Soy and Seitan Roast

All of the recipes on this blog are vegetarian (and sometimes vegan), but I try to post recipes that would appeal to eaters of all persuasions. This recipe, though, is a very vegetarian recipe, so look away meat-eaters and others who are appalled that people eat "meat substitutes." (Eat Me Daily reamed me a few years ago on this exact same recipe. It was hilarious.)

Instead of thinking of tofu or seitan as meat substitutes, it'd be much more open-minded of you to think of them as real food. Because that's what they are. If you can't, that's fine.

This post is more of a reference for me, because I plan on making this roast frequently. This year, I'd like to get away from buying Tofurky slices and make my own soy-seitan roasts. I managed to bake my own bread last year (except maybe three store-bought loaves), which is quite a feat considering I go through a loaf a week packing sandwiches for work every day. Now I just need to make my own sandwich innards.

This really is my favorite homemade seitan, partly because it's not really seitan. Seitan I make at home is a bit too chewy and dense (I've tried many recipes), but this recipe combines tofu, wheat gluten, and chickpea flour to make a loaf that is somewhere between the dense texture of seitan and the squishy texture of tofu.

The original recipe from Bryanna is a jumbled mess on her website, and the notes I took and posted a few years ago about my experience and alterations didn't include a written recipe, so I'm constantly clicking between the two pages in frustration. No more!

Update 11/17/10: I was recently contacted by Bryanna Clark Grogen, who requested I reiterate that the recipe posted here is an adaptation of the original recipe she had posted on her site, specifically, that my cooking directions and techniques are different than hers. If you are curious as how I came about my cooking procedure, you can check out my previous post where I discuss my experiences with the recipe.

Soy and Seitan Roast
makes 1 big honkin' loaf or 2 bread-pan-sized loaves

The recipe is as simple as mixing dry ingredients with wet ingredients to make a dough, then baking the dough in a basting liquid.

Seasonings can be adjusted to preferences, or switched out for others. Maybe maple syrup, sage, and liquid smoke for something breakfast-y next time? These freeze well, too.
Dry Ingredients

2 cups gluten flour
1/2 cup chickpea flour
1/2 cup nutritional yeast
2 teaspoons onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon black pepper

- Mix all dry ingredients in a large bowl.Wet Ingredients

15 ounces firm tofu, broken into smaller pieces
1 1/4 cup water
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon olive oil

- Place all wet ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth.
- Pour wet ingredients into bowl with dry ingredients and stir until incorporated.
- Turn dough out onto a clean surface and knead for 10 minutes.
- Let dough rest for 1 hour.
- Shape dough into a loaf (one large flat-ish loaf or multiple smaller loaves), and place loaf in a baking dish with plenty of room to accommodate basting liquid.
Basting Broth

2 cups vegetable broth
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 cloves crushed garlic
1-2 tablespoons fresh rosemary
1 bay leaf

- Combine all ingredients for the basting broth in a bowl.Baking Instructions

- Line a baking pan with parchment paper, than place shaped loaf in pan. Pour basting liquid over the dough in the baking dish.
- Bake in a pre-heated 350 degree oven for 1 hour 15 minutes.
- Remove dish from oven, and if there is still a lot of basting liquid left in the pan, dump out all but just a little bit of the liquid.
- Carefully flip the roast with the help of a spatula or two. Flipping the roast allows what was once the bottom of the roast to brown.
- Place the roast back in the oven, and bake for an additional 30 minutes.
- Serve immediately, or let roast cool. When roast is completely cooled, it can be wrapped in foil and frozen for later use.

Newman's Own Organics Sea Salt Soy Crisps

Hello, everyone! Sorry for the lag in posts. It was a very busy week.

I did get some snacking done, though, and I tried the lovely sea-salt flavored Newman's Own Organics Soy Crisps.

I am a potato chip fiend through and through. Nothing delights me more than a good, crispy chip, which I do have for review soon, but to my surprise, I couldn't stop eating these crisps.

They have a nice, rice and soy based crunch to them, very crispy, and soft throughout. Unlike other crisps, there's no strange and brittle crunch. The sea salt comes out in them in a very subtle, but tasty way. They are quite low in calories.

If these could be improved, I might say that they could use a little more sea salt. I ate them on a stomachache and their plain and simple flavor was very tasty and easy on my stomach, especially with the overall consistency, but to some, they may be a little bland.

6/10- OKAY

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.

Secret Word = Curdlan

So, I bought a package of mock shrimp from the Asian market in hopes of doing something with it after my pleasant experience with mock shrimp. I would have liked to have had fried shrimp, but I’m not a home-fryer. I thought about having shrimp and grits (yumminess), but never got around to it. I ended up doing the simplest thing with them – throwing the shrimp unseasoned, and uncooked in spring rolls.

The shrimp weren’t bad, but a greasy layer of fat would have definitely helped the flavor. (All right, they were downright weird. I’ll leave mock shrimp to the restaurants.) The mock shrimp had the texture of shrimp, but smelled oddly sweet, and even tasted a little sweet – and odd. Here’s the strange part, though. I flip the package over to read the ingredients, and all is looking familiar except for one item – curdlan.

What the heck is curdlan? I look it up (love the computer) and this is what it says: “Curdlan gum is a microbial fermentation extracellular polymer prepared commercially from a mutant strain of Alcaligenes faecalis var. myxogenes.” I’m not a scientist, but I think that means that it’s a weird substance from weird bacteria. So, it’s at least natural.

What does it do? “Curdlan gum is tasteless and produces retortable freezable food elastic gels.” Ok, so it makes things gell-like and thickens things (curdling). Curdlan was approved by the FDA in 1996 as a formulation aid, processing aid, stabilizer and thickener or texturizer for use in food.

Scroll down a bit on the search page and I see curdlan and WHO (World Health Organization). Why do they care about curdlan as a food additive? Oh, this was a fun read! They studied the effects of curdlan on rats, lots of other animals, and humans. In short, it says it's safe; hence it’s in my mock shrimp. Although, you may experience constipation, increased flatulence, occasional diarrhea, weight loss…..

Don’t be scared of curdlan. I had never heard of it, looked it up, and thought it interesting. Here’s a list of things you may find curdlan in. Keep your eyes peeled and scream when you find it. It’ll be kinda like Pee Wee Herman’s “secret word” game. Curdlan. Aaaaagghhhh!