Vegan Style Deep Fried Drumsticks

Vegan Style Deep Fried Drumsticks

Most of us grew up with fried chicken and thought it was awesome.

In our home, our Mom would make pasta (my Dad was Italian) and fried chicken every Sunday. We loved it. The recipe I am going to share with you today has a very similar flavour and texture as what my Mom made except its not chicken!

ZaccharyBird posted a picture on Facebook that my friend sent to me and well I just had to try it. It looked so interesting and I was up for the adventure of trying to replicate the chicken my Mom used to make.

The recipe belongs to Zac and if you want to see more of his ingenious ideas visit him at http://www.zaccharybird.com/

Zac thanks for letting me share this on my blog!

What I am going to share is my experience with this recipe. Are you just a little bit curious?….

Vegan Style Deep Fried Drumsticks

The recipe says to make 4 drumsticks, next time I make it, I will make six. The  drumsticks are pretty big; I loved the cauliflower in the middle (the bone) and would have liked a bit less Jackfruit (the chicken like portion).

What you’ll need for your Vegan Style Deep Fried Drumsticks

For the vegan drumsticks:

• 2 cans young green jackfruit (make sure you get the green, it is soaked in brine)

  

• 1 medium cauliflower, washed and dried
• 1 + 1/2 cups of chicken style broth – you can buy vegan friendly cubes at the grocer
• 2 t nutritional yeast
• 1 t onion powder
• 10 drops of liquid smoke

  

• 3-4 c vegetable oil to deep fry the drumsticks

For the coating mixture:

• 3/4 c plain white flour
• 3/4 T brown sugar
• 1/2 t salt
• 1/2 t paprika
• 1/2 t onion powder
• 1/2 t chilli powder
• 1/4 t garlic powder
• 1/4 t celery salt
• 1/4 t sage
• 1/4 t all spice
• 1/4 t basil
• Pinch of oregano
• Pinch of turmeric
• 1/2 t sea salt (he had kala namak, black salt on his recipe and I could not find this)
• liquid from a can of chickpeas (called aquafaba) You can use the chickpeas to make hummus or another of your favourite chickpea recipes.
• Next time I make them I plan to add a little cayenne pepper to spice them up a bit more.

How to make your vegan style drumsticks

1. Take the jackfruit out of the cans and drain the liquid. You will need to rinse them thoroughly as the brine taste is hard to get out.

   

2. Once you’ve thoroughly rinsed the jackfruit, go through the pieces and remove any of the hard core and the seeds. If you squeeze the pieces the seeds will pop out. This will take quite a while and you want to be sure you have only the fruit shreds left. This gives you the texture of chicken.

   

3. Make your vegan  chicken flavoured stock and put in in a pan with the nutritional yeast, onion powder and liquid smoke. Mix it all up and turn on the heat on the stove.
4. Put the jackfruit into the pot and bring it to a boil, keep on a low boil (medium heat) and cook for about 10 minutes. Cover with a lid and lower the to simmer and continue to cook until the liquid is absorbed by the jackfruit. Once its done, remove from the stove and cool.

   

5. Now you are going to prepare the cauliflower. The cauliflower is going into the middle of the drumstick and hold play the role of the bone.
6. Clean up the cauliflower, remove the leaves and leave the cauliflower intact. All you are going to use from the cauliflower is the hard stem that runs up the middle.

   

   

7. Cut the florets off and while leaving the stem/core of the cauliflower in one piece. Once you have taken off all the florets, you can cut the stem into 4-6 pieces….you might need two cauliflowers to make six drumstick centres.
8. Get out the plastic wrap and make one piece for each drumstick you plan to make.
9. Divide the jackfruit mixture into equal portions and place each portion of the jackfruit on the plastic wrap. Now take one of the cauliflower stem pieces and put it in the middle of the jackfruit, leaving a little sticking out the bottom.
10. Wrap the whole thing up tightly in the plastic wrap and mush around the jackfruit to form a drumstick like shape. Do the same with each piece. Now you’re starting to see how it works!
11. Place the drumsticks into the freezer for about an hour to make them firmer.

    

12. Mix up the coating, all the ingredients except the chickpea liquid, put that in a separate bowl.
13. Get a pan ready and put some parchment paper or paper towel on the bottom of the pan for the drumsticks once they are ready.
14. While the drumsticks are cooling off in the freezer, get your other dishes for dinner ready. We made home-made French fries in the oven and coleslaw. Just like take out!

    

15. When the drumsticks have been in the freezer for at least an hour, get your oil in a pot and start to heat it up so you are ready to deep fry the drumsticks.
16. Ok now comes the tricky part. You will need to work fairly quickly through this part of the process.
17. Take the near frozen drumsticks out of the freezer. Dip your hands in the chickpea liquid (otherwise everything will stick to your hands!).
18. Once your hands are coated in the liquid, take one of the frozen drumsticks and dip into the liquid and then roll it in the coating mixture till well covered. Dip your hands again in the chickpea liquid and put a second coat of the spices on the drumstick. Place it on the parchment paper.

    

    

19. Repeat the process for each drumstick.
20. Make sure your oil is very hot, should be bubbling, drop the drumsticks two at a time, into the hot oil and cook, turning occasionally till golden brown all around.

    

21. Remove the cooked drumsticks from the oil and drain excess oil on the parchment paper/paper towels.

    

    

    

    

Serve with your side dishes! Its amazing how close they are to the real thing!