Plant-based meat substitutes such as Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat are increasingly popular day by day for good reasons. Not being left behind, this trend has also emerged in Malaysia and Singapore. In the last couple of years, we can see more meatless meat menus across popular brands, including KFC, Kyochon, La Juiceria Superfoods, and Super Saigon.
What is Plant-based Meat?
Not to be confused with mock meat or vegetarian cuisine, which have been indispensable in Asian cuisines for many decades. Plant-Based Meats in Malaysia are the evolution of mock meat, dubbed the meat 2.0. What makes them different from their original counterparts is that they mimic the organoleptic profile of the meat. So, it looks, tastes and is eaten like meat.
What Makes Good Plant-based Meat?
Getting the exact taste of meat is challenging. Not only the taste, but the perfect plant-based meat should also be able to have the exact texture, smell, and appearance of the meat. But, nailing the perfect texture of a plant-based patty does come with its set of challenges.
Common Challenges to Making Plant-based Meat:
✘ Unable to mimic the meaty taste
✘ Unable to produce a firm texture
✘ Unable to get the right red appearance
Plant-Based Meat Ingredients Malaysia
Some key aspects to look at when selecting the right speciality ingredients for your recipe.
Protein Source
While traditional meat alternatives are mostly made of whole ingredients — whole grains, vegetables and legumes, Plant-Based meats in Malaysia are made from plant proteins. The general recipes combine plant proteins — usually isolated proteins, oils, spices, seasonings, plant derivatives, and common speciality ingredients. Incorporating plant proteins and derivatives helps it to be more meat-like as compared to using whole ingredients. Thus, the protein is the core of developing your plant-based patties, sausages, and nuggets. The top 3 major proteins are sourced from wheat, soy, and pea.
Binding Capability
Plant-based patties often fall apart during cooking or grilling. This is because of the difference in properties between meat and vegetable protein. In which, vegetable protein lacks the ideal binding properties that meat protein has. To retain a good patty shape, a good binder is needed to hold them together. Markaids has innovated a complete recipe for a good and tasty plant-based patty in Malaysia using Firm-aid™ H437. Firm-aid™ H437 helps to maintain the patty shape and minimize shrinkage after grilling. It is heat stable, thus, it helps to hold the shape and prevents breakage or crumbling while cooking. With Firm-aid™ H437, not only it is able to retain the shape, but it also gives a good binding effect in the plant-based patty. Ensuring your plant-based patty does not fall apart easily.
Taste
Taste is a huge influencer of what we eat. It doesn’t matter if the food looks great or if the taste is bland. The same goes for plant-based meats, the flavour is one of the key factors to consumers’ acceptance. Considering the flavour, the aroma of the choice of protein is essential as some plant proteins may impart undesirable off-note. Next is to impart the meat-like umami taste, which is a complex process. One of the common ingredients to enhance the taste and capable of masking off-notes is yeast extract — something we also supply here at Markaids.
