- Mm.
(upbeat music)
All right, friends, we've made jackfruit into chicken,
banana blossoms into fish, we've made watermelon into tuna,
and today we're going to make carrots into salmon.
Also, fun side note,
I get to use my new smoking gun for this.
We're gonna learn together, I've never used it.
Hey, guys, I'm Candice, the Edgy Veg,
and today I'm going to show you
how to make carrots into salmon.
I have recipe for really flawless carrot lox in my cookbook,
but this technique requires you to dry-cure carrots
in your oven for like three hours and then marinate it
in a marinade for like two days.
So I wanted to see if I could do like a quicker version
that is just as good or almost as good
just without the time commitment of like having your oven
on for three hours and marinating it for two days.
Obviously, carrots into salmon is not a new concept,
but I wanted to see what I could do to make it
a little bit easier on you guys
and just kind of do my own twist
and share some of my favorite techniques for making
different vegetables taste fishy, fishier.
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hit that subscribe button because I make new videos
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So with lox, usually lox are,
I believe that they are a smoked salmon and a brine salmon.
So depending on what kind that you are getting.
This is why I like to cure,
like salt cure my carrots in the oven
because I'm trying to take the techniques
of the traditional way of doing it
and using it in the vegan version
instead of reinventing the wheel of cooking,
but today I thought to make it a bit easier,
I think what I'm going to do is take these carrots
and boil them.
So boil them for about six minutes, six to 10 minutes
just so that they are soft, but they're not mushy,
and then I think I'm going to just slice them very thinly
and put them into a very simple marinade.
The key ingredients of this marinade are going to be
a seaweed, a caper brine.
So literally you just buy some capers in a jar
and drain it of the brine.
You're going to use the capers when you plate this
and present it on a bagel.
So nothing's getting wasted.
So those are the two main ingredients,
but also we are going to use miso and rice thinner
to get that like briny fishy flavor.
We are going to cook the carrots.
We are going to marinate the carrots.
Then we are going to smoke the carrots.
Now traditionally you can use either applewood
or hickory smoke to smoke salmon,
but because these are carrots,
I don't want to bring out that sweet flavor.
Carrots are already inherently sweet.
So using an apple with smoke is going to bring out
that sweetness and we don't want that
because like salmon not sweet, so.
So instead I'm going to use hickory wood chips
to smoke the salmon.
And I just want to see if that adds
like another depth to the salmon.
Plus, I just really want to use my cloche.
So what I'm going to do with the carrots
is just clean them.
I've already scrubbed these guys.
So you just want to scrub off any debris or dirt.
We definitely want the skin to be on
because the skin adds like a really nice fishy texture.
Just trim the ends, cut them in half,
and throw them into boiling water
for about six to 10 minutes.
So if you have my cookbook, you will know
that I have the best vegan lox in the game.
Like I'm saying that proudly.
Like I know that for a fact. (laughs)
And that requires to salt-cure carrots.
What I did was in a tall baking dish, I put a layer of salt,
put my carrots, and covered it in salt,
and then cooked it at 400 for two and a half hours,
and then what you get is this like shriveled little carrot.
Then you just make little slices,
and see how it kind of looks like flesh.
So you get these nice flaky, see how it's flaking there,
and it's flaking here, you get this flaky salmon.
The boiling is more for a simpler option.
I just wanted to show you what you could do.
See how it's like nice and flaky,
and then you want to just marinate that,
and you get like a really beautiful life-like salmon.
While we wait for our carrots to cook,
we are going to put together our marinade or brine.
So I just have a bowl here.
You want to get a bowl that's big enough
for all the pieces, but also deep enough
so that you can cover it completely with the marinade.
So I'm going to add soy sauce or tamari,
caper brine, lemon juice.
So a lot of acidic flavors.
A lot of acidic and umami flavors.
So this is a rice vinegar.
Garlic salt.
