"A mouth-watering vegan take on a breakfast classic, a savoury mixture of onions, tomatoes and ackee – one of my favourite natural alternatives to eggs," says food writer Rachel Ama.
"Ackee is a fruit that you'll see in a lot of Caribbean cooking. It's extremely subtle in taste and soaks up flavour well, just be careful not to over-mix it as it breaks down very easily. The aim is to heat it up and give it just a few stirs when cooking. Using black salt to season the ackee right at the end of cooking will give an egg-like flavour to this dish which is really delicious.
"I've topped the ackee with sweet and smoky, slightly crispy aubergines and served them in a toasted bagel with some avocado for ultimate bagel goals."
Ingredients
(Serves 4)
4 bagels, halved
2 avocados, sliced
1 quantity of Smoky Aubergine (see below)
4tbsp pumpkin seeds
1tbsp finely snipped chives
Handful of fresh coriander, chopped
1 lime, cut into 4 wedges, to serve
For the smoky aubergine:
2 aubergines, sliced into quarters, lengthways
1tsp sweet smoked paprika
1tsp garlic granules
1tbsp liquid smoke or soy sauce
1tbsp soy sauce or coconut aminos
1tsp vegan Worcestershire sauce
2tbsp maple syrup
2tbsp olive oil, plus extra for greasing
Salt and black pepper
For the ackee scramble:
1tbsp vegetable oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 spring onions, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
Leaves from 2 thyme sprigs
1tsp ground turmeric
2 plum tomatoes, roughly chopped
1 small fresh red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
1tbsp nutritional yeast
1 x 540g tin of ackee, drained
1tbsp fresh lime juice
Salt (or black salt) and black pepper
Method
1. Preheat the oven to 180C fan.
2. First make the smoky aubergine. Line a baking sheet with baking paper or grease with olive oil. Finely slice the aubergine quarters lengthways into 2-3mm strips. Mix all the other ingredients in a bowl and season. Brush the aubergine slices with the marinade, and bake on the prepared sheet for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven, brush again with the marinade, and cook for another 15 minutes. Once cooked, leave to cool.
3. Make the ackee scramble. Place the vegetable oil in a medium saucepan over a medium heat, add the onion and spring onions and saute for five minutes until softened, then add the garlic, thyme, turmeric, tomatoes and chilli, season with pepper and saute for a further five minutes.
4. Sprinkle in the nutritional yeast and then add the ackee. Give this a gentle mix to coat the ackee in all the other ingredients and then allow to heat through for four to five minutes. Ackee is fragile so don't over-mix or it will turn to mush.
5. Remove from the heat, add the lime juice and half a teaspoon of salt and mix in carefully. Meanwhile, toast the bagel halves and place two halves on each plate.
6. Add some of the ackee scramble to the bottom half of each bagel, along with a few slices of avocado and smoky aubergine, then sprinkle with pumpkin seeds, chives and coriander before adding the top half of the bagel. Serve each filled bagel with a wedge of lime for squeezing over.
Rachel Ama's Vegan Eats: Tasty Plant-based Recipes For Every Day, photography by Haarala Hamilton, is published by Ebury priced £20. Available now.
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