Facon!
There's just something about the taste of bacon that's so satisfying and addictive! It's delicious, smokey, crunchy, comforting and endlessly moreish. Unfortunately, it's also loaded with saturated fat, cholesterol and nitrates; a perfect recipe for ill health. Coupled with that, intensive pig farming is inherently cruel and these intelligent creatures live out their short lives in a severely confined state of misery.
Thankfully, we live in an age where plant-based, bacon style products can be found on many supermarket shelves, so you don't have to feel guilty about your health or animal welfare if you feel the urge to bite into a bacon sandwich. However, where I live, these products aren't cheap and come with a long list of ingredients. So, I prefer to make my own; it's more economical and I know exactly what's gone into it!
To begin:
Take 10 squares of rice paper.
Double them up, so you have 5 double layered pieces.
Take each double layered square and cut into 4, equal sized strips (I use scissors to do this), so you have 20 double layered strips.
Then make the marinade. Combine the following ingredients in a mixing bowl:
⅓ cup soya sauce
⅓ cup nutritional yeast
¼ cup canola oil
2 tbsp maple syrup
2 tsp liquid smoke
1 tsp paprika
½ tsp sea salt
Stir thoroughly until totally smooth.
Pour the mixture into a small baking tray.
Next, set up your 'factory line':
On your work surface, arrange your double layered strips onto a board.
On the right side of this board, place a bowl of warm water.
On the right side of the warm water, place the baking tray full of the marinade.
On the right side of this, place a large baking tray, lined with baking paper.
Then create your facon:
Take one double layered strip at a time.
Dip the strip into the water for about 5 seconds to soften it.
Squeeze the excess water out of the strip.
Dip the strip in the marinade so that it's thoroughly coated on both sides. If you find it easy, coat between the 2 layers too, then put them back together, so that the strip is thoroughly saturated with the marinade.
Place the coated strip onto the lined baking tray.
Repeat until you have used all the strips.
If you have enough marinade left over, you might want to cut more strips. If you only have a bit, spoon it onto the strips in the tray, as an extra coating.
Finally:
Place the baking tray in an oven that's been pre-heated to 200 degrees and bake for 8 minutes.
When you remove the strips from the oven, they'll be sizzling and they'll still seem soft, but they'll harden as they cool.
If you want to play around with cooking to achieve your ideal texture, be aware that the strips burn quickly, so keep checking every thirty seconds or so.
The process might sound quite fiddly at first, but once you get used to it, you'll find that you can conjure up delicious facon in no time at all. I frequently make it at weekends, so that everyone can enjoy a bacon style sandwich, or I'll add some strips to a cooked breakfast. It's especially good with my vegan scrambled eggs or with my vegan poached egg and avocado on toast. I make it so that the strips are crunchy on the outside and slightly chewy in the middle, but you can adjust the cooking time to your own taste preferences. I hope you enjoy it as much as we all do!
A weekend breakfast with vegan scrambled eggs, hash browns and facon.
A vegan BLT! Homemade vegan mayonnaise, tomato, lettuce, facon and ketchup in a gluten free bun.