I saw Miyoko Schinner making this on her YouTube channel and thought like it was worth giving a go. I have tweaked the recipe a bit, including removing one ingredient.
Xanthan gum, E415, has been around since the 1960s. It is used as a thickener and stabiliser of emulsions. It is created by an industrial process involving the fermentation of sugars, often derived from corn, by a particular strain of bacteria.
While it is generally considered safe by global food agencies, there have been some concerns raised recently about action in the gut biome. I also probably don't need too much more industrially produced chemicals in my diet.
To replace its thickening ability, I have upped the chia seed amount in the mix. Also, when making up the mix with water, I add gram flour (wheat flour also works).
The other change I made was to swap bulgar wheat for buckwheat - that change was because of availability, as I could find buckwheat in the local supermarket! Miyoko also suggests replacing with brown rice.
Ingredients
180g buckwheat
50g walnuts
1 tablespoon garlic granules
2 tablespoons onion granules / flakes
25g nutritional yeast
35g chia seeds (or flax seeds)
1 tbsp milled chia seeds
2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp black pepper
Now, put everything into a food processor or blender and pulse until you get a sandy or gritty texture. You are not looking for a fine flour here!
This makes a good amount of mix, and you can store it in a sealed container for a long time in the fridge. These are all fairly dry ingredients anyway. BTW, once you have used it, won't stay in the fridge for long!
Making basic meatballs
Take 100g of the mix and stir in 20g of gram (or wheat) flour. Add 150ml of boiling water, stir well and leave for 20 minutes to hydrate.
Stir in a tablespoon of dried mixed herbs, and a very finely chopped small onion or shallot.
Put 10-12 blobs on a parchment lined baking sheets and roast at 200C for 10 minutes. Remove and spray with a little olive oil then roast for another 10 minutes, maybe 15 depending on the oven.
Serve with pasta and a marinara sauce - though don't stir the meatballs into the sauce first, as this softens them too much.
This same mix mix will also make tasty burger patties!
Other ingredients
Miyoko demonstrates using Mexican style spices in the mix and then frying it all in the pan, breaking it up to make crumbles that you can use in tacos.
She also showed adding chopped mushroom into the mix, though I found this makes the meatballs softer and break up easily, probably because of the extra liquid in the mushroom. I guess I will experiment with less boiling water in those!
In theory you can mix any other ingredients in there. Go to town on it and enjoy!