Vegan Recipe of the Month: Lemon Garlic Soy Curls

Our Recipe of the Month for September is yet another one using soy curls, our new favorite meat substitute. Since we first discovered these, we've tried them both in a citrus sauce and in chili, and for both applications, they performed admirably. So when It Doesn't Taste Like Chicken posted a new recipe for soy curls in a "creamy garlic sauce bursting with fresh lemon," we knew we'd have to try it — and it absolutely did not disappoint. In fact, this may be the best use we've found for soy curls yet.

Brian did make a couple of modifications to the recipe as written. The soy curls are supposed to be marinated in a mixture that contains both vegetable broth and agave or maple syrup, and we didn't have any. (On our last trip to Penzey's, they were all out of our favorite vegetable soup base, and despite our efforts to ration it, we used up the last of it this month. We've now ordered some more, so we should be okay for at least the rest of this year, even if we end up being unable to make our usual visit to Penzey's at Christmastime.) So he substituted water for the stock and plain sugar for the agave and added a teaspoon of nutritional yeast to bump up the flavor.

As a consequence, the soy curls themselves may not have been quite as flavorful as they could have been made with soup stock. But since they were marinated in a mixture that, in addition to the vegetable broth, contains sugar, salt, pepper, six cloves of garlic, and the juice and zest of two whole lemons, they were in no way lacking for taste. The recipe was easy to make, too: just mix up the marinade, soak the soy curls for ten minutes, then fish them out, dredge them in flour, and fry them in oil. In the last five minutes of the cook time, you pour on the leftover marinade and stir in a half-cup of plant-based milk (we used coconut milk) and let it thicken up.

Served up over pasta, with green beans on the side, these soy curls made a meal that was satisfying in every way. They packed a powerful lemon-garlic flavor punch, and the soy curls added a healthy dose of protein that made the meal more filling than many vegan pasta dishes. It's a recipe we'll definitely be making again.

Before we can do that, though, we need to get our hands on some more soy curls. We've used up almost all of the one bag we bought to start with, and while the little bit that's left will certainly be useful for experimenting with (we're thinking of trying them as a bacon substitute, using the marinade from It Doesn't Taste Like Chicken's mushroom bacon recipe), they're not enough to make a complete meal.

Unfortunately, it appears that H-Mart does not carry these — neither Butler Soy Curls nor the more generic "soy strips" — so we'll have to order more online. But now that we know how useful they are, we can reasonably order a whole bunch of them at once and save on shipping. If we buy from the manufacturer, we could get six bags (three pounds dry, which makes nine pounds when hydrated) for $31 including the shipping, or possibly spring for a 12-pound bulk box for $65. That's obviously much less per pound, but the question is how long they'll keep.

Given that we went through our first half-pound bag in around three weeks, it would take us 72 weeks (around 17 months), to go through the larger box. According to Oregon Live, "The dehydrated Curls are shelf-stable and keep indefinitely, though using them within six months of purchase is recommended." Reviewers on Amazon report differing results; one says the curls "can become rancid" if kept at room temperature, while another says "I've bought them in bulk and had some for over a year and they still taste exactly the same." All seem to agree they'll keep pretty much indefinitely in the freezer, but our freezer probably can't accommodate that many. Maybe we could keep half at room temperature, to be used within six months, and the rest in the freezer? Or one-third at room temperature, one-third in the fridge, and the rest in the freezer? There must be some way to make this work.