Is plant-based meat the Shanghai food trend of 2020? From foodie darlings like Bird to mega-chains like Starbucks, restaurants are adding these new proteins up and down their menu.
The plant-based crab cake from Green Friday. Image courtesy of Shiyin Wang
As a meat lover who’s trying to be more sustainable, I’m excited about these new options. I tested four widely available plant-based meats. The exercise made me reflect on what makes meat tasty so that the products could be compared to meat in the same way.
The meat is umami and savory without being salty
The meat is juicy and rich from fat – think marbled beef and crispy bacon
The meat has a characteristic, firm chew.
The meat provides nutrients like protein and iron, but also unhealthy cholesterol and saturated fat
Image courtesy of Shiyin Wang
Whole Perfect Food is one of the OGs, the originals, putting out mock meat for vegetarians and Buddhists since 1993. Their product range is wide – chicken drumsticks, ribs with imitation bones, pork belly with thick fat, fish with crispy skin, a whole pig! 😱The products are very Chinese and very processed.
齊善 has a Taobao store and brick and mortar stores. I tested the chicken drumstick: they’re soy protein shaped like triangular 「legs.」
The ingredient list includes soy sauce, salt, MSG, and sugar, and you can tell. These are tasty, like fast food.
FATTY FLAVOR
There’s not much juiciness at all. Actually, my mouth felt dry eating these, due to all the sodium (44% daily value!).
TEXTURE
The product is firm, and on the inside, there’s a subtle shredded feel that’s pretty close to chicken. It’s the closest to animal meat of the ones I tried.
High in carbs, sodium like instant ramen, no vitamins or minerals, but plenty of protein, and nobody said this was supposed to be health food.
Image courtesy of Shiyin Wang
The Whole Perfect Food chicken is a big chunk that fries and browns like meat. It’s foolproof to cook since it never overcooks or dries out (hmm). I recommend you make a dish like Chinese black bean chicken.
Fry chicken pieces in shallow oil until browned and crisp, and set aside. Sautee chopped cauliflower and asparagus in oil until softened. Add garlic and ginger, then add back the chicken. Season with black bean garlic sauce, soy sauce, and vinegar, and stir fry to finish.
Image courtesy of Shiyin Wang
Omnipork is ground pork product from Hong Kong’s Green Common. Soybeans, shiitake mushrooms, peas and rice are the main ingredients. Mushrooms as a natural flavoring means Omnipork has less than half the sodium as Whole Perfect Food.
Green Common has a Taobao store shipping from Hong Kong, so you need to have a Chinese ID card to buy.
The toughest thing about Omnipork its a strong processed soybean flavor that is sour and bitter, almost medicinal. The bitterness lingered long after I ate it.
Cooking releases oil from the pork that creates a nice sizzle like meat. When eaten, it’s satisfyingly juicy, but not flavorful – more like neutral oil than meaty fat.
The texture is nicely firm like a pork dumpling. It is basically little hard soy bits bound together with starch, but overall not unpleasant.
The label shows a low carb, high protein product with added iron, calcium, and fiber for nutrition. Not bad!
Image courtesy of Shiyin Wang
This plant-based pork binds easily, cooks up firm and browns nicely. I needed to cover up the bitter flavor to enjoy it. To me, the best application is a teriyaki burger. The sauce covers the bitterness, and the burger turns out crispy and juicy.
Mix together soy sauce, vinegar, brown sugar and black pepper to taste, and set it aside. Form Omnipork into a patty, then fry in oil until brown on both sides. Brush sauce onto each side and cook a few seconds to glaze, repeating a few times. Serve on toasted buns with tomato and lettuce. China problem: I couldn’t find hamburger buns, so I had to resort to milk bread.
Image courtesy of Shiyin Wang
Starfield is a company I』ve seen a lot while lining up for samples at food conferences, and now they』ve launched items at Papa John’s and Element Fresh. They’re known for a plant-based mooncake, which I think is not for sale currently. I saw Starfield meatballs, ground meat, and 粽子 (stuffed sticky rice) on Taobao.
I only found a third-party Taobao store where I had to negotiate with the owner in Chinese to make sure he sent the correct product.
I ended up trying black pepper and cheese meatballs. The ingredients list includes 「vegan cheese」 (no additional detail), soy protein, and multiple mentions of 「vegetable protein」 without specifying what kind.
There’s quite a bit of good flavor and seasoning going on in the meatball. There’s also the soy sour and bitterness that gets more noticeable as you eat it.
FATTY FLAVOR
Maybe due to the vegan cheese, there’s a richness in the meatball, and the inside has a bit of nice juiciness. The fat also smells meaty and delicious while cooking.
Of the ground meat products, I thought Starfield had the best texture. It was firm and meaty, but without any hard bits like Omni.
It lists the highest protein of all four products, but no added nutrients. The ingredient list is very long and vague, and there’s a lot of sodium, suggesting heavier processing.
Image courtesy of Shiyin Wang
If you have cheese meatballs, pasta and meatballs are the way. I found that tomato sauce helps cover up the bitterness of the soy protein. The meatballs stay firm and cohesive in flavor when cooked in the sauce.
Cook meatballs in light oil, browning each side. Add marinara (I was lazy and used packaged sauce) and cook until the sauce is hot. Cook pasta in salted water in a separate pot, and when it’s al dente, move the noodles into the sauce with a tiny bit of pasta water and simmer to finish. Serve with chopped basil and a vegetable side.
Image courtesy of Shiyin Wang
Z-Rou is by a Shanghai startup, and it’s mostly been available in restaurants like Canton Table, Homeslice Pizza, and Spread the Bagel. They make ground and minced plant-based pork. Their feature is that they’re supposed to be the most natural, having fewer ingredients, natural flavoring from shiitake mushroom and yeast and nutritional fiber from the Chinese konjac plant.
Z-Rou is available directly from its WeChat store (scan QR below) or through Epermarket.
The flavor is subtle, and you can pick up the umami coming from the mushrooms. Thankfully it doesn’t have the bitter/sour soy taste.
Of all the products, the Z-Rou fat was the best. It’s both flavorful and rich like pork.
The texture is challenging. I found that crisping the Z-Rou like bacon produces a pleasant texture, otherwise, the product is too soft to resemble meat.
The label shows high protein and low fat and cholesterol, as well as iron, calcium, and fiber. It has the shortest ingredient list of the four.
Image courtesy of Shiyin Wang
This was a more challenging product to cook, but yielded good results when cooked property. I had to make crispy pork since other methods were too soft. The Z-Rou is the only ground pork product I felt tastes good on its own, so it doesn’t need as much seasoning. I recommend making dan dan noodles.
Mix equal parts sesame paste, Laoganma chili crisp, soy sauce, and vinegar, and set aside. Cook Z-Rou in a dry pan without oil, stirring occasionally until the moisture is gone, and it is crispy. Then add oil, garlic, and scallions, and stir fry. Cook noodles and then mix immediately with sesame sauce. Top with fried Z-Rou, fresh scallions, and Huangfeihong peanuts.
Shiyin Wang is an avid home cook, and the founder of Kaixin Cooking – a Shanghai-based cooking class focused on healthier Chinese food. He believes that we should all eat in a way that is healthy and sustainable for the environment, and in order to do that, we need to enjoy eating healthy and sustainable food. He holds a monthly cooking class that is about making delicious meals out of plant-based and local ingredients.
You can learn more about his cooking class by adding him on WeChat.