"Chicken" Seitan Round Two

As promised in my last post, this recipe for chicken-style seitan uses nearly the same recipe but a completely different cooking method. I had been using the first version with much success for weeks when I realized that there was absolutely no way that it would hold up as "chicken"salad, which just happens to be the boyfriend's favorite.

The issue with the first method is that, for some applications, it is just too soft. If you want to make kebabs or sausages (or "chicken" salad, for that matter), then you need a much firmer seitan. In order to achieve this I followed the instructions I found online about making seitan sausages. In the most basic sense, you mix up the seitan and the broth and bake until firm. This allows you to cut it into cubes that actually retain their shape.

For the oven-baked version you will need:

1 cup vital wheat gluten

3 TBSP vegetarian chicken broth powder

2 tsp garlic granules

1/2 cup nutritional yeast

1 cup water (or a little more if you need it)

Just like you did for the stove top version, mix all of the dry ingredients together first. 

Add the water and mix with your hands until your dough forms. Turn the dough out onto the counter and knead a few times - remember this is gluten you're working with so don't overdo it on the kneading.

Form the dough into a log about 8 inches long and wrap it tightly in tin foil. The log will get longer as you wrap it, so make sure you have plenty of tin foil on each end.

Bake at 325 for 1 hour and 15 minutes, flipping it over once about half way through.

When you remove it from the oven, let it cool completely in the tin foil. Then you can stick it in the refrigerator or freeze it until you plan to use it. 

Tip: If your seitan tends to come out a little dry, freezing it and then thawing it helps to make it moist.

Look for my "chicken" salad recipe in the next post.

"Chicken" Seitan Round One

In my last post I mentioned that I have a recipe for chicken-style seitan that I use all the time.

I should have said that it is a recipe that I used it all the time.

As many new veggies will tell you, when you decide to make the switch you spend a lot of time initially trying to recreate new, "safe" versions of your old favorites. I think this is normal, as you're still getting to know how to do things differently and learning a whole new way to cook and eat. 

If this didn't happen, I honestly have no idea what I would have eaten in the first few weeks.

This recipe is one I used all the time in the early days - so much so that I got really sick of seitan.  For a while I had three separate posts in the pipeline all about seitan and every time I went to edit them I just couldn't hit "publish." 

Now, after literally months seitan-free, I am ready to once again delve into the archives and pull out my chicken-style seitan recipe. (I know I make this sound really terrible and I swear it isn't - I just Oh-Dee'd on seitan for a while.)

I make this one of two ways, depending on what I plan to use it for. If I'm looking for something that resembles cutlets or tenders, I will make it the first way, on the stove top. When I want to make the boyfriend's favorite "chicken" salad, I make it the second way, in the oven. Today's post is all about the first way. The next post will teach you how to do the second version.

For the stove top version you will need:

1 cup vital wheat gluten

2 TBSP vegetarian chicken broth powder

1 tsp garlic granules

1 cup water

To start, mix together your dry ingredients until the spices are evenly distributed.

Add the water and stir with your hands. The dough will form almost instantly - gluten is desperate to get to some water and make dough; it just can't even wait it's so excited. When the dough is pretty much mixed together, turn it out of your bowl and onto the counter. 

The dough will be very wet. Don't worry, this is totally normal. You will notice that it's definitely springy and spongy but it doesn't hold together terribly well. Knead it a few times until it starts to hold together a little better but stop before it starts to get tough! 

Remember Baking 101 - DO NOT OVER MIX. Bear in mind that when you bake and you mix your dough/batter/whatever, you're basically activating the gluten to hold everything together. Over mixing your dough/batter/whatever will make your baked goods tough and elastic-y. Now think for a second about what you're working with - GLUTEN. VWG is just flour with all of the starch removed so be really careful that you don't mix it too much. The results are unappetizing, believe me! The best thing to do is just try it a couple of times until you get a consistency you can live with.

Next, form your gluten into four cutlets that are roughly the same size. Making them the same size will help them to cook evenly. Last you're going to add the cutlets to a broth to simmer them.

For the broth you will need:

4 cups of water

1/2 cup nutritional yeast

1 TBSP vegetarian chicken broth powder

Mix the broth together in the biggest skillet you have. Trust me when I tell you this - the seitan grows when you cook it and will take over your skillet. If you don't have a huge skillet, I suggest splitting the broth between two skillets and cooking the seitan in two batches.

