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I’m so excited to finally give this series a shot! In our first “Around the world” video we’re trying vegan holiday meals from Germany, Brazil, and Mexico! Thank you to all of you for informing me on your favorite holiday dishes from around the globe! I would love to know if you’d rather I try your personal recipes or if I just go for the most popular recipes online. Keep me posted and we can definitely make more!

Surig Essig Essenz (concentrated vinegar): https://amzn.to/3RWULSY
chiles: https://amzn.to/3S0EkFq
No-beef broth: https://amzn.to/3vk2QbC
Sour cream: https://amzn.to/47bGndW

Here are the creators whos recipes I used:
Pozole: https://mexicanmademeatless.com/how-to-make-vegan-pozole-rojo/
German Potato Salad: https://www.daringgourmet.com/restaurant-style-schwabischer-kartoffelsalat-swabian-potato-salad/
Rapanadas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7rgnNywYxs&ab_channel=AlexAtala

timecodes:
0:00 – Intro
2:26 – Mistplay
3:56 – Mexican Pozole
11:03 – German Potato Salad
14:36 – Brazilian Rapanada
19:19 – Taste Test

Big thanks to missplay for sponsoring today’s video hey what’s up everybody happy holidays I hope you are having a cozy snuggly holiday season it’s your girl Merl and we are going to be doing something I’m very excited about today I’ve had this on my list of ideas for

Quite a while and you know I was inspired by the stuff that has been done before by like creators like barel who tries their followers authentic recipes from around the world has people call in and they play their video and I think that’s a cool idea and often times in my

Videos I see a lot of you saying there’s this amazing Mexican vegan dish I really want you to try there’s this incredible Indian recipe that’s naturally vegan I’m taking the feedback and we’re going to make some of your guys’ favorite vegan holiday dishes it is not unbeknownst to

Me that I am a white woman recreating vegan Cuisine from all different cultures in different parts of the world so I just want to let you know like elephant in the room I realized that there’s a lot of white women that do that and have made money doing that so

I’ve done my best to find the most authentic sources I possibly can I made sure to find recipes from people that actually belong to the culture uh from which the dish is coming not just like some white lady in Missouri that’s making enchiladas you know and calling

Them authentic and I’ll be sure to shout out the creators so you guys can go follow them check them out and look for more awesome recipes from them so we’re going to do this as respectfully as we possibly can and of course let me know I

Know you will there’s any way you think I could represent these cultures better or that I could pay homage to them in any other way now I was going to try to actually recreate some of your recipes but not everyone submitted a recipe and so then it got kind of confusing cuz

Like the top voted ones in the comments they didn’t come with a recipe so I just went to find the traditional ones and then look for a Creator who is from that culture or that part of the world and follow their recipe ones that were top rated uprated that people like you know

I’m not going to be using Tiffany from Ohio’s authentic chickpea curry recipe nothing against you Tiffany you seem like a nice lady I’m only doing three recipes in this one we’re going to do a part two as well and then maybe we’ll do a part three but I mean the holidays are

I don’t know how long I can make holiday recipes without it being you know I’m not going to make do in that in January probably or February but speaking of being late for the holidays if you’re like you probably still have to buy a few gifts for people or maybe you’re

Feeling kind of broke from the gifts you already bought most for other people and also for yourself well lucky for you today’s video is sponsored by misplay where you can actually play games on your phone and earn gift cards I mean if you’re someone who loves mobile games

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Merl inside the app to get free points that you can put towards redeeming your next gift card GG’s Gamers and thank you again miss play for sponsoring today’s video okay so the first dish we’re doing comes from Mexico we’re going to be doing a Mexican pzo which is like a red

Soup or stew from Mexican Cuisine and it is commonly eaten around the holidays or celebrations so I’m very excited it’s good for like nice cold winter cozy meal time I apologize in advance for any mispronunciations I’m going to do my absolute best pisle is a traditional

Soup or it’s like a stew that tends to have vegetables pork lots of chilies one of the key ingredients in this dish is homon and that is a white corn that is soaked in a li solution liquid solution and it kind of like puffs up and engorges that’s something i’ never heard

