More golden food: vegan 'cheese sauce' with moghrabieh

We had a leaving party at the weekend for a colleague who is moving to France.  My boss's wife has a tradition of making 'American food' for such events, and this time is was macaroni cheese.  S couldn't make it to the party, but I got to thinking yesterday about how he used to love cheese sauce when I made it before I stopped eating cheese, and also how it is a good, warming, comforting thing to eat with cauliflower or chard or similar.  So I was thinking about whether a vegan alternative would be remotely viable (a vegan white sauce would be easy enough, but how to make it cheesy?), and consulted ppk - seemed like the obvious place to start.  I found this recipe there.  The ingredient list looked somewhat weird - sauerkraut?!  But actually we have a huge jar of sauerkraut in the fridge that S bought and decided he didn't like.  And way better than anything involving fake cheese.  So, much though I feared it might turn out disgusting, I thought I'd give the recipe a try.

3/4 cup cashews, soaked (perhaps blanched almonds would be an alternative)
2 cups veg stock, divided
2 tbsp olive oil, divided
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 small onion, chopped
1 cup sauerkraut
1/6 cup plain flour
black pepper
1 tbsp nutritional yeast (optional)
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tbsp lemon juice

To soak the cashews, put them in a bowl and submerge in hot water. Leave for at least an hour, preferably 2 hours or overnight.

Prep whatever you want to eat with the sauce in parallel or in advance: pasta, cauliflower, whatever (I boiled some moghrabieh in the same way as I would pasta).

Put the soaked cashews and 1 cup of the veg stock in the blender and blend until smooth.

Meanwhile, heat a large pan over medium heat, then fry the onions and garlic and a pinch of salt in half a tablespoon of the oil, until onions are softened.  Drain the sauerkraut in a sieve, squeezing it in your hands to remove as much of the wetness as possible. Add sauerkraut to the pan just to heat through, a minute or two.

Add the sauerkraut mixture to the cashew mixture in the blender. Blend until smooth.

Wipe out the pan reheat it over a medium heat. Add 1 1/2 tablespoons of oil, along with the flour. It should become a gooey clump. Toast the roux for about 15 minutes, until it smells toasty and turns medium brown. Stir constantly so that it cooks evenly.

Gradually pour in the remaining cup of stock, whisking constantly so that it doesn’t go lumpy. Whisk until thick and smooth, about 2 minutes.

Add the cashew sauerkraut mixture, and whisk until well incorporated. Add the black pepper, nutritional yeast if using, salt and lemon juice. Heat through and stir occasionally, allowing the mixture to thicken.

(If you want to make a baked macaroni cheese, at this point heat oven to 350F and grease an 11 x 13 oven dish with olive oil, then mix the cooked pasta back with the sauce and put it in the oven dish, cover with tin foil and bake for 20 min, remove foil and bake 5 more min...  Otherwise just mix the hot sauce with whatever)


It worked amazingly well!  The sauce was not completely smooth, neither was it exactly like cheese sauce, but it did have a creamy, comforting texture and consistency, and it tasted really mellow and interesting (the sauerkraut definitely remained secretive).  S liked it too (I only told him about the sauerkraut after he'd tried it).  Perhaps that sauerkraut will get eaten after all (I'll have to stock up on cashews...). This quantity was plenty for S and I - would prob serve 4 - and the leftovers keep well in a pot in the fridge (unlike non-veg cheese sauce).  Other recipes I saw use miso to get that 'matured' taste - perhaps I will try that too (if we ever run out of sauerkraut).