Soy and Seitan Turkey

Remember Tofu Brain? How about The Brain of Seitan? It’s turkey time again, and I’m experimenting with another faux turkey recipe. This year it's Bryanna’s soy and seitan turkey. It’s like Tofu Brain and The Brain of Seitan got together and had a baby brain. Mmm…brains!

Tofu Brain was too tofu-mushy. The Brain of Seitan was pretty damn good, albeit a little salty, but that’s easy to fix. I’ve had my eye on Bryanna Grogan’s soy and seitan turkey since this time last year, but was saving up the experiment for Thanksgiving. I wish I had hopped on this recipe earlier. (Update: here's the recipe with step-by-step instructions.)

I will tell you about my experience, and things I would (and did) do differently. The first time I made the recipe was sort of a disaster. Mid-crisis, I ran to the faux-meat-friendly Post Punk Kitchen forums to see if any one else was having the same problems. Many people had success, with only a few not so lucky. I soldiered on. The end product was fabulous, despite my crisis.Clockwise from to left: Tofu smoothie (a.k.a. wet ingredients), very wet dough, dough covered with broth, dough before being covered with broth.

First Attempt

• The recipe calls for 12 ounces of firm tofu. Every package I pick up is 15 ounces. I’m not tossing 3 ounces, so included it. This may have lead to my problem?
• My dough was very wet. I added more gluten, chickpea flour, and nutritional yeast. It was still wet. Afraid I’d make a heavy dough bomb, I quit adding more dry ingredients, and carried on.
• Bryanna’s directions give options for kneading the dough. She feels that kneading the dough is difficult, so suggests a mixer or a bread machine. I tried the bread machine since I had one. It works, but you have to clean it afterward!
• Poured the broth over the loaves and covered with foil. Stuck them in the oven at 200° (preheated first to 350° like her directions say) for three hours. Two hours into the baking, I take a peek. It looks just like the wet loaves covered in liquid that I put in two hours ago. No! This is not going to work.
• Poured off the liquid (saved it), left the loaves uncovered, and cranked the oven to 350°. Baked for about an hour, flipping a few times to get all sides brown (parchment paper really helps in flipping), and basting when the loaf dried out a bit.
• Turned out great despite the gooey, wet-loaf crisis. So good, in fact, I did it again.

And on the second day, she made brains.

Second Attempt

• Still used all 15 ounces of tofu.
• Used ¼ cup less water in tofu smoothie.
• Dry and wet ingredients actually formed a dough, and not a wet mass.
• Kneaded by hand. I’m no wimp, and neither are you.
• Baked uncovered at 350° for 1 hour 15 minutes. Then flipped a few times over the next 30 minutes to get the surfaces brown. (Total cooking time 1 hour 45 minutes)
• Turned out great, and took less baking time!

The lesson here is that no matter how wet your loaf is, just bake it dry. The proportion of gluten, flour, nutritional yeast, tofu, and seasonings makes a perfect loaf. The water content may vary (tofu drained or not, more or less water), but you can bake that off.

I eat a ton (about two packages a week!) of Tofurkey deli slices on sandwiches and rolled up for snacks. Tofurkey is my favorite deli slice, and I think that Bryanna’s loaf is just as good - that's why I made it a second time, and I'll make it again!

I love the texture of this loaf – firmer than tofu, but not as chewy and heavy as baked seitan. The flavor is turkey-like, and certainly open to experimentation and personalization. Bryanna's loaf does slice up thinly (not as thin as Tofurkey slices, but maybe if you had a deli slicer), and is perfect for sandwiches. Thanksgiving, too! Put some gravy on it.

Seitan (and this tofu seitan turkey) really is better the next day after it has firmed up. Make this loaf at least a day before Thanksgiving so it can set, and reheat in the oven before serving. Making ahead also allows you to not completely freak out if you have doubts about the end results like I did the first time.

Seitan Turkey

After last year’s tofu turkey left us wanting something meatier, we tried making a similar concoction, but with seitan. So, here we go...


I'd heard good things about VWaV seitan, so I made a batch. I turned the gluten dough out, and, great mother of God, if it didn't have fully developed left and right hemispheres!


Then I followed these procedures to make a turkey loaf. Press the dough out to form a rectagle.




Wrap the slab of dough in cheesecloth, covering the bottom, top, and edges. This is so the dough will not stick to itself when rolled up.





Roll dough, and tie loosely with string to allow for expansion.




Go back to the VWaV recipe and boil as directed - drop in cold water or broth, bring to a boil, simmer for 1 hour, and cool in broth for 30 minutes.





Pull it out of the broth. Ooow, it expanded! Slightly.




Unroll the seitan and remove the cheesecloth. Crap! The seitan fell apart. There went my plan to make a roulade.





So, I just slapped it on top of the stuffing and tucked in the edges. Oh yeah, make about 2 cups of your favorite stuffing.





To immitate the texture of turkey skin, use those crazy-large sheets of yuba. I used frozen, so no need to hydrate the dried form.


Cut the yuba to fit your turkey and tuck the edges in. Use one or multiple layers of yuba, brushing each layer with butter or oil. I used two layers of yuba.



Glaze that baby! I made an impromptu glaze from tomato paste, orange marmalade, garlic, soy sauce, and something else? Use your favorite glaze.


Bake at 350 º for 1 hour. Slice it, serve it, and you should get something similar to the very first photo in this post.





Thoughts
*Whoa! That seitan was salty! I followed the VWaV seitan recipe, which calls for soy sauce in the dough and soy sauce in the simmering broth. I opted for vegetable broth instead of water in the simmering broth. That was salt on salt on salt. Next time I'd skip the vegetable broth or use a no-sodium vegetable broth.

*Yuba! You're such a funny little guy. You feel like plastic and taste like nothing, hence I can mold you into what ever I want. The yuba picked up the flavor from the glaze and was given a nod by a meat-eater. Meat-eater said it was chewy just like real skin. I didn't give it a nod because it doesn't stick to the seitan like real skin. Cut the turkey and the skin slides all over the place. I'd use yuba again as turkey skin if I could glue it down. Don't know how, though.

*Otherwise, this year's turkey was good.

Next Year
I'm going to try Bryanna's soy and seitan turkey. This woman has devoted her life to fake meats and probably has this one down. I saw this recipe after I had my plans, but could not bring myself to abandon mission. Must. Follow. Through.

Have a lovely Thanksgiving!

Tofu Turkey

Tofurky Roasts allows vegetarians and vegans to take part in holiday feasts without feeling left out. Nothing worse than a crying vegan! Tofurky Roasts are dense, football-shaped loaves of gluten and tofu, filled with stuffing. Quite tasty, but a bit pricey.

Last year we decided to try our hand at making a tofu turkey. The recipe we used called for blending tofu and seasonings together, pressing the tofu into a mold, filling with stuffing, and baking. We nicknamed our tofu turkey “The Brain” for obvious reasons.

"The Brain" was an unappetizing color, even with a glaze. There must be some way to add color. Maybe a little soy sauce blended with the tofu?

While this recipe was flavorful after extra salt, garlic, and spices were added to the tofu, the texture was not meaty enough. To remedy the lack of meatiness, we vowed to make a seitan turkey in 2006. True to our word, we did.

Stay tuned for “The Brain of Seitan”…