Mmmm… Chris Perrin is back this month with his recipe for Braised Asian Lemon Seitan to make you tastebuds do a Happy Dance, while you feel all healthy and full of nutritional virtue! When our favourite certified cook isnt busy serving up veg*n goodies at DomestikGoddess.com, Chris writes for BIAO Magazine, food-blogs at Blog Well Done, and is working on his own vegan cookbook. Enjoy!   ~ Jen

Braised Asian Lemon Seitan

Braising is one of my favorite cooking techniques. It’s a wonderful way to get a bunch of flavor into a dish and it’s really simple. The good news is that seitan, my favorite vegan meat replacement, with its firm texture, stands up to braising extremely well. In fact, a good braise can loosen the sietan, make it more receptive to the juices you’re cooking it in, and improve the overall texture.

For those not familiar with the term braising, it means cooking food partially submerged in a flavorful liquid. The most important part is the “partially submerged”. The food is not completely covered by cooking liquid (that’s boiling or stewing). Instead, the food is usually covered half way so that the bottom is in the liquid, while the top is exposed to the air. The second most important part is “flavorful liquid” because whatever you are cooking will absorb the tastes of the liquid in which it’s cooked. Good braising liquid makes for a great braised dish. We’re going to use that to our advantage!

Photo: moria

Ingredients

3 tablespoons olive oil (divided)
1 package seitan
1 lemon, juiced and zested
6 green onions
1 medium onion, diced
1 green pepper, diced
1 carrot, diced
2 tablespoons low sodium soy sauce or tamari
1 tablespoon dark soy sauce (can substitute regular)
1 tablespoon Sichuan bean paste
8 tablespoons broth*

*Depending on the size of your pot, you may need more or less broth. The key is that the food is only covered halfway with liquid.

Put two tablespoons of olive oil in a high sided skillet over high heat and wait for the oil to get hot. Add the seitan and lemon juice and cook 5-6 minutes per side. Sauteing the seitan first gives it a better flavor and improves the texture after the braise. Remove the seitan from the pan and set aside.

Cut the greens of the green onions into 2 inch pieces and finely slice the whites of the green onions.

Put the final tablespoon of olive oil in the skillet, turn down the heat to medium-high, and let it get hot. Once hot, add the diced onions, green pepper, carrot, and the whites of the green onion. Saute until the green onions turn soft, maybe 5-6 minutes. Then add the green onion and cook for 30 seconds.

Add the soy sauce, dark soy sauce, bean paste, lemon zest, and the seitan. Then start adding the broth. You should need about 8 tablespoons, but pour slowly to make sure the food is only half covered. Mix well.

Cover the skillet and let the liquid come to a boil. Cook uncovered for 3-4 minutes after that and then flip. Cook for another 3-4 minutes.

Serve in a nice bowl over rice or noodles and enjoy!

For more of what is going in Chris’ lunchbox, on his dinner table, and on his party menus, as well as thoughts on food and culture, food in the media, and even the occasional recipe featuring meat, check out Chris’ food blog, Blog Well Done.

Sometimes you just need to bake up a fancy treat in a hurry, right?

Well, here’s a recipe that’s bailed out this disorganized cook more than once! In fact, just this past week I managed to forget all about our beekeepers’ potluck supper until that very day… and hadn’t been to the grocery store, so there wasn’t a big choice of exotic ingredients in the pantry.

Jelly cakes to the rescue!

p.s. If you’re wondering about my battered old mini-muffin pans — those were a great frugal find, picked up for mere pennies when a local cooking school yard-saled their old kitchen gear!

And now, on to the recipe…

Lemon Jelly Cakes

¾ cup butter
¾ cup sugar
1 beaten egg
1 Tbsp lemon juice
pinch of salt
1½ cups flour
jam or jelly

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Cream together butter and sugar. Add the beaten egg, lemon juice, salt, and flour.

Shape 1 slightly rounded teaspoon of the dough into (greased and floured) miniature cupcake tins.

Make a dent and fill with jelly.

Bake about 12 minutes at 350°F, watching after 10 minutes to make sure that the cakes don’t get brown. Cool slightly before removing from the tins.

Tips:

• One teaspoon of dough doesn’t sound like much, but take my word for this! It’s important not to use too much dough — each muffin cup should be no more than one-third full, because these will rise a great deal.
• Grape jelly or high-bush cranberry jelly are my favourites, because they’re not overly sweet and have a good strong flavour to balance out the lemon cake part — but a nice strawberry jam is a good alternative, too.

Cindy has a lovely lemon theme going on in her “Romantic Home” and has shared some photographs of her favourite pieces.

I’m equally charmed by her pretty white three-tiered serving dish (Cindy heaps it with realistic-looking faux lemons and limes in the summertime) — and this kitchen chalkboard, made by her father and crowned with a lemon garland.

Look at the way the tendrils of the vine pick up on that fine detail on the corners of the frame. Perfect, isn’t it?

It’s more common to see apples or strawberries for a fruit theme in home decor, here in Canada, but those happy lemons do give a bright “twist” (forgive the pun!) to a refreshing blue-and-white colour scheme…

Really, you have two main style choices in going for a lemon theme, both equally attractive but in different moods. Go bright and bold — or subtle and nostalgic —

This lemon switchplate (Stowe Craft Design) shows the bold option — strong clear colours, with a Deflt or cobalt blue and true lemon yellow as the accents against a relatively pure bright white, the lines clearly defined and the lemons in a stylized form…

Or try the same three colours — white, blue, and yellow — toned down for more of a feeling of French Country Antique, as in this La Frutta lemon print fabric for window treatments and table linens.

Either way, lemons make an easy light-hearted theme that wears well from season to season. In summer, keep it spare and clean — like Cindy’s white bowl of fruit. In winter, play up those lemons with a shot of antique gold or rich burgundy against a warm creamy white, nestled among evergreen boughs on a mantelpiece or as a luscious tabletop arrangement to welcome guests.