Heat the broth over medium heat and add the seitan cutlets. On my stove I put the burner on 4. Make sure you don't boil the seitan. Boiling will also make your seitan turn out tough and rubbery.

Simmer covered for about 35-40 minutes or until the broth is nearly all absorbed. You can make the seitan ahead of time and store it in the rest of the broth or you can use it right away. You can keep it refrigerated for about a week and since this recipe makes a TON of seitan, you'll definitely need to refrigerate some of it.

Some serving suggestions:

1. Instead of making cutlets, make the seitan into nuggets. Dip them into soy milk, followed by the bread crumbs of your choice, and fry in a little oil for nuggets.

2. Slice into strips and mix into your stir fry.

3. Butterfly the seitan, fill with whatever you like, and roll to keep everything inside. Secure with twine or toothpicks and bake.

4. Slice the cutlets open so you create a pocket. Fill with the mixture of your choice and suttee on both sides until golden.

5. Follow the same steps in #1 but serve with spaghetti sauce and "mozzarella" like a hurried-up version of "chicken" parm.

However you decide to use this, keep in mind that this method of cooking your seitan isn't perfect for everything, but it is super versatile in your old recipes that used chicken. The second method will allow you some additional cooking options so stay tuned!

Old Bay

I know, I know, I've been away for a while. I've been trying a ton of new recipes and, mostly, failing miserably. 

The thing is, when you try new recipes - other people's recipes - you have to take a leap of faith that they'll actually be worth eating once you've finished the dish. Lately, I've been choosing some real failures....but more on that later, I promise.

Today I discovered Old Bay Seasoning, largely thanks to this recipe for seitan chicken from Vegan Yum Yum (go buy the cookbook - the recipes and the photography are great and she does a wonderful job guiding even the novice cook through recipes to find success).

I have heard of old bay before but mostly associated with seafood. It's not the kind of thing I grew up with and I have always thought of it as a regional spice blend...you know, from the south. I grew up eating cuisine form all over the country and the world but, for whatever reason, southern food was a complete mystery to my household.

Grits were mushy and flavorful at best, everything else was fried, and it left a lot to be desired. It was not until earlier this year that I had ever purchased, let alone cooked, greens.

So, as a very recent convert to southern cooking I thought I'd give the southern fried seitan a shot.

BOY OH BOY WAS I SURPRISED!

I have a wonderful recipe for seitan "chicken" that I modified from Vegetarian Carnivore's recipe and I use it all the time but this new recipe that is built around Old Bay totally blew my mind! And here I thought I only needed ONE seitan "chicken" recipe.

I made the seitan as directed but then added my own little twist at the end.

I butterflied the seitan "cutlets" and stuffed them with a mixture of caramelized onions, sauteed mushrooms, parsley and goat cheese (more on that later, too, I swear).

The result was utterly fantastic. I highly suggest you try it!

Incidentally, I served it with fiddle head ferns in a lemon garlic sauce and a side of couscous. It was one of the best meals I've made in a really long time. I'll post the lemon garlic sauce recipe later and also the fantastic peach cake that I made for dessert, which is quickly becoming my favorite dessert and overtaking my beloved linzor torte.

Breakfast Sandwich

Two things you should know about me:

1. Breakfast is my favorite meal and I could eat it three times a day

2. I will eat just about anything in sandwich form.

Now that we have that out of the way, let me introduce you to a delightful little breakfast sandwich. This has become one of the boyfriend's favorites and he requests it any time he comes over before we head to church. This is the kind of breakfast that makes you feel like you've spent a lot of time on it, but it is really quick and easy to whip together. It's so easy, in fact, that I usually indulge him and throw a sandwich together before we hit the road.

You will need:

2 slices of the bread of your choice

(I use Ezekiel 7 Sprouted Grain Bread)

1-2 TBSP Earth Balance margarine

2-3 slices of Smart Bacon

1/3 - 1/2 inch thick slice of tofu cut from 1 block of extra firm tofu

(cut it the long way and you can get 4 slices out of one block)

1 slice of dairy-free cheese

a few slices of tomato

First, melt the Earth Balance in your pan on medium heat. Salt and pepper your tofu on both sides and sautée the tofu in the Earth Balance until golden on one side. 

I know I have said before that tofu by itself has ZERO flavor, but trust me when I tell you that cooking it in Earth Balance with a little salt and pepper makes it taste so buttery and delicious that you'll think you're eating something seriously decadent and unhealthy!

