prepared the sauce as per the instructions and added the jackfruit into the base sauce in place of the chicken. When the jackfruit pieces broke up it was the texture of shredded meat. This was our second attempt in using jackfruit as a meat alternative and after two unsuccessful attempts, we have decided to remove jackfruit as our meat alternatives. We love eating dried jackfruit as a snack but not as a meat alternative.

After our three weeks of testing, it was unanimous decision, the winning chicken alternative is baked tofu. Once baked, the texture of the tofu was the closest to chicken. Flavour wise, the tofu took on the flavour of the sauce.

So now that we’ve agreed on the chicken alternative for this meal, I need to learn to make the sauce from scratch and streamline the pressed tofu process. I’m looking forward to perfecting my butter tofu recipe and then sharing it here on my blog.

Miranda Costello
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