Celebrate Global Scouse Day Vegan Style

By VIVIAN GRANT FARRELL

I am Liverpool born and bred. How I got to America is a long story and for another day. In the meantime, I still celebrate traditions from my childhood. One of those is ‘scouse’.

A Scouse (or Scouser) is a Liverpudlian or a delicious traditional local stew. We all grew up on it. How charming that there is a day to celebrate Liverpool and scouse which amazingly has gone global.

Richard Makin of School Night Vegan, who has a terrific recipe for vegan scouse which we will get to in just a minute explains:

“Global Scouse Day is an annual celebration of the city of Liverpool which is held every year on February 28th . It is primarily based around scouse; the meat (or veggie) stew that is synonymous with the city, and sees bars, cafes and restaurants in Liverpool and around the world put scouse on the menu for the day .”

Makin’s vegan scouse recipe is my very favourite. He makes it with barley which I adore and loads of other wonderful ingredients. I’ll list them here below. Note: I am not crazy about meat substitutes so I just add a bit more barley. Oh gawd, I can almost smell it cooking as I type this. You must try it.

Jump over to School Night Vegan for all the details on how to make this fabulous dish. Here are the ingredients.

INGREDIENTS

50 g pearl barley
1 tsp vegan bouillon powder
75 g dehydrated vegan “beef” strips (you can find these in Asian supermarkets, Amazon, or you can use the hydrated version which comes in a can.
5 pearl shallots (peeled and halved)
1/2 yellow onion
2 cloves of garlic (crushed)
2 tbsp dark soy sauce
2 celery sticks (sliced into 1/2 cm crescents)
2 large carrots (halved and sliced into 1/2 cm crescents)
10 new potatoes (halved)
50 ml vegan white wine or light ale
1 tbsp tomato puree
1 tbsp brown rice miso paste
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
3 bay leaves
1 litre vegetable stock
1.5 tbsp corn flour
2 stems of either thyme (oregano, winter savoury or summer savoury – any is fine!)