To get that kind of ocean essence,
we're going to use a bit of seaweed,
and miso, and this is where the umami is going to come from.
Now because salmon is a fish, it is a little bit fatty.
You want to add that fatty mouth feel.
So we are going to add olive oil.
What I find, this is just what everyone has on hand.
So this is why I'm suggesting it for this,
but in my other recipe, I suggest olive oil
or flaxseed oil because flaxseed oil definitely has that
like omega 3-6-9 flavor that fish has. (laughs)
Give that a little whisk,
and obviously miso needs a little help along,
and we also want a little bit of penetration power
from our marinade so I'm going to add hot water to this.
So we have our boiled carrots here.
Now you definitely want them to cool down
before you stick your fingers all over them to cut them,
but you definitely want to slice them
so they'll come out looking like this.
So these ones are the cured ones.
These ones are the boiled ones, but in terms of visuals,
the only difference here really in terms of visual
is that this is a little bit flakier
and also is deeper in the orange color.
Whereas, this one is going to be a little bit lighter
'cause it is boiled but again you want to just do
little strips, and you can do these little strips,
and then put them into the marinade,
and then you can just use your hands to cover it completely.
Submerge it, and throw it in the fridge.
Okay, so this is the batch I made last night
just so I could get a true representation.
I'll show you guys like truly what it looks like
so you can see it's a little bit broken down.
It's soft, kind of looks like little pieces of fish.
- [James] That's so weird.
It really does look like salmon.
- Right?
I mean a couple pieces obviously look like carrots,
like that, but you can layer those underneath,
and then put these really authentic looking pieces on top.
So I was thinking, we could put together a bagel board.
Thoughts?
- [James] I'm not gonna say no to bagels.
- Perfect.
All right, let's do it.
So obviously it makes the most sense to smoke the one
that I marinated overnight.
So I'm gonna take my hickory wood chips.
I'm gonna add a little layer.
I've turned it on.
It's on high,
and I'm just gonna stick the tube underneath
like that.
Now I'm going to light this bitch on fire.
Oh, there we go.
And so you only want to do this for a couple minutes.
I want it to smell like hickory today.
(Candice and James laugh together)
(upbeat music)
All right, now that we have our smoked salmon,
smoked carrots, let's put together our bagel buffet,
bagel board, let's put together our bagel board.
So I'm just using the tofutti herb and garlic
which is one of the most easily accessible
vegan cream cheeses around here anyway,
but you can use whatever's your favorite.
So what I like to do is take my salmon
and just start layering it kind of strategically
so that you have all this stuff
that really looks like salmon on the top,
putting the stuff that looks more like a carrot
on the bottom, and then I like to use onion,
and then a few capers of course,
or lots of capers 'cause capers are life, they really are,
and then some fresh dill.
You can use dill or chives.
If you don't have fresh, you can use dried,
and there you go.
- [James] That looks so good.
- [Candice] Does it?
Does it look like salmon?
- [James] It really does.
- Yes!
Some French sel gris.
It just like looks really good, doesn't it?
(upbeat music)
All right, guys, there we have our carrots
into salmon delicious bagel.
Perfect for brunch.
Oh my god.
Honestly, it's so good,
and the fact that it's boiled then marinated,
it doesn't make such a huge difference.
Like you really can't taste that much difference
from the other one that takes days to do.
This is just 24 hours in the marinade, boiled.
Oh my god, it's perfect.
Oh, and smoked.
Oh, is it smoked.
If you have a smoker, try smoking it.
Mm.
If you guys like this recipe, give it a big thumbs up.
Let me know in the comment section below
what crazy transformation you want to see next,
and if you're new here, hit that subscribe button.
I make new Mondays, I make new Mondays.
I make new videos, (laughs) wow.
I make new videos every Tuesdays and Thursdays at 4:00 p.m.
And I'll see you next time, bye!
And a full recipe for this is gonna be
in the description box down below.
(laughs)