Of before I actually didn’t know what homon was so I’m learning a lot already and we’re going to be using a few different kinds of chilies guilo chili and I’ve got the paa ancho there were like four different kinds of peppers in the recipe that I found two of them were

Optional so I tried to order all of them the ones that just ended up being out of stock luckily were two that were optional I’m sure different families have have different ways of making this so you know I’m never going to be able to make everyone happy but I did my best

To stick to this as much as I possibly could one thing we want to do right off the bat is get some water boiling because we’re going to deced the peppers and then we’re going to put them in the boiling water so that they kind of

Soften and then we’re going to end up blending them up the site that this recipe is from is called Mexican made meat list.com and I’ll absolutely link that in the description so you can go check them out what we need for this recipe is guillos chilles dried oncho

Chili dried paa Chile I got paa ancho Chile and that’s why I’m like a little unsure and then also called for chile de Aro then we need some vegetable broth mushrooms white onion garlic salt Mexican oregano which I ordered on wine I will link that below as well and bay

Leaves and then we have some toppings that we’ll do later I know my pronunciations for things are probably horrible and I’m so sorry in advance I I promise I’m trying my best here all right so we’re going we’re going to use three of these guilo Peppers we’re going

To want a little bowl for the seeds so I’m just going to use scissors to remove the stem and any of like the harder veins this is so fun for me because I get to discover new ingredients new traditional recipes I feel like when I visit places I really love to learn

About a culture through its food but since I’m vegan it can be challenging because I don’t want to be that person that’s like can I get this traditional roasted duck without the please time in place sometimes it’s time in place some places obviously have vegan options they have vegan businesses

That are offering that service but some places don’t and I’m not about to come in as a tourist and be like change your traditions for me I got P ancho so I don’t know I’m like do I do two do I do four I’ll do three I’ll do three kind of

Smells like fruit leather are peppers fruit in a dream world I’d love to actually bring on creators from these cultures but I that would take a ton of time hopefully down the road I can travel and meet people like the vegan Anthony Bourdain I know he just rolled in his

Grave somewhere when I said that but he would like me I think he would I really do I shared a room with him once not like a hotel room kind of wish but I was was in the same room as him once is what I’m trying to say he was doing a

Promotion for his whiskey and I got to go I didn’t talk to him cuz I was too scared I regret that now if you ever have the opportunity to ask a question to someone you admire or you like or you think is cool just do it just do it I

Mean as long as the question is appropriate and I know probably a bunch of you are like he is such a me eater he hates vegetarians and vegans I know I love Kitchen Confidential I find him very fascinating and I love his show sometimes it’s hard to watch because

There’s a lot of meat there’s a lot of meat in a lot of different cultures and sometimes it’s certainly not really up my alley but I love learning about other cultures and the Traditions behind tradition meals all right we got our Peppers de seeded our water is taking

Its sweet time to boil I’m going to go ahead and put these in there now and let them boil for like just until they get a little bit softer probably like 15 minutes or so and then we’ll move on to the next step I don’t know if I

Mentioned this but I’m adding in my half of a white onion and some garlic I’m doing a little more than she recommended cuz I’m an absolute garlic fiend and we’re going to just I lowered it to a simmer we’re going to let that simmer until the peppers have softened all

Right so our Chile has softened and the onions and the garlic are a little more tender so we are going to scoop these out and we’re going to blend them up let’s get these in there and it’s all right if some liquid goes with it cuz

We’re going to use about a/2 cup of this liquid anyway in there I’m going to take out about a half a cup of this liquid and don’t get rid of it I mean you can use it for other soups or broth or you can just like double the recipe if you

Want honestly save it anyway cuz we might need more we need to see how this Blends together in the meantime we are going to head over I’m going to use this big Soup pot and I’m going to add in some olive oil and I’m going to sauté some just plain

Old baby button or cre mushrooms in there with some olive oil then I’m going to use a colander and I’m going to strain this chili sauce over the top of it and then I’m going to add in some salt and the Mexican oregano then we’re going to add in our homon and finally

