VeganMoFo Day 3 – The Magic of Seitan

“But where do you get your protein?” you cry, and then you hear the collective sound of thousands of vegans rolling their eyes.

Okay, maybe not quite, but it’s a very common question. People have it drilled into them that meat=protein, and so if you don’t eat meat, you will lose all your muscles and wither away. Which isn’t actually true, you know. There are many, many vegan protein sources -more than you imagine! For instance – your regular green peas, a common side dish, have 8g in just one serving. This post, however, is going to be about one of the best vegan protein sources – Seitan.

Tomato & Basil Seitan Sausages

Seitan. Perhaps awkwardly named for the anglophone, the food itself has been around in China for fifteen hundred years, and the name has its origins in Japanese. It’s made from vital wheat gluten – which is basically wheat flour with all the starches removed, leaving just the protein behind. You can buy it ready made in health food shops, or make it yourself – the flour is sold on amazon or in a lot of vegan shops too. It’s very high in protein – with 75g protein per 100g of flour – and excellent for vegans or non-vegans alike!

Best Ever Burgers

I’ve got many recipes on my blog that use vital wheat gluten – and around the internet are even more! Isa’s chickpea cutlets are an essential vegan meal – quick, delicious, and easy to make (I like them baked over fried). This vegan “bacon” recipe is made from seitan and is so very good. Here is a great basic seitan recipe, too. And back to Isa – this chicken style seitan works great in everything from pasta to sandwiches to curries!

 

Pizza Sausages

Overall, seitan is a great source of protein for vegans. If you’ve got any questions about it, feel free to ask and I’ll try to help you get started in the world of seitan!

Seitan Wellington

 

Pizza Sausages

Ah, February. Christmas is over, the new year is over, and it’s absolutely freezing cold. Spring is not yet on the radar, so the best thing to do is to sit tight in the warm and try not to shiver ourselves away.

The VeganMoFo challenge for the month is “Red” – to make and eat food all with the theme of red. This meal did not come out quite as red as I had planned, but it is still a bit red and certainly delicious.

These sausages are adapted from my tomato & basil sausage recipe, but these are flavoured to taste like pizza. Aptly, today is apparently National Pizza Day, which I didn’t actually plan for, but it works! Stuffed full with sun-dried tomatoes, olives, basil, and nutritional yeast, these sausages have a definite pizza flavour to them and smell and taste wonderful!

As with the other sausages on my blog, these are made with vital wheat gluten (you can buy it from health-food or vegan shops) and first steamed, then fried to get a lovely crust. Sausages made with gluten hold their shape very well, making them also ideal if you fancy barbecuing them!

• Servings: 8 sausages
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Ingredients

• 60g sundried tomatoes (the kind that come in oil), finely chopped
• 50g black olives, finely chopped
• 30g fresh basil, finely chopped
• 1 can white kidney beans/cannelini beans
• 4 tbsp tomato puree
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp sriracha
• 4 tbsp nutritional yeast
• 225g vital wheat gluten
• 225ml cold water

Directions

1. Begin by mashing the white beans in a large bowl until thoroughly mashed.
2. Stir through the remaining ingredients to make a dough.
3. Knead the dough for just a minute until it all comes together and forms a cohesive mixture.
4. Divide the dough into 8 pieces, and roll each one into a rough sausage shape. Don’t worry too much about the shape – they’ll expand as they steam.
5. Wrap each sausage in tin-foil, like a Christmas cracker shape.
6. Place the sausages in your steamer (you may have to do two batches if your steamer is not large enough).
7. Steam for 40 minutes.
8. Once the sausages are steamed, remove them from the steamer, allow to cool slightly, then unwrap the foil.
9. To fry, pour a little oil into a hot pan and fry the sausages for a minute or two on each side, until golden in colour.
10. The sausages freeze well if you have too many!

Seitan Wellington – VeganMoFo Day 29

Seitan is one of those things that sound weird to non-vegans. You’re eating what for dinner?! But, once you get past the name, it’s actually really good. It’s very high in protein and extremely versatile – chop it up and use it in curries and stir fries, mould it into sausages or burgers, make slices to put in your sandwiches…and so on. It’s made from Vital Wheat Gluten, which is gluten (the protein) isolated from wheat flour. It used to be made by washing regular wheat flour over and over again to get rid of all the starch, which is a laborious process, but luckily today you can buy it in bags from your local health food shop. If they don’t have it in stock ask, they should be able to order it for you!

