black bean bitterballen.

Nelson/Hoogte Labs produced this bit of wonder over the past couple of days. It's a real, delicious, vegan vegetarian bitterbal made with black beans and pureed/whipped pozole, rolled in panko, deep-fried, and served with an outstanding vegan piccalilli mayo. Really impressive if I do say so myself, which I can because I only did half of it.

Why isn't it vegan? The chick running the deep-fryer couldn't get the panko to stick without an egg, so we need to look into a replacement technology here. And anyway, unbeknownst to the deep-fryer chick, the asshole running the blender had already added butter to the whipped posole so veganness was out the window.

Additionally, the whole concept was fucked with so much on its way to greatness that reproducing it will be a challenge. Leftover Rancho Gordo posole won't always be in the freezer for example. But I'm thinking if you roast a bag of corn (do they even have bags of corn here?) in the oven for 15 or 45 minutes and then whip it in a blender with oat milk and coconut oil that you might get close. Should also figure out if heating the oat milk is actually thickening the whole thing or if that's a myth.

The Labs also pumped out this alien looking thing today.

The internets told me it was the best thing to do with leftover pasta, and indeed it was pretttttttty good. It's Mark Bittman's recipe plus a handful of chopped spinach, one scallion and one clove of crushed garlic.

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