Nicole Is Cooking

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One thing that is off limits to veg*ns that pay attention is Worcestershire Sauce. Why? Well, if you didn’t click that link to read the interesting history of the sauce, I will tell you- anchovies are a main ingredient. Kind of puts a crimp in your Bloody Mary drinking since so many places seem to use it as an ingredient. (Travel note: if you find yourself in Washington, D.C. craving a veg*n safe Bloody Mary as well as a veg*n friendly brunch, head to Asylum. I can vouch for the menu. Just be patient with the service.) Plus, it is just nice to have occasionally to cook with… I used to use it in sauces and marinades a lot as well as put a dash into my black beans on occasion.

There are commercially produced Vegan Worcestershires out there. I just haven’t seen them carried in stores all that often and then I have to remember to order online, etc., etc.

Well, How to Cook Everything Vegetarian has a recipe! And I just happened to have fancy little bottles that Fantôme Chocolat’s sister had given me a while ago and I had absolutely no idea what to do with that would be perfect to put the sauce into.

Take a look at this line up of ingredients:

We have: Dulse, brown sugar**, soy sauce, tamarind paste, Chinese black vinegar (Chinkiang Vinegar), molasses, cloves, black peppercorns, red pepper flakes, and black licorice. Have you ever read the ingredient list on an actual bottle of Worcestershire sauce? Malt vinegar (from barley), spirit vinegar, molasses, sugar, salt, anchovies, tamarind extract, onions, garlic, spices (including cloves), and flavoring. So this recipe isn’t all that weird.

Now onto some of the more exotic ingredients… up first we have Dulse! I had to look it up. It is a sea vegetable (you can also use kombu).

It apparently is from the Maine area and that link, as well as the package, will give you lots of handy recipes on what to do with your sea vegetables including adding them to soups, salads, sandwiches, and stir fries. I found the dulse at my Whole Foods. I also picked up the tamarind paste there.

For the Chinese black vinegar, I actually went to the Asian grocery store in D.C.’s sad remnant of a Chinatown (development and the resulting rise in property taxes and rents has pushed most of the Chinese owned businesses out so now there are a lot of non-Chinese businesses with Chinese characters on them). I amazingly found parking on a Sunday and was amazed at the incredibly low price (I am sure I would have paid three times the amount if WF had it).

The recipe is fairly simple. Put everything except the soy sauce, molasses, and licorice (which is optional) in a pot and bring it to a boil.

Once it boils, remove from heat. Add the soy sauce, molasses and licorice. Steep until it is cool. Strain it and you are done.

You can store it for up to 6 months and refrigeration is optional.

As far as I remember, it tastes and smells like what I remember Worcestershire sauce tastes and smells like. I even had a really odd moment the other night when I threw it in something I was cooking and walked away for a minute- I caught the smell of it and for a fleeting second was reminded of steak (I used to frequently eat Worcestershire with steak in my omni days).

**The box of Domino’s brown sugar is for illustrative purposes only. It is so old that it was rock hard. I found out a while ago that Domino likely processes its refined sugar with bone char and I never did get a conclusive answer on the brown sugar. So instead I use the following substitute: 1 cup of known vegan sugar + 1 1/2 tablespoons of molasses for each cup of brown sugar required.