Vegan Recipe – Copycat Mohawk Bend Buffalo-Style Cauliflower “Wings”

Hey everyone!  This week’s recipe is a copycat of a popular veganized bar favorite, buffalo wings!  The original Buffalo-Style Cauliflower “Wings” can be found at the hipster bar, Mohawk Bend, in LA.  I have never personally been to Mohawk Bend… I keep missing out on every opportunity!  However, Eric went with a friend since it is very close to where he grew up.  It was a vacant movie theater and home to many squatters for as long as he could remember, but it has since been revived into a cool pub.  Their food and drinks are made mostly with California-based products and their website boasts a menu for everyone – offering “vegan, vegetarian, and non-vegan options.”  I really want to swing by on a Monday for their three course meatless Monday meal.

Ever since their visit to Mohawk Bend, Eric’s friend was dying to try out some buffalo-style cauliflower “wings”.  After finding a recipe on pinterest (originally posted here), I have tried it out a few times and am ready to give you a full report.  I altered the recipe a bit, mainly so that it would result in more, and a little thinner, batter to more easily fully coat the cauliflower pieces.  I ended up with a little too much batter and a little too much buffalo sauce, but I thought it was worth it to make it easy to evenly coat every piece in comparison to the time I followed the recipe exactly.  They turned out deliciously crispy on the outside, but soft on the inside.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 head of cauliflower, cut into florets
• 1 cup whole wheat flour (any flour works, but I had whole wheat at home)
• 1 cup water + more if needed
• Pinch of salt
• 1/2 cup hot sauce (Frank’s brand of hot sauce works well)
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil or earth balance (I used oil)

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat the oven to 400º and oil/butter up a baking sheet.
2. Mix the flour, water and a pinch of salt into a batter.
3. Coat each cauliflower floret in the batter making sure it’s not too thick (add more water here if needed) so it crisps up in the oven like fried batter on chicken wings. Arrange on baking sheet then pop in the oven for 30 minutes or until edges brown slightly.
4. Mix vegetable oil or earth balance with hot sauce.  If you like them super fiery, just toss them in straight hot sauce, omit the oil.
5. When florets are done and cool, toss them in the hot sauce mixture.

The original blog post also has a recipe for Vegan Blue Cheese Dressing, which I did not try.  If you’re interested, follow the link found here.

Here’s a peak at the “wings” before they were tossed in the buffalo sauce mixture.  You could potentially toss them in other sauces to make teriyaki “wings” and other fun appetizers.

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