Faux Gras Challenge

We’d heard the rumors — that PETA was moving to our veggie-friendly Echo Park hood, building office space in an old furniture store — but didn’t pay much mind until recently.
When we started investigating though, we found something way juicier. Ever heard of the “Fine Faux Gras Challenge?”
PETA is hosting a recipe competition that will pay $10,000 to the creator of the most “palatable” and best imitation fake duck liver. The contest is open until next month. And the rules seemed loosey goosey. The guidelines even said that the recipe merely has to be “vegetarian.”
Now this was a contest we could jam hard, we thought.
While we love cooking vegan — the culinary challenge of it, immense health benefits, good of the world, yada yada yada — we kinda hate most vegan cooking. We like vegetables in their natural shape. And fake meats from scratch. We’d prefer to eat a pan-seared abalone mushroom than a Textured Vegetable Protein “tuna salad.” And we’d rather whip together a faux foie gras dripping with the unctious pleasures of butter fat than vegetable oil.

So what did we do? Watch the video to find out. And make the recipe to taste it yourself. As for the contest? Lets just say we found new meaning to the phrase “faux pas” so we decided to eat our entry ourselves and call it a day.

3 parsnips
1 cup raw cashews
3 cups cream sherry
8 oz. unsalted butter*
2 tsp. ground white pepper
1 gram agar agar**
3 tsp. sea salt

*You want the highest butterfat percentage possible. IF you cannot find Beurremont 83%, go for Vermont Butter And Creamery, or Plugra.

**Agar agar can be found in many forms; the cheapest is in aerated sticks, stocked at most Asian groceries. Powdered agar is waaaay easier to work with but costs 10 times as much.

1. Pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees. Slice the parsnips in half lengthwise and place them skin side down in a roasting dish. Add 4 Tbs. (2 oz.) butter, 1 tsp. of salt and 1/2 cups of sherry. Seal the roasting dish with aluminum foil and roast for about 25 minutes.
2. Heat a medium sized skillet on medium heat and add the cashews. Toss often to ensure even cooking. When the nuts start to brown add 2 Tbs. Butter. When the butter starts to brown, turn off the heat and set the nuts aside to finish cooking, they will absorb most of the brown butter. When they have cooled, pulverize them in a food processor as fine as you can.
3. Check the parsnips: you want them to be easily penetrable with a fork at their thickest point. If they’re not there yet, return to the oven and keep roasting. Check them every 10 minutes until they are ‘fall apart tender.’
4. When the parsnips are done and cooled, carefully scrape all their flesh into a bowl. Add 4 Tbs. more butter and let the heat from the parsnips melt the butter a little. Mash the butter into the parsnips, and add all the white pepper and the remaining 2 tsp. of salt.
5. Combine the butter-parsnip mash and the cashew pieces with 1/2 cup of sherry using an immersion blender or in a stand blender. Blend until smooth–this will be hard and laborious. You want the texture to be smooth enough for all the ingredients to be incorporated, but have the thickness of a pliable batter. When its super smooth, taste and adjust salt levels if need be.
6. Now make your sherry gelee: Pulverize the agar either by crushing it or by chopping it, as finely as possible. Add the agar to 3/4 cup sherry in a saute pan and heat on a medium heat. The sherry needs to get close to boiling in order to melt the agar and gel properly, but you do not want to boil off the liquid.
7. Clarify the butter: While the sherry heats, prepare a double boiler by placing a metal bowl over a small sauce pot of boiling water. Add the remaining butter and melt. When the butter is totally melted, skim off the layer of scum on the top and gently spoon everything except the water at the bottom of the buttery pool into a bowl. When using high butterfat butter, there will be very little water at the bottom of your bowl. Keep the melted butter warm.
8. Separate your Faux Gras slop into two French terrines, or mason jars. Make sure to leave at least 2 fingers of space at the top of each jar. Smooth the top of each puree into a flat landscape with a spatula as best you can, and wipe the inside sides of each jar clean with paper towels.
9. Pour half the clarified butter on top of each Faux Gras puree, and place immediately in the freezer. The butter will harden and create a flat surface for the Sherry gel to live on.
10. Whisk the agar into the sherry, if the mixture starts to boil turn it down, until there are no lumps and the liquid is smooth. Remove the sherry gel from the heat and let it cool for one minute, then divide evenly between your two jars. Place the jars in the fridge to finish gelling.
11. To serve, bring the Faux Gras up to room temperature, and garnish with sea salt and ground black pepper. Serve on crusty bread, and feel the anti-burn.
Beverage: Russian River’s Temptation
Soundtrack: Pictureplane’s “Cyclical, Cyclical (Atlantis)”