For my second trick, I will show you how to make vegan chicken and waffles out of some weird shit. There are oyster mushrooms and applesauce in this recipe. There is thyme in the waffle batter because it is always thyme for the percolator.

Vegan Chicken and Waffles. Because “Fried Oyster Mushrooms and Waffles” sounds kinda dumb.

IMG_8505 copy.jpg — VEGAN CHICKEN AND WAFFLES

prep time: 45 minutes
cook time: 20 minutes

Which came first, the “chicken” or the waffle?
In this case, it’s the “chicken.”

What you’ll need:

oyster mushrooms
oat flour
miyoko’s butter
almond milk
salt, pepper, cayenne, garlic powder, cumin, nutmeg
frank’s red hot
bread crumbs
patience
a couple of nice bowls to mix stuff in
olive oil

First you’re gonna make a dry season. Use a little more than a tablespoon of each, but you’re going to put salt, pepper, cayenne, garlic powder, cumin and nutmeg into a bowl. Mix it up a little bit and then sift some oat flour into there. Always, always sift so you don’t get clumps. Toss the flour around with the seasonings.

Then you’re gonna make a batter. The batter is the exact stuff from the dry seasoning but now we’re gonna add two cups of almond milk (or a little more if the batter is thicc) with a few healthy dashes of frank’s. In a separate vessel, melt some miyoko’s butter in there so you can easily add it to your batter. You don’t have to use miyoko’s but it’s my vegan butter of choice.

If you did the math correctly, you should have two bowls full of stuff. Not counting the butter vessel. Now get a third bowl out of your cabinet because you’re going to fill that one with bread crumbs.

Keep the crumbs handy because you will be adding more to the bowl as you continue to batter your “chicken.”

Now you should have three bowls.

Flour and seasonings
Batter
Bread Crumbs

Have a plate ready. Take your oyster mushrooms and dip them in the same order as bulleted. Dry, Wet, Crumbs. Coat them nice and evenly in the dry flour and then transfer to the batter. Drip off any excess so you don’t get your bread crumbs all gross. Roll the battered oyster mushroom in the crumbs evenly and set on the plate.

In a moderately deep pan, heat up some oil and get a baking rack ready to put the cooked mushrooms on. I keep mine on the grates of the stove I’m not using to minimize mess.

Cook and turn until the oyster mushrooms are nice and crispy. The crispiness will help them maintain a bit of sauce without getting soggy.

Once the mushrooms are cooked out, set them on a rack to drip out and cool off. After that, throw them in a bowl with some frank’s and toss them around for a second.

This concludes the “chicken” part of the recipe.

The second part of the recipe concerns the waffles.

What you’ll need

oat flour
baking powder
pastry flour
flax seed
applesauce (for real)
salt
thyme
almond milk
miyoko’s butter

Now you’re going to use more bowls and make a bigger mess.

Add four tablespoons of flax seed to a bowl. Add water and whip that mixture up until it has an egg-like consistency. Now to that, add half a cup of almond milk. Using the same method of heating up some butter separately, heat up some butter separately. Again, this will make it easier to mix in with other stuff.

Now you have a mixture of flax seed, almond milk, miyoko’s butter and water. Set that aside as you prepare your flour mixture.

Sift out a cup and a half of oat flour into another bowl. but one of those bowls that has a spout on it, because this will contain your finished batter and it will be easier to transfer it into a waffle iron. In that same bowl, add half a cup of pastry flour. Then add a tablespoon of baking powder and a healthy pinch of salt. Mix that up a little bit and then you are going to add your flax mixture to your flour. Keep whipping it and continue to add almond milk as it thickens up. I got about 3/4 of a cup of almond milk in there during the process. Then add one generous tablespoon of applesauce, because vegans add weird shit to everything.

The last piece of the waffle batter puzzle is thyme. Do that cool thing where you run the thyme through a strainer like they do in those Tasty videos. That will keep stems out of your batter.

Thyme adds a savory aspect to the waffle and you gotta trust me on this!

After you mix up the thyme into the batter, heat up your waffle iron. And I certainly hope you have one because you made it this far. Spray the inside of it with olive oil. Now get that thing preheated and pour your batter in there and follow whatever directions your waffle iron has.

They should come out something like this. You can hardly see the applesauce!

Now that you’ve completed your waffles, plate those suckers with some butter and maple syrup. Toss your oyster mushroom “chicken” on there with a little extra frank’s for measure. Now hurry up and eat because you have a lot of dishes to do.

I added thyme to the plate for extra Instagram likes. Works like a charm.