Vegan calamari – with spicy chipotle aioli

A little culinary trip to long gone summer holiday memories. With my vegan calamari. Made from regional, seasonal king oyster mushrooms! And entirely plant based.
Battered and fried, accompanied by a nice and spicy chipotle aioli.

Besides of the slightly fiery and spicy chipotle aioli dip, I also recommend lemon wedges. It adds a great taste, to drizzle the vegan squid with a little lemon juice.

The perfect finger food!

So? How many kilos of vegan calamari have you already eaten?
I prefer not to answer that!

Ingredients for 2 servings of calamari:

Squid:

4 large, thick king oyster mushrooms
3 tsp of wakame sea weed, dried
3 tsp of nori flakes

250 ml soy milk
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar

Batter:

200 g flour
1/2 tsp smoked paprika, ground
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp pepper, black, ground
2 tsp of salt

Approx. 0.5 l vegetable oil, sunflower oil or rapeseed oil

1 tbsp parsley, chopped
1/2 lemon, cut into wedges

Chipotle Aioli:

200 ml vegan aioli (homemade or bought)
1 chipotle, pickled in Adobo sauce, chopped
1 tbsp parsley, finely chopped

Preparation:

Vegan calamari:

Cut the king oyster mushrooms into round slices about 1/2 centimetre thick. Cut these slices into rings with a round cookie cutter. These rings should also be about half a centimetre thick. This works best if you use round cutters in different sizes.

I usually keep the remaining round mushroom pieces and the mushroom hats in the refrigerator until the next day. Then I just fry them as a side dish or I fry them with onions and scrambled tofu for breakfast. They also taste very good in a creamy sauce.

For making calamari, add about one litre of water to a sauce pan. Add both types of seaweed and bring to a boil.
Let the mushroom rings simmer in that broth for about 10 minutes. Take the sauce pan off the stove and let the vegan squid cool down in the hot seaweed liquid for 20 minutes. Sieve and remove the algae from the mushrooms.

Pour the apple cider vinegar into the soy milk, do not stir in, but let it sit for a few minutes. Until the vegan milk gets a little flaky.

Mix the flour with the smoked paprika powder, garlic powder, salt and pepper.

Stir through the soy milk and add all mushroom rings to it. keep the vegan calamari rings in the soy milk for about 15 minutes.
Then take them out, one by one and batter them with the flour mixture.

Finally, heat about half a liter oil in a saucepan to around 170 ° C. Fry the battered calamari in the oil.

Chipotle Aioli:

Puree the chipotle with the vegan aioli. Then just stir in the chopped parsley.

Put the freshly fried, hot vegan calamari on 2 plates, then sprinkle with a little parsley and serve with the chiptle aioli and a few lemon wedges.

Enjoy your meal!