For today’s VeganMoFo challenge, we are to do a “Holiday Test Run” and this year we have decided to make a Wellington. Not a pair of waterproof boots, but a roast wrapped in duxelles and puff pastry.

The centre of this wellington is a steamed seitan log, which is seasoned with rosemary and oregano, worcestershire sauce and soy sauce, onion and garlic powder, and more. Spread around that are “duxelles” which are finely chopped mushrooms sauteed with onion, garlic, and parsley.  Finally, wrap the whole thing in puff pastry, brush with melted vegan butter, and put in the oven.

It bakes in the oven for 45-50 minutes – perfect timing for your roast potatoes – until lovely and golden brown and then can be sliced and served!

This recipe does take some time to do – as you need to make the seitan and cool it before assembling the wellington – but it’s well worth it. If you’re making it for your Christmas dinner you could make the seitan and the duxelles the day before, keep them in the fridge, and just assemble it all before you bake it. Easy!

Seitan Wellington

• Servings: 6-8 slices
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Ingredients

For the Seitan

Dry Ingredients

• 225g vital wheat gluten
• 25g nutritional yeast
• 1 tsp dried rosemary
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp salt
• few grinds black pepper

Wet Ingredients

• 1 tbsp marmite (sub miso if you don’t have marmite)
• 1 tbsp boiling water
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp vegan worcestershire sauce
• 1 tbsp ketchup
• 250ml water

For the Duxelles

• 1 tbsp vegan butter
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 350g mushrooms, finely chopped or pulsed to a mince in a food processor
• 1 tsp dried parsley
• 1 sheet vegan puff pastry
• 1 tbsp vegan butter, melted, for brushing

Directions

1. First, prepare your seitan. Get a steamer ready to use as it won’t take long to bring the ingredients together.
2. Mix all the dry ingredients for the seitan together in a large bowl.
3. In a separate bowl, combine the marmite and boiling water together and mix to a paste.
4. Add the rest of the wet ingredients and whisk to combine.
5. Slowly pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix to form a dough. Knead for 3 minutes until springy.
6. Form the dough into a rough log shape – about 2 inches in diameter – and place on a sheet of tin foil.
7. Wrap the dough in the tinfoil like you would a Christmas cracker. Don’t worry about getting it too neat – just make sure it’s all enclosed – as the seitan will spring into shape whilst steaming.
8. Place the wrapped seitan in your steamer and steam for 35 minutes.
9. Remove the seitan from the foil and leave to cool completely.
10. Next, make the duxelles. Begin by melting the butter in a frying pan and adding the onion and garlic.
11. Fry those until translucent, and then add the mushrooms and parsley.
12. Fry until the mushrooms have released all their liquid and it has cooked off – 15-20 minutes. You should be left with a paste-like mixture. Season to taste and leave to cool.
Preheat your oven to 200C/400F
13. Finally, assemble the wellington. Spread a layer of the duxelles on the puff pastry (the same length and width as your seitan).
14. Place your seitan on top of the duxelles, and spread the rest of the mushrooms on top and on the sides of the seitan.
15. Wrap the wellington in the puff pastry sheet and score the top to allow air to release.
16. Brush with the melted vegan butter – this gives it the golden colour when baked.
17. Place in your preheated oven for 45-50 minutes, until the pastry is crisp and golden.
18. Serve with your preferred sides!

C.M.O.T. Dibbler’s Famous Pies! – Vegan MoFo Day 7

Anyone who knows me will know that I am a huge fan of the Discworld books, by Sir Terry Pratchett. I recently, and sadly, finished reading The Shepherd’s Crown, the final book written before Sir Terry passed away, and it’s an awful feeling to know we will never see that world again. If you’ve ever though about reading the books – don’t hesitate, go read! You will not regret it.

Food is often mentioned in the Discworld books, and one of the Disc’s most famous purveyor of food is C.M.O.T Dibbler, who’s sausages are “a once-in-a-lifetime experience” and who’s pies are “criminal”.

These pies are perhaps improved from Mr. Dibbler’s own – being quite edible and palatable (and you know where the filling comes from!) but they are my tribute to the Disc.

I made the filling from seitan and used a hot water pastry for the crust, meaning these are very durable pies so won’t fall apart if you take them on picnics or anything – perfect!

I baked these in ramekins – the recipe will make about 6 ramekin sized pies. You could make them smaller or bigger, just make the seitan mixture into smaller/bigger balls.