We’re going to pour in some vegetable broth and B leaves and we’re going to stir that all up and I’m just going to go ahead and turn the heat up on that and I’m going to let that simmer for like 30 to 45 minutes and that’s pretty

Much it I’m excited to try this all right so we’ve got our pizo it is all set and ready to go I actually tracked down some vegan sour cream I’ve never used this one before so I have no idea if it’s any good so I’m going to try it

Without that first I’m going to add a couple turnips in there for a nice little crunch oh man that doesn’t look pretty anymore let’s give this a shot wow oh my gosh that is so flavor flavorful it is like Flavor Powerhouse here let me try the

Homine ooh wow it’s really good I like the texture yum that’s like a nice cozy I want to have that in my fuzzy socks delicious has like a powerful earthy flavor to it now I’m not going to like rank these cuz I feel like that’s a ridiculous thing to do a as someone

Outside of the culture trying this dish but also just trying a bunch of different dishes from different cultures I’m not going to be like pitting them against each other I’m just going to go ahead and tell you this is really good all right let’s try the sour

Cream it’s not that good it’s made from butter beans and oats this should be better than this but okay it’s not terrible kind of growing on me now let me try it with it yeah actually that’s pretty damn good you know I’m a soup girl like you had me at soup from my

Research I learned that pizo is one of the oldest pre-colonial dishes in Mexican culture there are three different kinds of pazle P Blanco pazle Verde and P Rojo if I butchered the pronunciations of those I apologize okay on to the next so our next recipe

Is going to be a German recipe now this is a German potato salad I’m going to try my best to pronounce this correctly schwabish schwabish cart salot Copa salot Copa salot Copa salot potato salad I’m guessing is what that means and the recipe that I found

Is suabian style so I’m sure there are many different variations on this as there are on all of these recipes in every recipe so after we try this video we’ll see if you guys want me to try your personal recipes I can do that too

But you have to provide them and I saw some of you did provide some so that’s great but we’ll see I don’t know there’s just so many different variations that I tried to find the most popular ones but I don’t know you can let me know what

You would prefer to see this woman that I found Kimberly she was very strict in how this was to be prepared she said she’s tried hundreds of potato salads and that it’s you need specific things to get it just right and specific methods to get it just right so I’m

Going to follow her instructions to the very best of my ability in fact I even ordered this type of vinegar she recommended surig IG Essence which is like essence of vinegar it’s like 25% acid instead of normal vinegar which is 5% acid and 95% water it’s going to be

Very potent and you’re not like supposed to like consume this on its own but anyway I wanted to get as close as I possibly could so we’re going the hall nine here okay we’re going to make Kimberly proud now traditionally this potato salad is made with beef broth

We’re obviously not going to do that I’m using this no beef broth it’s expensive so I’m hoping that it’s good I’ve actually never used it I usually just use vegetable broth but she did say beef broth it has to be beef broth and strong beef broth at that this ain’t going to

Be that but we’re doing our best here okay she said to use waxy potatoes she mentioned a type of potato I had never heard of before and I could not find so instead I’m using golden Yukon potatoes and what’s the rule of three there’s three things of equal size is I need to

Juggle them you have no idea there’s like no other times for me to show that I can do that all right so we’re going to boil these In Their Skin she said that the best way to preserve the flavor and she did also say I need to let them cool

Completely this is a very strict recipe I respect it she knows what she wants I am a Libra I like directions so uh let’s boil these potatoes shall we okay so we have to hand peel our potatoes after we let them boil until they’re fork tender

We’re going to take them out we have to let them cool enough so that we can handle them and once they cooled off I’m going to go ahead and I’m going to peel the skins off of those in the meantime I’m going to combine the vegan beef broth vinegar salt white pepper mustard

Sugar onions and then of course I’m going to add a couple splashes of the IG Essen or the extremely potent vinegar now I’m going to let that come to a boil and then I’m going to pour it over the top of my sliced potatoes and now I’m

Going to just let this sit for an hour let’s try this I’m going to just put a little bit of chives over the top I put it right in the fridge so it could be nice and cold o damn that is so good it’s nice and vinegary this is one of those dishes

