"The Vegg" is a Vegan egg substitute. I learnt about The Vegg (and photography) through my friend Diana Fleischman of The Vegan Option.
When Rocky the inventor of The Vegg contacted me about reviewing his product on my blog, how could I refuse? As someone who looks after Rescued Hen Friends, giving them a real life away from those horrible animal farms, the more Vegan products available the better! Hens eggs are for the Hens, if we feel like eating their eggs, why not try "The Vegg" instead? :-)
When Rocky the inventor of The Vegg contacted me about reviewing his product on my blog, how could I refuse? As someone who looks after Rescued Hen Friends, giving them a real life away from those horrible animal farms, the more Vegan products available the better! Hens eggs are for the Hens, if we feel like eating their eggs, why not try "The Vegg" instead? :-)
Listen to my interview with Vegg inventor Rocky Shepheard while viewing the photos below :-)
direct link to audio file download
A couple weeks after I agreed to do the review, a mysterious package arrived! Why, it doesn't even have my street address, yet it arrived at my work, wow! The wonders of The Vegg never cease! :-)
My Hen Friends always like to see my mail, and I like to take photos of them, its win/win :-)
The Vegg comes in silver packaging. Its essentially a yellow powder made from nutritional yeast and all kinds of wonderful ingredients, which you add water and soymilk to and blend to form a liquid. The recipe included is for "Vegg French Toast".
Home Hen let me pick her up. Two pats, and she practically went to sleep on my leg :-) I love her so very much, after all shes been through as a "farm animal", shes grown her feathers back, and is always very gentle.
Here she is with a Vegg card on her back :-)
Curious Hen with The Vegg packaging :-)
To transform The Vegg from powder to "yolks", you take a teaspoon of Vegg, and add a quarter of a cup of water into a blender. Mixing by hand is not recommended. The powder smells a little like nutritional yeast and rock salt, the ingredients contain "black salt"
To follow the included French Toast recipe, you add 4 teaspoons of Vegg powder to one and a half cups of soymilk, and one and a half cups of water. Add cinnamon powder. Blend well, pour into a bowl, and dip thick bread in the mixture for ten seconds each side.
I used toast bread, the thicker the bread the better though.
I followed the instructions and fried in a pan with vegan margarine, the
Ta-da :-) Served with Agave Nectar and cinnamon sprinkled over the top
Yellow Hen in my hand, posing with Vegg French Toast :-) I let all my Hen Friends have a sample, and they seemed to like it very much :-)
The first bit given to Whole Hen set off a race around the garden, as she didnt want to share!
Yellow Hen with Vegg French Toast :-)
She reminds me of her father Mr Rooster, who excitedly shared Falafel with the Hens :-) Roosters naturally share food with the rest of their family like proper gentlemen, although Hens usually squabble a little and try to be selfish :-) It was amazing watching him pass food from his beak to theirs, and call them over when he found food. You can observe his head bobbing gesture, up and down while he talks, his way of calling them to food he's found :-) The black hen is Ms Hen, Yellow Hens mother.
What a long neck Yellow Hen has! :-)
The makers of The Vegg have a video online about how to quote "spherify" The Vegg yolk into an actual circular ball, wow! It involves a brine of Calcium Chloride. Looks magic!
As a guy who made do with toast bread, I unfortunately didnt have any Calcium Chloride in my cupboards. Theres another method mentioned to make yolks too though, freezing the mixture. I tried two approaches, the example on the left was frozen wrapped into a vaguely round shape using Gladwrap (plastic wrap), the one on the right was frozen into a cupcake tray :-) Both were fried, and served with Chilli Beans and vegetables.
Thank you Rocky, and everyone who works to give the world "The Vegg" Vegan egg substitute :-)
Try The Vegg today :-) Its currently not available in New Zealand, but we can order from Australian stores listed online on Rocky's website. I've suggested some New Zealand stores who could carry The Vegg, and Rocky has contacted them, so we'll see if New Zealand has a Veggy future :-)
Other reviews of The Vegg
Vegan Crunk
Vegan Urbanite
Other official Vegg recipes to try :-)
