Many folks around the world are becoming vegetarians and vegans for health and ecological reasons. But in India, an egg-less diet is nothing new.
Substituting eggs in recipes has been tricky and challenging for vegetarian home cooks and bakers. There have been many contenders for the title of the “perfect vegetarian substitute for eggs” but none has ever fulfilled all the roles an egg can play in the kitchen.
In baking, an egg is used for various reasons: a binding agent, to add moisture, a leavening agent …
For the first, good substitutes are mashed tofu, mashed banana, flax seeds blended with water, agar agar and soya powder. But their efficiency and suitability vary from recipe to recipe. A trial-and-error method is the only way of working with these substitutes.
Suggestion : 1 tbsp of flaxseed blended with 3 tbsp of water is equivalent to 1 egg.
If you are using the egg to provide moisture , pureed fruits are ideal substitutes. Mashed bananas or applesauce are eligible candidates for this purpose.
As a leavening agent, suitable substitutes would be baking soda, buttermilk or yogurt. These should ideally make the baked product lighter and fluffier.
Suggestion : 1 tsp baking powder with 1 tbsp vinegar for 1 egg.
Some of these may alter the taste of the final product but there’s no other go if you don’t want to use eggs. So far home cooks and bakers have been making do with one or other of these suggestions with some success and occasional failures.
But recently, vegans have discovered a new element, which many agree is the perfect substitute for eggs in cooking and baking. It is called Aquafaba. Aqua means water and Faba beans in Latin. This element even has a dedicated website: www.aquafaba.com
Aquafaba is the water from a can of garbanzo beans or kabuli channa as we know it. In recent months, this liquid has been used successfully to make meringues, mousses, macaroons, cookies, cakes and mayonnaise. Aquafaba with its unique combination of proteins and starches is able to mimic some of the qualities of both the yolk and the white of an egg.
Suggestion: Use 3 tbsp of liquid for 1 egg One need not open a can of beans every time to replace eggs in a recipe. Garbanzo beans can be boiled at home and the water can be used as an egg substitute.
The liquid’s viscosity is something that we need to experiment with in the kitchen and arrive at an optimum one. The best part: you don’t have to compromise on taste and texture. That is one of aquafaba’s unique qualities. There is hardly any difference in taste.
Macaroons made with aquafaba are being commercially sold in the U.S. A New York-based company is manufacturing mayonnaise made with aquafaba and is marketing it as Fabanaise.
In 2016, the year of the pulse, as the UN has declared, Aquafaba is a rising star among vegans and vegetarians. It also has serious implications for people with egg allergies.
Even those of us who fear to give mayonnaise or other food products that contain egg in its raw form to children or the elderly, can now rely on aquafaba to do the trick.
