FACON – The Vegan, Rice Paper Bacon

Preamble

A few weeks ago I tried some seitan bacon from a package, and it was oh SO not good.  I mentioned it to my vegan buddy Ryan, and he told me people were having good luck with a rice paper bacon they were whipping up!  Whaaat!?  Ok, I’ll bite. (ha.)  So here we are, back in the lab with a bunch of spices, and some rice paper, to verify the big claims we’ve seen about the net, including this facon being life changing.

So here’s how we do it.  We mix up a batch of bacony flavored marinade, take strips of rice paper, hydrate them, dip’em in marinade, and bake’em on a rack for a few minutes.  That’s about it!  Sound easy?  It is!

The trickiest part is obviously preparing the rice paper.  After playing a bit, I found what was easiest for me was this:  Take two sheets of rice paper together, and cut them into thick bacon-ish shaped strips, and lay them in a plate piled in their couples.  Grab a set, dunk them in water for a second, shake off excess water as best you can, then instantly give them a bath in the facon fluid, and then place right onto the parchment paper.  I tried ‘hydrating the whole sheet‘ route, but once the sheets are hydrated they are really desirous of folding in on themselves, making funny shapes, and locking that way, quite as you’d expect.  🙂  I highly recommend the cut and dunk method above.

It was recommended to cook them for 7-9 minutes, and I pulled them at 8 as they were starting to burn in spots.  A few of them had parts with an acrid taste to them, I’m unsure where this came from, because I tasted the marinade as soon as it was done.  It surprised me just how bacony it was, so it wasn’t coming from that.  One guess is burning rice paper where there wasn’t much marinade.  A few had a bit too much marinade, and they didn’t have this taste, and were not burnt, but wound up being a touch rubbery.  In between these two flaws I think was where the facon magic happened.

Not exactly like bacon, but totally yummy.  I thought they would be great in a situation where facon wasn’t the only taste and texture happening.  I also think some of the variation was due to the marinade needing to be whisked a few times as the facon was being prepared.  I was warned by the recipe I was inheriting from, so it was my own fault.  The oil started separating from everything else, so the last pieces wound up with a higher ratio of oil, and I think this may have contributed to that initial funkiness some of them had.

There’s a step in the instructions where we add some marbling to the facon, you know… so it looks like real bacon.  🙂

You might call this step optional.  Not in the house of Soul Hummus you don’t.  Get out that brush, and do some artwork on those facons!

We whipped up a nice FLT, (Yup, a facon, lettuce and tomato sandwich.) and it was actually quite yummy!  When the focus was drawn away from the facon, it seemed a whole lot more like bacon.

My 8 year old daughter Katie had some of it, and she really liked it, and she’s pretty fussy.   She wasn’t as much of a fan of the facon on it’s own though.

I’m gonna need a few more experiments to make any kind of realistic judgement, but I think this facon is great on a sandwich like we had, and I also think it would be super for facon bits in a salad or on a baked potato, maybe even in a southern green bean recipe if you’re one of my friends in the south, where they are in firm agreement that bacon is also a spice, and not just a meat.  🙂  Don’t go thinking you’re gonna fool anyone with this stuff though, you definitely will not.

Let’s make some FACON!!!

Ingredients

• at least 6 sheets rice paper (1 pack has more than you need)
• 2 tbsp grape seed oil
• 3 tbsp soy sauce
• 3 tbsp nutritional yeast
• ½ (1)tsp liquid smoke
• ½ (1) tsp maple syrup
• dash black pepper
• dash of spicy Hungarian paprika
• small amount of balsamic vinegar, or balsamic vinegar glaze

The Spell

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Grab two large, wide bowls, and fill one half way with water, and in the other, mix up all the ingredients sans the rice paper.
3. Grab a metal rack, and prepare it with a layer of parchment paper, and keep it near the facon marinade bowl.
4. Gather two sheets of rice paper, hold them together, and cut then into bacon sized strips, preferably using food scissors.  Place the piles of soon to be facon on a plate nearby.
5. Grab a set of rice paper partners, and sink them in the water bowl for a second, shake them off, and then give them a strong dredging through the facon sauce, and place them right onto their spot on the rack.  Repeat until finished.
6. Take a small amount of the facon sauce, and put it in a small bowl, and add a little balsamic until it’s pretty dark.  Use a brush to make some fake marbling on your facon, give it some artistic soul!
7. Cook for 8 – 10 minutes, but make sure you watch it closely.  If it burns too much it’s not going to be good.

Outro

Well you’ve been makin’ the facon, may as well be tastin’ the facon…  I suggest the FLT like we did, it was fast and yummy and a great way to try it in context!

I don’t think my life was changed, but it definitely brought me some joy having a BLT-ish FLT!  Hope you guys enjoy your facon!  I want to hear if you find any tricks of your own to make this better!

Until next time, much love to you and yours.  🙂

 

This recipe was adapted mostly from this one over at ‘Yup, It’s Vegan‘:

Vegan Rice Paper Bacon (possibly life-changing)

UPDATES

UPDATE 1:  So I officially just finished what was left of that facon, from earlier today.  None left.  Little sad.  Guess it can’t be that bad.  lol