Foil Folding Instructions

For some reason, blogger hasn't been letting me comment on blogspot blogs or respond to comments in my own. For that reason, I am posting this diagram describing how to fold the foil for my seitan steaming recipe:

p.s. jxv, yr new tattoo is too cute, but blogger wouldn't let me let you know. ha!

TGRWT # 16: "Chicken" and Rose

Caught up in my post-class malaise, I was >THISCLOSE< to not revisiting this month's flavor combination of chicken and rose. But I had made that delightful batch of chik'n seitan last night, and my first attempt was just good enough to make me want to continue experimenting. Home from class, I hopped in my car and picked up some raspberry jam for a raspberry rose water glaze that turned out to be the perfect complement for my seitan. Interestingly, this had actually been my first inclination when I thought about the pairing, but then I over-thought it and made that failed cream sauce. Let this be a lesson to follow your gut! (Ha, get it?)

The taste of the glaze with the chik'n really popped. Substituting jam for frozen raspberries pronounced the raspberry flavor and kicked it up a notch with that little added sweetness. While the raspberry was certainly the main focus, the rose was like a smooth bottom note that gave the raspberry's flavor volume. When they were combined with the chik'n, the fruitiness of the rose-raspberry combo really stood out and the chik'n lost some of its salty, savory quality - which wasn't a bad thing at all. Like I said yesterday, I'm not sure if vegan "chicken" can combine with raspberry the same way regular chicken can, but the flavors worked together in SOME way that I found very pleasing.

I served the seitan with my favorite salad at the moment: sunflower seeds, raisins, tomatoes, and cucumbers over mixed greens. Ideally, I would eat this with a tahini-based dressing, but tonight I went with Annie's Goddess Dressing because it's what I had on hand. To be fair, with this salad the Annie's is a close second to a tahini dressing, so I am not complaining. Definitely give this a try; there's something about having all four elements together that makes this salad really exciting. I've tried it in every combination with one ingredient missing, and it's simply not the same. This salad rules hard. Hard. Eat it anywhere, everywhere, always.

Okay, now for the recipe you really care about:


CHIK'N-STYLE SEITAN WITH RASPBERRY-ROSE GLAZE
+ 2 servings of chik'n style seitan
+ 2 T raspberry jam
+ 1 T rosewater
+ 1/2 t Earth Balance
+ 1/2 t corn starch

01. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease up a baking sheet. Place the seitan on the baking sheet, then set it aside.

02. In a microwave-safe bowl, combine the jam, rosewater, and Earth Balance. Pop it in the microwave for about fifteen seconds, and then stir them until well-mixed. Dissolve the corn starch into the warmed jam mixture.

03. Return to your baking sheet, and evenly spread the glaze across both sides of a piece of seitan. Repeat with the other piece, and then pop the baking sheet in the oven and wait ten minutes. Remove, cool, and enjoy.




This serves one lonely little person.

Hail Seitan

So, steaming seitan? Totally the way to go. Over the years, my attempts at homemade seitan have been less than stellar - not inedible but definitely not like anything you'd find in a restaurant. I'm always doing someting too much or too little: kneading, boiling, baking... Even after extensive research, vital wheat gluten has remained a cruel, cruel mistress - that is, until now. Having discovered steaming, I have one more gem in my cooking crown, and soon I shall be king of the vegan universe!!!

The experiment started as a response to this month's They Go Really Well Together. The current flavor combination is rose and chicken, and while it's difficult to respond to meat pairings, chicken is one of the easier meats to mimic (or at least hint at) in the vegan world. Now, there are some good pre-made chicken substitutes out there (Morning Star's grilled chik'n strips come to mind...), but developing my own chik'n recipe has been long overdue. I'd heard that steaming is a pretty no-fail approach to seitan, and I wanted a meat analogue worthy of being featured on an omni blog, so it seemed worth a shot. And oh, success tastes good.

The rose-raspberry cream sauce I paired it with, on the other hand, did not taste so good. I thought it was a genius combination: rose and raspberry with a little basil and a hint of white wine, but the basil drowned out the other flavors, and without it, there was still something missing. I was so disappointed in the sauce, I almost didn't bother using it, but fuck, I'm a broke college student so waste not, want not. I'm kind of glad I went for it, though, because it regained some life once paired with the chik'n. Scientifically, I'm not sure if chik'n and rose "combine" in the same way that chicken and rose do (or should), but they really did taste good together and inspire me to continue experimenting. Still, I am hesitant to post the recipe. Clever though it may be, it just isn't something I'm proud of. Instead, I think I am going to attempt a rose-raspberry glaze tomorrow. I'll likely post the better of the two.

In the mean time, let's learn to make some seitan, shall we?


SEITAN IS GREAT...AN
+ 1 1/2 c vital wheat gluten
+ 1/4 c chik'n broth powder
+ 1/2 c nutritional yeast
+ 1 t paprika
+ 1/2 t onion powder
+ 1/2 t garlic powder
+ 1 - 2 t "seasoning" (e.g. poultry seasoning, creole seasoning, whatever)

+ 1 1/4 c chik'n broth
+ 1 T oil
+ 1 T sesame oil
+ 1 T soy sauce

01. In a large bowl, sift together the dry ingredients. They need to be well combined so the flavor is evenly distributed. Then make a little well, and pour the two oils and soy sauce inside. Add a little bit of chik'n broth, and gently stir with a spatula until just combined. Add a little bit more and stir again until you've added just enough broth that the mixture is moist but not mushy. The bowl should house what looks like a big heap of savory cookie dough.

02. Knead the dough until it gets sort of string-y and has lightened slightly in color - about three minutes. Then divide the dough into six equal pieces. You can just tear off little handfuls; ain't nothin' fancy goin' on here.

03. Get the water boiling in your steamer. Tear off six sheets of aluminum foil about ten inches long, and stack them. Take a wad of dough, put it in the center of your first sheet, and press it into a little disc with the palm of your hand. Then pull together the right and left side of the foil and fold over about a half inch. Keep folding until you reach your disc, then smooth it over flat against your seitan to create a little seam. Press into the disc again to get it a little flatter, then fold the other two flaps the same way and set your little foil packet aside. Repeat with the remaining foil and seitan.

04. Arrange your little foil packets flat across the steamer. I'm pretty sure they shouldn't overlap because then the seitan won't heat evenly. I had to steam my seitan in batches to prevent overlapping, but trust me, it's worth it. For every batch, steam for about twenty-five minutes. When finished, remove the packet(s) from the steamer and set aside to cool. Leave the seitan in the foil until you're ready to eat them. I kept my unused seitan in their foil, and now they're sitting on my fridge door.




Obviously, this recipe makes six servings. Six AWESOME servings.