In case you don't already have a mesh screen, you should really invest in one - it'll keep hot oil and margarine from splattering all over your kitchen and burning you while you tend to the pan.

After a few minutes, turn the tofu over. Add the bacon to the pan and continue to sautée until the tofu is golden on both sides and the bacon is crispy on the edges. The tofu only takes a few minutes so while your tofu and bacon cook, toast your bread so it'll be ready when the tofu is done.

Once cooked, remove the tofu and bacon from the pan and place on a plate covered with a few paper towels. Even though you're not using a ton of Earth Balance, you don't want to have slimy, greasy tofu.

Assemble your sandwich as you please, with toast, tofu, bacon, and dairy-free cheese. Sometimes I'll even spread a little hommus onto one of the slices of toast because I like the flavor and extra moisture it adds.

If you've recently decided against eating meat or are just looking for a low-cholesterol option, give this a shot. Between the bacon and the tofu smothered in Earth Balance, you won't feel for a moment like you're missing out on anything.

Happy eating!

Make your own Seitan

If you've done any vegan cooking at all, you know that there are a ton of recipes that call for seitan. And if you've gone grocery shopping for seitan you have learned a couple of things:

1. Store-bought seitan doesn't taste like much of anything

2. You only get a few ounces in each package, which is barely enough for one recipe

3. It costs a small fortune.

Remember, seitan (sometimes called "wheat meat") is just the gluten from flour once all of the starch has been rinsed out, so you're basically spending your hard earned cash on flour and water...I bet you have that at home already, huh?

Now that you understand the absurdity of purchasing seitan, let's talk about making it at home.

There are basically two ways to do this.

The first is to combine flour and water with the spices of your choice, knead it to activate the gluten, and then rinse out the starch. Yes, it's that easy.

But the second way is even easier!

You can buy Vital Wheat Gluten (Bob's Red Mill sells it in quantities large enough quantities to make it reasonable), mix it with spices and water and viola! You have seitan.

Of course, whichever option you choose, you'll need to cook it. The most common way to do this is to cook it for about 45 minutes in some kind of water-based broth but it's not the only way. For a firmer seitan you can make it into a log, wrap it in aluminum foil, and bake it for an hour or so.

I know both of those sound like they could be a bit of an undertaking but they are super easy.

Ask anyone I know, I have been on a major seitan kick lately.
Lucky for you readers because I have a bunch of recipes to share!

Taco Night!

Since deciding not to eat meat, eggs, or dairy, I've definitely been in transition mode. No, I'm not still dabbling in dairy products now and then - I'm finding ways to modify "regular" food so that it still fits within my new food guidelines.

This starts, as you might imagine, with reading literally every ingredient on everything you buy in the grocery store. The first time I went shopping with a vegan friendly lens, it took me almost three hours to go through my list. Thankfully, it has gotten easier since then!

But I digress...

I've read that this "transitional" phase happens to a lot of people. Basically, instead of making totally new foods, you just modify food you're comfortable with. This recipe for seitan tacos is just such a recipe.

In case you're not familiar with seitan (pronounced SAY-tahn) it is a great meat substitute that's made of wheat gluten. It's available in the grocery store but you can make it yourself. Making it yourself lets you control the flavor, since you season it exactly how you want it, and it's much less expensive! I'll show you how to make it in a future blog but for now, just check out the tacos!

You will need:

1 package of taco shells

Seitan, ground

(equivalent to one pound of ground meat)

1 package of taco seasoning 

(be sure it's vegan friendly)

Avocado, sliced

Tomatoes, diced

Lettuce 

(some people like it shredded, I don't - make it however you like)

Vegan shredded "cheese"

Vegan sour "cream" 

(yes, there is a substitute!)

...and whatever else you like to put in your tacos...

Start by sauteing your seitan in a little oil or Earth Balance (it's a non-hydrogenated buttery-tasting spread). Seitan comes precooked, so you're really only heating it up and adding spices. 

If you're using your own seitan, just fling it in the food processor until it's ground into crumbles.

Isn't it crazy how much this looks like ground meat?

Add your seasoning and stir until combined. Cook until it s completely heated through.

While that heats, make sure all of your other ingredients are prepared for your tacos.

Then assemble and enjoy!

A few notes:

This is the kind of thing that's super kid-friendly and also works as "guy food." Also, if you're doing the vegetarian thing and are hosting friends for dinner who are carnivores, make this for them and they won't notice the difference...especially if you make your own seitan because you can season it however you like. I love sneaking veggie meals in where no one expects them!

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.