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!