That’s just going to get better the longer I keep it in the fridge I’m excited to just have this all week but man oh man my breath is going to be popping after this okay for the third and final recipe today we’re going to be doing a little dessert we’re going to be

Making a Brazilian French toast that is traditional to have around Christmas time on Christmas day rabanada so this recipe is pretty easy to swap in swap out the non-vegan things it’s really just milk and eggs so instead of the milk I’m going to use oat milk and

Instead of the eggs I’m going to use just egg I’ve actually never made vegan french toast before so I’m super excited cuz I haven’t had french toast in a minute and it’s so good and of course as with all of these recipes there are a

Ton of different ways to do this I found this nice man who I really liked his recipe he seemed straightforward to the point some people add like a lot of things like vanilla and all of that to theirs other people keep it really simple this guy’s kept it pretty simple

For the bread for this french toast you can use Italian you can use Brios you can use hollow bread up to you whatever you want and a lot of places said to use stale bread so that’s what I’m doing I left this out overnight where did it go

Oh actually just some french bread I like French toasts that are like bigger slices cuz I like it when it’s kind of like custardy in the middle less of the crust on the outside like I don’t want it to be too too hard on the outside so

One of the principal things in this recipe is that we let the bread soak in the egg milk mixture and people have different techniques whether they pan fry it in oil or if they pan fry it in butter we’re going to be doing it with vegan butter today some people add sugar

And salt to theirs I’ll add a teeny little bit of sugar I think but I’m not going to over complicate it too too much from the research that I did they are a medieval Portuguese recipe that were introduced to Brazil by the Portuguese colonizers and they were a way to avoid

Meat during Lent and also to make use of stale bread I’ve seen some recipes that use the sweetened condensed milk right in there with the whole milk I’m obviously not going to do that I also seen people eat it with honey I think I’m going to just drizzle little maple

Syrup on top cuz that’s what I got without further Ado let’s just go ahead and make this I will say the history of rabanada is a little bit mky other than it coming from Colonial Portuguese there’s other sources that say it goes further back in into other cultures

There’s also some that say it has religious Roots so forgive me it was kind of hard to track it down I couldn’t even find a Wikipedia page for it but please feel free to correct me in the comments and let me know my mom used to

Make me French toast all the time when I was a kid I usually ate it kind of like pancakes like with butter and maple syrup so I’ve not had it this way which is going to be with cinnamon and sugar I really went back and forth on whether or

Not to use vanilla in this it seems like it’s a little bit fancier but I’m going to add a little bit of vanilla cuz I found another woman who made it and she used vanilla but she didn’t use too much else but then I saw another woman who

Seemed really legit and actually her video had the most views and she used sweet and condensed milk we’re going to do it like this if you want to add sweet and condensed milk you can if you want to not put in vanilla you can there just so many variations that with these

Cultural dishes I really don’t want to disrespect anyone I know I can never make everyone happy but it’s a little nerve-wracking going add in some milk 3 tablespoons of just egg is equal to one egg I’m going to add just a little teeny tiny pinch of salt and a little bit of

Vanilla extract wo something chemical is happening in there just egg is attacking the vanilla extract some recipes used neutral oil like a canola oil or a vegetable oil to fry these and some used butter I’m going to use butter we’re going to go ahead and put these in there

This bread in there we’re going to let it soak up the juices if you will all recipes say just don’t let it soak too long but let it soak enough so that’s specific but actually I know exactly what they mean you don’t want it to get

Like soggy but you do want it to absorb the liquid okay so I don’t know how good this just egg is working for this it’s kind of like just getting stucked the bottom of the pan but it smells pretty good in here I mean it’s just the G egg

Is making it a little bit challenging but it is kind of crisping up like French toast so I think we’re still okay I put a hell of a lot of butter in there so it shouldn’t be sticking to anything all right and then we’re going to add

Some sugar some organic cane sugar and some cinnamon I’m going to mix those up all right now we’re going to just flip the toast right in there and get it nice and coated oo this looks really good wow this looks looks so tasty holy moly I

