rants & recipes

I don't know if I've posted about it, but we've been trying to engineer a new cooking method for seitan sausages - one that doesn't use much aluminum foil. Our new hardware consists of cannoli tubes, silicone rubber bands and silicone cork stoppers - so far, it's been a bit of a failure and has left me a little disgusted with the steam cooking methods.

So I was looking for another way to cook seitan - I am not crazy about the stovetop method, for one, because it takes a long time but also because the recipes tend to rely on the broth for flavor and you're left with copious amounts of rather pricey, waste liquids. Sure, you can freeze and use in gravies and soups but, apparently, we don't make enough gravies and soups for that to work out so well, for us.

In my search, I can across this recipe. It takes 2 hours, plus prep - still a long time, but it's fairly easy and the amount of broth leftover is totally manageable and not pricey, compared with, say, 6 cups of broth, half of which is soy sauce and marmite. (I added some more soy sauce, nutritional yeast, spices and flour and made a good amount of "chicken" gravy from the leftover broth.)

(Ironically, this recipe also calls for, and wastes, aluminum foil. At least, though, the foil wasn't rolled and twisted up and was mostly reusable for leftovers. Never mind that we don't typically use foil for leftovers.)

Chicken Seitan, makes 2 'loaves'

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups vital wheat gluten
• 1/2 cup garbanzo flour
• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
• 1 tsp rosemary
• 1 tsp thyme
• 2 tsp garlic powder
• 2 tsp onion powder
• 2 tsp dry mustard
• 1/2 tsp powdered sage
• ~ 1 1/2 tbsp peanut butter
• 2 vegetable broth cubes, grated
• black pepper
• 2 cups water
• 1 tbsp soy sauce

Broth Ingredients:

Over each loaf, I poured:

• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 1/2 cups water
• grated 1/2 vegetable broth cube

Instructions:

1. Combine non-broth ingredients.
2. Knead for about 10 minutes in electric mixer/bread machine.
3. Form into two loaves.
4. Place loaves in greased loaf pans.
5. Top each loaf with broth ingredients.
6. Cover pans with foil.
7. Bake in pre-heated 325 degree oven for 60 minutes.
8. Remove, flip, recover with foil.
9. Bake additional 60 minutes.

Notes:

• This was a little soft/soggy on the outside while being a little too dense in the middle, but had pretty good flavor and browned nicely, in a little oil.
• Next time, I will try to add something to give it a little "open texture" - maybe oats or cooked rice?
• I will experiment with decreasing the garbanzo flour a little, too.
• It could have used a little more salt, maybe 1-2 tsp in the dough mixture.
• It reminded me of the cubed chicken in chicken pot pies and would probably work well in a vegan pot pie recipe.

More Notes:

• Inow make this with 2 tbsp garbanzo flour, 2 tbsp oats, 2 tbsp tapioca granules in place of the 1/2 cup garbanzo flour.
• I've been leaving out the vegetable cubes, both in the 'meat' and broth, and have been happy enough with the result, especially if destined for a flavorful sauce-based dish.
• Making this with 180 grams of wheat gluten was my usual. Today, I used 215 with a more "traditional" texture. I need to experiment more with increasing the flavorings, for 215 grams of gluten.

Pictured with mashed potatoes, sweet peas, and 'chicken' gravy made from the leftover cooking broth: