Neatball Subs

Most of the time, and especially at restaurants, it would be easy to perceive the world of sandwiches as solely meat-centric. After all, a vegetarian sandwich at Subway, and many other sandwich chains really boils down to a salad on a bun, or perhaps a Boca patty if you're lucky. But sandwiches are so versatile--you could really put almost anything between two pieces of bread and eat it, so why can't any restaurants think outside the box on this one?

Well, you're in luck because thinking outside the takeout box is one of my specialties. I recently found a collection of recipes online for vegetarian "neatballs" and have been itching to try one ever since. I've made several varieties of veggie burgers at home before and I always like mine better than the frozen kind, so I felt ready to take on the traditional, tomato-sauce laden pork sandwich.





Rather than copying the rich, heavy style of the meat version, I opted for a light, lemony pesto mayonnaise, with mushrooms and hazelnuts forming the base of the neatballs. Add a little lettuce and tomato to round it out, and suddenly the sandwich board lights up with some fresh new flavors!

Don't forget to check out my previous post, where you can find out how to make the buttermilk hoagie rolls with which I stuffed these delicious little mushroom balls.

Once again, I doubled the recipe so that I could use half for these sandwiches, and half for another recipe (marinated veggie kabobs, mmm...) I modified it from it's original version, and would add a few more modifications now, having made it once. First, the original recipe included 2 tsp of nutritional yeast. Not being a vegan, and liking my cheese "with an s" just fine, I don't keep this crap around. I tried it in a cheez sauce for vegan eggplant parmesean once, and I could taste the blasphemous absence of said delicious cheese in the gooey soymilk sauce. *Shudder* now let's never mention that recipe again.

Second, there's an equal amount of mushrooms and hazelnuts in this recipe; however, mushrooms are sticky when pureed, whereas hazelnuts give the dough a crumbly, mealy texture. Next time I would probably go 75% mushrooms to 25% nuts, and add a variety of mushrooms instead of just buttons, for better mushroom flavor. If I had mushroom black soy sauce around, I probably would've used it instead of regular soy also, for the same reason. 'Cuz mushrooms just taste good.

Finally, I added an egg (and regretted not adding a second one), rolled them in cornmeal (which I guess would've made more sense for frying than baking), and baked them, rather than simply mixing and refrigerating for 30 minutes, because I wanted a hot sammich--that's what meatballs are all about, right, so why not neatballs, too?

At this point, I'm not really sure if I'm just crappy at taking directions, or if my creativity and cheffing sensibilities are constantly (if unconsciously) improving all the bum recipes I pick up around the web. Probably some stubborn mix of the two.

Anyhow, I'll post the recipe as I found it here, and let you decide whether to do it their way (cold, for pate or an appetizer), or hot for your very own vegetarian neatball sub sandwich. And stay tuned after the neatballs recipe for the lemon-pesto mayo, also!


Mushroom Hazelnut Neatballs

makes about 6-8 balls

1/2 chopped onion
1 c. chopped mushrooms
2 minced garlic cloves
1 c. whole hazelnuts
1/4 c. freshly chopped parsley
1 tsp. soy sauce (or more)
1/2 tsp. onion powder (if there aren't enough fresh aliums in this one for you already, you can add some more here)
2 tsp. nutritional yeast
1 tsp. ground black pepper

Saute your veggies and then process with remaining
ingredients. Shape them into small balls or patties (this part reminds me of making falafel!)





After shaping, you can either roll them in cornmeal, breading etc. and fry them, or bake them in the oven, or just refrigerate them until they firm up a little bit--it all depends on how you plan to use them. They can go on a sandwich, be served on top of a composed salad, over pasta or rice, or sliced and spread as a pate. These versatile little mushroom-nut balls can be the star of many different dinners!

And let's not forget the
Lemon-Pesto Mayonnaise

This is more of a taste as you go type recipe--start with 1/2 cup mayonnaise, add a tsp. of pesto, 1/4 tsp. lemon juice, and a little salt and pepper. Taste it to see if it has the herby flavor of the pesto, and just enough lemony zing without being too sour or overpowering, and adjust it until it tastes just right to you. If you're not careful, everyone else may steal it to use on their bland old cold-cut sandwiches, too!