Don’t think I need maple syrup on this it’s covered in sugar okay I know there was a moment between me and the just egg but this is incredible I think I’m going to start making this on Christmas hi sweetie hi sweetie you’ve came just in time I think

You’re going to like this oh that’s a lot of sugar I know that’s a lot why you so T isn’t that so good the best ever made it’s a lot of sugar that’s why I love it why you so high up that’s fantastic that’s one of the best things you’ve

Ever made delicious okay that was amazing I had so much fun today I have to say thank you guys for your recommendations for vegan holiday meals from around the world I had so much fun trying them this was a really fun note to end on thank you guys so much if you

Want to see more of these videos you want to see more Cuisine from around the world let me know where you’d like me to pull recipes from if you have family recipes you’d like me to try let me know drop them down below I’m excited to do

More of the series if you haven’t already please like And subscribe it helps so much more than you know if one of your countries was represented in today’s video I hope I didn’t an okay job I certainly tried my best if you have other ideas or ways for me to do

Better in the future you let me know AR and I have a podcast called borderline in appropriate if you’re interested in that go ahead click on the link in the description I’ve got a Discord I got a Tik Tok I got an Instagram it’s all there down you knowwhere I think I’m

Going to have to say see you on the next one happy holidays everybody CH for now

21 Comments

  1. I loove our vegan queen and this awesome long video! This is sucha cool idea!! If there is a part 2 and or 3 I'd love to submit a dish! I'm willing to bet my left nut it'd be an original/unique submission since I'm from a small teeny tiny country!! 😂❤❤❤ seriously though, i know Merle would love it!! 🤞
    P.S. oh oh oh!!! And mine is a soup as well soo… just saying hahaha 😅😅🎉❤

  2. Haha "strick" German rules? Yep, that checks out!! 😂😂😂 also I'm a Libra too!! ♎️ ❤

  3. A bit of constructive criticism. I'm a minority in many of my identities, some with their own food traditions and cultures. I found that this video had far too much of a preamble and apologizing. If people are commenting that they want you to try dishes, then you don't need to devote so much time to explaining why you are making them. A simple PSA at the beginning would suffice. I actually don't even remember the dishes from this video because there was so much video time focused on things that were not food. Do your research to get an authentic recipe and then go with it. No one is going to be offended and the focus of the video will remain where it should be: Trying delicious vegan food.

  4. Mexican vegan here. I always use fried shredded and seasoned jackfruit to put in the pozole. We don’t use sour cream in pozole. The radishes are accurate but not many people like them. Use chopped cilantro and onion as toppings. You can also put shredded cabbage and a lime squeeze. You can scoop the shredded meat with a tostada piece.

  5. I can understand and appreciate the intent behind them, but this video really feels like half apologies. It makes it incredibly frustrating and unenjoyable to watch. It's like on some level you don't even think you should be making these dishes – in which case, don't.

    I hope this doesn't come across as mean because I do generally enjoy your videos and like I said, I appreciate how careful you're trying to be. Ultimately, this is your channel though so feel free to ignore/disagree.

  6. Thank you for noting that this was a Portuguese colonial dish, a lot of Portuguese food gets lost and often deemed as Brazilian which is really culturally insensitive.

    This dish originated in Portugal and was taken to Brazil with the Portuguese settlers, the same was done with Feijoada (but according to recipes you see online, it’s a Brazilian dish too).

    My tip, use condensed milk to sweeten, vanilla pod and cinnamon. You should fry it in vegetable oil too so it won’t stick

  7. German here: you potato salad looked very good! We have many different types of potatoes in Germany:)

    I’m vegetarian and I used vegetable broth every time. The only thing I can recommend is to peel the potatoes first and boil them in broth. In my opinion you have more flavour.

  8. fun fact, if you don't use that Essigessenz (vinegar essence) for cooking after this, it's amazing for cleaning, especially in combination with baking soda hihi
    love from germany

  9. Rabanada is the best! And I love that you featured Alex Atala in your video, he’s an amazing Brazilian chef. You should check out his ep on Chef’s Table

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