General Chat

At the end of the month I have to cater for two meals for up to 50 people at a hall that doesn't have a great range of facilities.

Lunch is going to be cold food and most can be prepared at my house but I want hot food that I don't have to stand over for the evening. It's a casual, not a posh affair so I have decided on a mince mixture cooked in a number of slow cookers and served with jacket potatoes.

Now my question: could I do the same sort of mixture with Quorn and would it cook OK in a slow cooker? I've never used it so have no idea what it tastes like (perhaps I should try it) but thought it would be nice if the few vegetarians at the do could eat much the same as the rest of us. Do you think it would be OK or do you think I should give them just some nice veggies with their jacket potato?

All advice welcomed. Thanks

Vera, there is Quorn mince and there is Soya based mince, not everyone can eat the Quorn, it can cause stomach upset in some people. I used to cook the soya mince for a non veggie friend and she really liked it, with tinned tomatoes etc, it doesn't take long though so I am not sure about slow cookers, but someone will know :-)

When I have catered the village lunch (up to 50) I have always fed them vegetarian because that is what I eat.

Quorn mince doesn't take long to cook and, if it is in something like a cottage pie, nobody will know the difference.

The one thing I would say is to give it a good squirt of tomato ketchup because it kind of brings it alive.

Generally, to cook Quorn mince, I sometimes put a bit of flour in the bag before I empty it out to give it a bit of gravy but I just fry onions and add the mince. That is fine to fill pasties, without the flour. If I have floured it I might chuck in a tin of cheap beer and simmer it until it doesn't taste beery but always with the squirt of ketchup.

After that, give it a taste and add what you think necessary. Tinned tomatoes will pad it out well and the ubiquitous green Oxos. Worcester sauce, soy sauce or Marmite are other possibilities.

I think ten to twelve bags will feed fifty with baked spuds. The bags are £1.49 in Aldi.

Fry the onions in a pan then add the mince. One big pan (preserving pan?) should do the lot and it won't take you that long.

Always remember that vegetarian food has never had an alimentary canal in which to grow bacteria.

On the odd occasion that I have cooked soya (I never liked it and didn't eat it even before there was Quorn) I have added a bit of mustard to it. That tempered the soya twang a bit I thought.

Thanks Rose. I'll look out for soya mince. I suppose the best thing to do would be to buy some and see how it takes to being done in a slow cooker.

Thank you Sharron. I've been experimenting with minced beef mixtures so much that OH says he is starting to moo. The version I finally decided on has tinned tomatoes, tomato purée, onion and various spices with some baked beans thrown in as well. That works well in a slow cooker but is no good for the veggies.

The reason I wanted to use slow cookers is partly because I don't want to have to do much on the actual day but mostly because the eating time has to be flexible. I am hoping for the evening food at about 6 pm but it could be anything between 5 and 7.30. I do have a large preserving pan on standby.

We have a small Aldi in town so I will get some of their mince substitute and see how I get on. :-)

Aldi do Quorn.

I think it would take you about half an hour to knock it up as I have said and it just needs keeping hot.

Quorn is not raw meat so it doesn't need much cooking. I would feed the lot on it. A few tins of beans would eke it out a bit too and maybe a few mixed herbs.

They all ate the Quorn pasties we did at the village lunch, all survived and we were the youngest there.

I'll get some from Aldi and have an experiment. Thanks for the advice - very helpful.

In my opinion Quorn mince tastes like cardboard. I would never buy it again.

GP

In my opinion you probably didn't cook it properly.

In my opinion I did - I followed the instructions.

GP

What instructions?

the instructions were on the packet if my memory serves me right and it was a very long time ago.

GP

Like a suggested method?

It was probably nothing like what you usually eat.

No doubt if you had treated it as you usually treat mince you would have found it had as much flavour as you had given it, just like mince.

I treated it like you would treat real mince and it tasted like cardboard.

GP

You don't get instructions with real mince so how come you don't make that taste like cardboard?

I can assure you that my REAL MINCE is perfect.

GP

Even without the instructions on the pack. Had you prepered your Quorn mince in the same way, rather than following some uneccesary instructions you would have noticed no difference.

If you are saying Quorn mince tastes exactly like real mince I will show my @@@@ in Harrods window.

GP

Go on then.

I am so you better had!

Quorn tastes of nothing, you have to add flavour, then it's yummy

I am a STRICT vege, be careful what you add, in terms of sauces

Worcester sauce has fish in it and so do some soy sauce'

I always cook the base sauce first then add the Quorn mince 30 mins towards the end

Quorn can go rubbery if cooked too long

In a nutshell, cook it like meat mince, but not so long and add lot's of flavour