A spice bag is Ireland’s probably most popular takeaway food in recent years, sold mainly by Chinese takeaways and restaurants. An Irish video production company has even uploaded a short Spice Bag documentary on YouTube. We would describe the dish as British fish and chips tradition meets Chinese stir-fry cuisine. A Spice Bag consists of fries, deep-fried chicken, strong spices and some fried vegetables.
A vegan spice bag uses fried tofu or meat substitutes instead of chicken. We’re making it super simple today and using vegan chicken nuggets, which can now be bought in most supermarkets from the fridge or freezer. This saves us the breading and deep-frying action. If you don’t want to use a ready-made product, you can find instructions on how to easily do a vegan breading in our recipe for vegan schnitzel.
The spice bag is classically served with a curry sauce. We made it ourselves and included a quick recipe. To be honest, we can also imagine sweet chilli sauce, barbecue sauce or simply some ketchup with it. Just try it out and tell us what your favourite combination is in the comments.
Vegan Spice Bag with Curry Sauce
Ingredients
Vegan Spice Bag
- 500 g fries
- 180 g vegan chicken nuggets, alternatively homemade breaded tofu or chicken substitute
- 1/2 carrot
- 1/2 pepper, green
- 1/2 onion
- 1 clove garlic
- 1/2 chilli pepper
- 2 tsp five spice powder**
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp chilli flakes
- Vegetable oil
Quick Curry Sauce
- 300 ml vegetable stock
- 1/2 onion
- 1 clove garlic
- 2 tbsp applesauce
- 1 tbsp wheat flour
- 1 tbsp curry powder
- 1 tsp 5-spice powder**
- 1/2 tsp salt
- vegetable oil
Preparation
Vegan Spice Bag
- Halve the onion and cut into thin strips. Cut the pepper into thin strips as well. Cut the carrot into even thinner strips. Finely dice the garlic. Cut the chilli pepper into fine rings.
- Prepare the fries and vegan nuggets according to your own preferences.
- Heat a dash of vegetable oil in a large frying pan over a high heat. Stir-fry the vegetables (carrot, pepper, onion) for 30 seconds or so. Once they have taken on some colour, add the garlic and chilli and remove from the heat.
- Cut the nuggets into bite-sized strips or pieces. Mix with the fries, vegetables and spices. Serve together with the curry sauce (or sauce of choice).
Quick Curry Sauce
- Finely dice the onion and garlic.
- Sauté the onion in some vegetable oil over a medium heat for at least 5 minutes. Add the garlic and flour and fry, stirring, for another minute.
- Gradually deglaze with the stock while stirring, add the remaining ingredients and simmer gently for about 10 minutes. Puree until smooth before serving.
Song of the recipe:
Since the Spice Bag was probably invented in Dublin, today’s song for the recipe also comes from a band from Dublin. Punky 1:45 minutes.
(Would you like to listen to all the songs for the recipe? Find them collected in one playlist here)
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