Meat alternatives to braai day

Heritage Day is on Saturday, and for a LOT of us Heritage Day is also... BRAAI DAY!

Now before my meat lovers start the judging... I am NOT about to go on a meat rant, in fact, I LOVE a braai, and so do a lot of my veg friends too. So I decided to share with you some of my best veg braai ideas, AND...  I was lucky enough to get a moment with well-known vegan chef Nikki Botha, who shared with me some easy and delicious vegan braai ideas. 

Now we can ALL enjoy a lekker braai come Saturday...

If you are a pescatarian (a person who doesn't eat meat, but does eat fish), there are some wonderful freshly caught line fish on the market at the moment. Cape Salmon and Angelfish go really well on the braai, as well as Hake and Snoek (if you can handle a more fishy flavour). If you are concerned about the fish you are eating, you can go onto the SASSI website and they will tell which fish are safe to eat currently. 

Place fish in tinfoil (shiny side facing up).

Add lemon juice, garlic, salt, pepper, and the herbs of your choice.

Place on the braai grill and wait.

Fish doesn't take very long, so just keep an eye on it, but it is almost impossible to stuff it up. Cook time is usually 15-20mins (depending on thickness).

Really a delicious alternative to red meat. 

For the vegetarians...

Red pepper dip: 

Place a red pepper on the grill and keep turning it while cooking (don't be scared if the skin goes black, you can peel it).

Once soft, place pepper in a blender with a sprinkle of olive oil (or the oil of your choice), salt, pepper, and coriander/dill if you would like a more herby dip. 

Blitz in the blender and enjoy with crudites (strips of veg) or chips.

Sweet Potato is also another WIN on the braai and it is a really healthy option.

Cut the sweet potato into wedges and put in tinfoil (shiny side on the inside) with a little garlic and touch of olive/coconut oil. Make sure the tinfoil is closed like a little parcel.

Another option is to just sommer cut them into strips and braai them. Works just as well.

Leave on the braai for a while, these take a little longer to cook (around 35mins depending on the thickness of your wedges), but once done, de-licious.

Now these are my suggestions... fun but not going to win Masterchef. So, I called on my friend and vegan chef, Nikki Botha, for some REAL grown up recipes that are easy to do and super impressive. 

For any information on eating and cooking vegetarian and vegan please contact Nikki. Her twitter handle is @NikkiBotha or you can email her on [email protected].

Let's start with dessert!!

Banana, Date and Peanut Butter Nicecream

690 g

Bananas

 

250 ml

Soy Milk (or milk of your choice)

20 g

Pitted Dates

225 g

Peanut Butter

 

Instructions:

- Slice up bananas and freeze 

- Take frozen bananas and put them in a food processor with all the other ingredients (dates must be chopped) and blend until smooth and creamy

- Put in a container and put back in the freezer

- Freeze for 24 hours before serving

 

 

Grilled Corn 

 

- Corn of the Cob (mielies)

- 1 Ripe avocado

- 30 ml fresh chopped coriander

- 30 ml Lemon juice

- 5 ml cumin

- 30 ml Diced onion

- Fresh chopped chillies (***if you like a bit of heat)

- Salt to taste

Instructions:

- Gooi your mielies on the braai

- In a bowl, mash your avocado, add all the other ingredients and mix well

- Braai your mielies for about 10 – 15 minutes and once done, put in a deep dish, put your avo mix over it and toss around until the mielies are covered.

 

Cucumber and Spring Onion Salad

 

- 6 -  8 Salad spring onion sprigs (chopped)

- 2 Cucumbers (sliced)

- 30 ml Finely chopped fresh coriander

- 30 ml finely chopped fresh Italian parsley

- 30 ml Garlic olive oil

- Salt to taste

-  Lemon wedges

 

Instructions:

- Put all your ingredients in a bowl (except for the lemon wedges) and mix well

- Chill before you serve and when you do, serve your salad with a lemon wedge (squeeze the fresh lemon juice over your salad)

- To add a bit of oomph, sprinkle with some chilli flakes

And for the VERY adventurous veg and braai lover...

Seitan

 

2 Cups Gluten-Powder (which is avail at dischem. It is gluten extracted from the wheat and made into flour)

60 ml

Nutritional Yeast

30 ml

Flour

250 ml

Liquid Stock

125 ml

BBQ sauce

15 ml

Tomato Sauce

15 ml

Olive Oil

8 Cups

Liquid Stock

Instructions:

- Mix all the dry ingredients well in a bowl

- Mix all the wet ingredients well in a separate bowl (**add a few drops of liquid smoke for a smokey flavour or a generous amount of smoked paprika)

- Add your wet ingredients to your dry ingredients and mix well to form a dough

- Knead the dough for five minutes until it is really elastic

- Boil this dough in a pot containing eight cups of liquid stock for 45 minutes

- Remove dough from the stock and let it settle overnight in the fridge

- To braai, simply take your seitan “steak” and marinate it in your favourite BBQ marinade (most are vegan – like Jack Daniels Hickory marinade) and gooi on the braai