C.M.O.T. Dibbler's Famous Pies

• Servings: 6 pies
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Ingredients

for the filling
• 40g chickpea flour (substitute all purpose if you don’t have this)
• 220g Vital Wheat Gluten
• 15g nutritional yeast
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 1 tsp dried sage
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• Pinch nutmeg
• Pinch white pepper
• 1 tsp stock powder/1 stock cube
• 2 tsp vegan worcestershire sauce
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 400ml water

for the crust

• 500g plain flour
• 150g vegan butter
• 250ml water
• pinch salt

Directions

1. In a large bowl mix together all the dry ingredients for the pie filling. Pour in the wet, and mix until a dough is formed.
2. Knead the mix for two minutes, but not longer.
3. Form the dough into pieces slightly smaller than the ramekin you plan on baking the pies in. They will expand when steaming.
4. Wrap the pieces in foil (like a boiled sweet) and steam for 20 minutes (longer if you are making a big pie).
5. When steamed, allow to cool before making the pies.
6. Preheat the oven to 200C/390F. Grease and flour the ramekins to make sure the pastry won’t stick.
7. Make the pastry by melting together the butter and water in a saucepan, and bringing to the boil.
8. In a bowl, mix together the flour and salt. Make a well in the centre and pour over the butter/water mix.
9. Mix to form a dough, and (carefully, it’s hot!) knead for a minute with your hands.
10. Break off pieces of the pastry and press into the ramekins, lining them and forming an overlap at the rim of the ramekin.
11. Place the filling pieces in the pastry cases, trimming with a knife if necessary.
12. Once all the cases are filled, break off more pastry and press to cover the pies. Firmly pinch together the edges creating a tight seal.
13. Bake pies in a preheated oven for 30-40 minutes until the pastry is golden.
14. Either eat hot, or cold, it doesn’t matter!

Tomato & Basil Seitan Sausage (in a sandwich)! – Vegan MoFo Day 5

MoFo day 5 is all about sandwiches. Ok, I will admit that I don’t think I eat a ton of sandwiches. If I’m having bread, it’ll at most be an open-faced sandwich because, same amount of bread for twice the filling? Yes please! But then I got thinking, and, well, I like burgers and things like that, and I guess they’re technically sandwiches, right?

So here it is, this is my kind-of-burger-kind-of-sandwich sandwich. Tomato & Basil Seitan Sausage Sandwich!

I recently got Vital Wheat Gluten for the first time and have been going mad making seitan! Using the gluten makes a lovely chewy, dense mock meat and you can flavour it with whatever you like. I based my recipe off Isa’s bean and gluten sausages but adapted the flavours to make it Tomato & Basil flavoured.

Making the sausages is super easy. You just mix all the ingredients in a bowl, shape into sausage shapes, wrap in foil, steam for 40 minutes and then unwrap, and there you have sausages! Fry them off to get crisp, or put them on a barbecue if you like!

I served mine in sundried tomato cobs (recipe coming soon) with rocket (also known as argula) and a balsamic red onion mix.

Tomato & Basil Seitan Sausage Sandwiches

• Servings: makes 8 sausages
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Ingredients

For the Sausages (makes 8)
• 200g Vital Wheat Gluten
• 1 can cannellini beans, drained
• 3 heaped tbsp tomato puree
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tbsp dried basil
• 1 red onion, finely chopped
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 3 tbsp Nutritional yeast
• 250ml cold vegetable stock

For the red onions

• 2 large red onions, roughly chopped
• 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 tbsp oil

To serve

• Cobs/rolls
• Rocket/arugula

Directions

1. In a bowl, mash the beans until thoroughly mashed.
2. Add the rest of the sausage ingredients, and mix well until a dough is formed.
3. Split into 8 portions, and roll into sausage shapes.
4. Wrap each sausage securely in tin foil, leaving enough space to expand.
5. Steam for 40 minutes. You may need to do this in 2 batches is your steamer is not large enough.
6. Once the sausages are cooked, remove them from the foil, and fry in a pan until the outsides are crisp.
7. Meanwhile, make the onions. Heat the oil in a small saucepan, and fry the onions until they soften.
8. Add the balsamic vinegar and sugar to the onions, and cook 5-10 minutes.
9. Slice the sausages lengthways, and put in the cobs with the rocket, and a spoonful of onion mixture.
10. Serve and enjoy!