Australia Day and vegan Vegemite scrolls

Australia Day fireworks

Australia Day itself was on Saturday, but as today is the associated public holiday, I figure this post is not so very late. It sounds like those of you in Australia celebrated Saturday in a variety of enjoyable ways. The comments on my previous post, and blog posts from others, make reference to barbecues, the Triple J Hottest 100 count down, beach trips, and time with family and friends.

We didn't do anything particular on Australia Day, but did watch the evening fireworks from a nearby primary school. We had hoped to view the fireworks from the top of the school playground's climbing frame, which would have given a great view over houses and through trees. Unfortunately, others had the same idea (next year we will get there early!) so we viewed from the highest point of the school grounds instead.

Despite our lack of celebration, I have been thinking lately about what Australia means to me. This is partially due to our planned departure to England reaching the distant horizon (about 12 - 16 months away) and partially, I think, just due to age. Despite my proclaimed love of England and dislike of the Australian heat, I am Australian more than I am English and there is plenty I love about this country too.

Australia in different forms

One of the things that comes to mind most, when I consider what Australia is to me, is diversity. This is true of the landscape, the climate, the people and customs, the food, the art and music, and anything else you care to consider. It couldn't really be any other way. We are largely a country of immigrants, from the time that European settlers arrived to disrupt the previous Indigenous culture, to the current day where Indigenous Australian, European Australian, Asian Australian, American Australian and many other hybrids co-exist (albeit not always peacefully) and contribute in different ways to what Australia is. 

For most of us, our sense of a country is linked to our particular memories of that country. I grew up in Australia, and so my formative memories are largely childhood ones. Swimming in summer, walking amongst Eucalyptus trees, backyard barbecues, icey poles at the school canteen, trips to the zoo, family bike rides, playing outside, climbing trees...they all link in to what Australia is to me. I would love to hear your list too, or for those of you not in Australia, what your own country means to you. There are so many ways to define a country and what it means.

Something I think most Australians consider their own, even if they don't like it, is vegemite. I have written about vegemite before, along with differences between it and marmite and promite. When Johanna posted a recipe for cheeseymite (vegemite and cheese) scones last week, I decided I wanted a non-cheese version to be part of my Australia Day long weekend.

Cheese and vegemite is actually one of the few combinations where I can acknowledge a role for cheese. It is a combination I ate on occasion in my childhood and teenage years, and the combination of the two in cheeseymite scrolls is one I both understand and support. I just don't want much of the cheese in mine.

Given this, I decided to make vegemite scrolls with nutritional yeast in the filling. Nutritional yeast can be used to make a cheese-like sauce (see here for a lovely article on how and why), but I find it also works well in place of cheese in savoury recipes. It doesn't taste quite like cheese (if it did, presumably I wouldn't like it so much) but it fills in for it quite happily.

The result was a scroll with a scone-like texture, plenty of vegemite within, and great depth of flavour from the nutritional yeast. You could even say there was a hint of cheesiness. In all, I will most certainly be making these again.

Vegemite scrolls

Adapted from Johanna's cheesemite scones

Vegan

Makes 8 - 10 scrolls

Print recipe

Ingredients
2 cups self-raising flour, plus extra for dusting
Pinch of salt
40g non-dairy spread (I used Nuttelex)
1 cup non-dairy milk (I used unsweetened almond)
2 tbsp vegemite
1 tbsp nutritional yeast (or more to taste)

Method
Preheat your oven to 220'C.

In a large bowl, combine the flour and salt and then rub in the non-dairy spread with your fingers. 

Make a slight well in the middle of the flour mixture, then add the milk. Mix through with a knife until well combined. 

Place a sheet of non-stick baking paper on your kitchen bench (the baking paper should be slightly larger in size than a regular baking tray). Sprinkle generously with flour, then transfer the scroll mixture to the baking paper.

Knead the mixture briefly, then shape the dough into a long rectangle ~1 cm thick. Spread the vegemite in the middle of the rectangle, covering as much of the surface as possible. Sprinkle the nutritional yeast over the vegemite.

Roll the scroll up using the longer side; I rolled the back side up, then the front side, and joined them in the middle. Flip over before baking if necessary, to hold the roll together.

Transfer the baking paper with your scroll to a baking tray, and bake for approximately 20 minutes or until golden. Allow to cool before slicing to serve.

If you like cheese, I recommend trying Johanna's version of these in scone form. If cheese isn't your thing, or you are vegan, I will happily promote these as delicious in their own cheese-free way.

For other reflections on Australian food, see my October 2011 post (which also refers to posts by others on the topic).

If you are Australian, what does Australia mean to you? If you aren't, what does your own country mean?

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A busy weekend

You would imagine that weekends would be quieter than weekdays - and usually you would be correct. However, I'm not entirely sure how it got from last Friday to today. Between standard weekend errands and jobs (cleaning, food shopping, washing, ironing, general shopping...) and some extra things thrown in (brunch with friends, a visit to my parents, a longer-than-average walk with my partner, holiday planning...), the two days flew by.

Luckily I enjoyed most of the activities in question (with the possible exception of ironing) and I like my weekday work enough to avoid Mondayitis :)

I thought I'd share one aspect of the weekend on here: the outcome of a new recipe.

I made this recipe for apple and sultana scrolls, to take to the aforementioned brunch with friends (which was at someone's house, rather than a cafe). Unusually, I made the recipe with almost no adaptations. The only real change was that I added a small amount of apple sauce (apple puree) to the dough before spreading out the apple and sultana filling. And used soy milk instead of regular.

Unfortunately, although the finished product looked fine, it seemed to lack something. Adding extra apple sauce rectified things, but I would have liked the scrolls to stand alone.

I think if I made these again, and I probably will because they're fairly easy and don't involve many ingredients or much preparation time, I would make the following adaptations:

• Reduce the cooking time by 5 to 10 minutes. I would have liked the scrolls to be slightly softer.
• Roll the dough out thinner, to allow for a higher filling-to-dough ratio in each bite.
• Use more apple puree on the dough before adding the filling.

I think those changes might just take the taste from average to great!

Incidentally, my friends did seem to enjoy the scrolls, so the original recipe did hold up. But I am convinced they could be better :D

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