Vegan Corned "Beef" Seitan

Growing up, my dad used to tell me a story about a very memorable St. Patrick's day during his childhood.  Dad attended an Irish Catholic grammar school and was the only kid in school who was not of Irish descent (Dad's side is Scottish, English, and Slovene, but not Irish). Year after year, Dad would recount to me the story of one St. Patrick's day when his mother sent him to school in an orange shirt. As you might imagine, the nuns were displeased.

Since everyone's Irish on St. Patrick's Day, I thought I'd get into the spirit by coming up with a vegan menu to celebrate the day. Unfortunately, the boyfriend is serving in the National Guard in KY until late Thursday night (boo) so we'll be having our own little St. Patrick's Day feast on Friday.

We'll be having:

Vegan Corned "Beef" Seitan Sandwiches

and

Chocolate Guinness Pudding

All vegan, of course.

If you've never made your own seitan, let me first say that this particular version has a ton of ingredients. Usually when I make seitan it is much simpler but this really needs to taste as much like corned beef as possible and, in order to do that, you really need to get the depth of flavor from the spices that are in traditional corned beef. Also note, if you've made seitan at home before, this is the kind of seitan you don't have to rinse. If that means nothing to you at all, don't worry - we'll cover it in a future blog.

For the seitan, you will need:

1¼ c wheat gluten
½ tbsp mustard
½ tbsp pepper
1 tsp coriander
1 tsp salt
½ tsp cloves
½ tsp red pepper
½ tsp cinnamon
½ tsp allspice
1 c cold water
½ c kidney beans, mashed
2 tbsp oil
½” ginger root, grated
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp tomato paste

Preheat oven to 325°. 

In a small bowl, mix together all of your dry ingredients: wheat gluten, mustard, pepper, coriander, salt, cloves, red pepper, cinnamon, and allspice. 

In a medium bowl, mix together all of your wet ingredients. 

Next, mix together the wet and dry ingredients. I usually start with a big wooden spoon and then, when I just can't get it to mix any further, I turn the whole mess out onto my counter and finish mixing it with my hands. You want to be sure to keep kneading everything together once it is all mixed because that helps to activate the gluten.

Shape dough into a log about 10 inches long and roll tightly in aluminum foil (you can double roll it if you have to). Twist the ends to seal. 

Bake it for an hour and fifteen minutes. Turn it once, about half way through. 

After you remove it from the oven, be sure to let it cool completely. You can then slice it and make it into sandwiches. It's actually easier to cut it into really thin slices if you let it cool in the fridge first. Of course, if you were going for the more traditional "corned beef and cabbage" route, then by all means, slice it when it's still warm and serve with cabbage.

If your knife skills simply don't allow you to cut really thin slices (or if your knives are dull and you need to invest in new ones, like I do), I would suggest using your mandolin to make nice, even slices for your sandwiches.

You can serve this on whatever bread you like. I think soda bread would be more traditionally Irish but it would also be great on pumpernickel or the classic rye (which both make me think of many trips to Jewish delis with my father and not anything remotely Irish). I like mine with plenty of mustard but you could easily add sauerkraut and make it into a Reuben. 

Look for the Chocolate Guinness Pudding recipe tomorrow!

Recipe from Hell Yeah It's Vegan.