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.

What could be better on a cold winter night than hot Cajun? This month, our certified cook Chris Perrin offers his recipe for a Seitan Jambalya to warm you from the inside out! When he’s not feeding veg*n goodies to us here, Chris writes for BIAO Magazine, food-blogs at Blog Well Done, and is working on his own vegan cookbook. Enjoy!   ~ Jen

Seitan Jambalaya

I have been on a real Cajun kick recently and for some reason, I cannot seem to stop making jambalaya. Since I’ve made it a habit to share my culinary obsessions on DomestikGoddess.com, I see no reason not to talk jambalaya! So today, we are headed to the bayou, but it will be a vegan bayou, thanks to our good friend seitan.

Still, the key to making this dish work, though, is not my favorite use for wheat gluten, but rather liquid smoke. Traditionally, most Cajun food is made with andouille, a smoked sausage, which blesses whatever it is cooked in with a slightly smoky flavor. Until we can find a good source of ready-made smoked seitan, we need to fake that andouille flavor and liquid smoke is just the thing to do it. Still be careful with it. Liquid smoke is potent stuff and a little bit goes along way.

Ingredients:

Photo: RBerteig

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 package commercial seitan
1 teaspoon liquid smoke
1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon black pepper
1 onion, diced
3 stalks of celery, diced
1 green pepper, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup, white rice or cooked brown rice
1/2 can of tomato sauce
1 teaspoon cayenne
2 cups veggie stock
Salt to taste

Add the olive oil to a skillet and let it get warm. Add the seitan, 1 tablespoon of black pepper, and the liquid smoke and cook, stirring occasionally, until the seitan browns. This should take about 3 minutes.

Remove the seitan. Add the onions, celery, green peppers, and garlic. Cook until the onions are soft, about 5 minutes.

Add the rice and toast for a minute. Then add the tomato sauce, cayenne pepper, and the remaining black pepper and continue cooking for another 2 minutes. Finally, add the veggie stock and cook covered for 25 minutes or until the rice is cooked and has absorbed all the liquid.

After the rice is done, add the seitan back to the dish and stir to incorporate. Cook until the seitan is warm, about 3 minutes.

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.

We’re into the season of veggie harvest and hearty soups! Food writer Chris Perrin brings two new vegetarian recipes to the table (haha!) to keep good company with your soup bowl… If you’ve been following his tasty contributions here each month, you’ll know that Chris has a cook’s certification from the Kansas City Culinary Institute, writes for BIAO Magazine, food-blogs at Blog Well Done, and is working on his own vegan cookbook. Enjoy!   ~ Jen

Pumpkin Panini and Apple-Seitan Sandwich

Despite the fact it signals the end of the growing season, Fall is the time for one last culinary celebration. Gone are the spring vegetables, the tomatoes, and the peaches. Still, every autumn, the Earth erupts forth in a great bounty of fruits and vegetables in such great quantities that the ground must know it will produce nothing for the next five or six months.

Okay, that might be a little overly dramatic, but how else can you explain the flood of apples, cranberries, pumpkins, squash, and other gourds that invade grocery stores across the country every October? The problem, though, is that most of Fall foods are usually thought of as desert (pumpkin pie) or are much maligned (cranberry “sauce” from a tin can.) Even the most inventive thing done with the mighty apple tends to be chopping it up and throwing it into a salad.

Photo: jslander

That all changes today. Today, we are going to elevate Fall fare into the fantastic. We are going to make sandwiches! (And they’re going to be veg friendly, too.)

Pumpkin Panini

Pumpkin is a nutritious vegetable that really does not get the credit it deserves as a savory ingredient. When roasted it has a satisfying, meaty flesh that has a subtle earthy flavor and is not nearly as sweet as you might think. This particular sandwich is paired with good mozzarella cheese, sun dried tomatoes, and basil for a pumpkiny twist on an Italian favorite.

• 1 small sugar pie pumpkin or about a pound of regular pumpkin
• 6 tablespoons olive oil
• 16 sundried tomatoes
• 12 basil leaves
• 1 loaf of vegan bread, cut into half inch slices
• 4 tablespoons of vegenaise or mayonnaise
• 1 medium tomato, sliced thinly
• 1 cup of shredded mozzarella (vegan or regular)

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.

Prepare the Pumpkin

Wash the outside of the pumpkin thoroughly and pat dry. Cut into quarters and remove the seeds and stem. Coat with 3 tablespoons of olive oil and season lightly with salt and pepper.

Bake the pumpkin for forty minutes or until fork tender. Remove and set aside to cool. Once cool, cut into thin slices roughly the same width as the tomato. You may choose to remove the pumpkin’s peel or leave it on as you choose.

Make the Spread

As the pumpkin is roasting, prepare the sun dried tomato mix. The idea is to have a chunky spread, not a sauce. To make it, put the sun dried tomatoes, two tablespoons of the tomatoes’ oil, and the basil into a food processor and pulse. Add the olive oil one tablespoon at a time until it reaches a consistency you like.

Make the Panini

Construct the sandwiches by taking a slice of bread and spreading a tablespoon of vegenaise on one side and a quarter of the shredded cheese on the other. Starting this way will help to water proof the bread for the cooking ahead.

Stack the pumpkin, one-quarter of the sun dried tomato spread, and two slices of tomatoes on the cheese side in that order. Sprinkle a little kosher salt on the tomato and top with the other slice of bread.

Finally, to make this a panini, pull out a skillet and coat in a bit of your favorite nonstick cooking spray or olive oil. When the pan gets hot, put two sandwiches on it and press them with a second skillet or a cookie sheet weighted down with cans. Cook this way for two minutes, then flip sandwiches and cook them weighted down for two more minutes. If the mozzarella is not fully melted, put the sandwich in the oven for a few minutes.

Serve with pumpkin bisque for an awesome pumpkin meal.

Apple/Seitan Sandwiches

Photo: mharvey75

Many years ago, before I stopped eating meat, my friend V introduced me to this sandwich, which she made using good mild summer sausage. I have changed it to use seitan, my favorite of the vegan “faux meat” products.

• 1 package store bought seitan
• 2 tablespoons sausage spice mix or 1 tablespoon each of black pepper and thyme and a pinch of red chili flake
• ½ cup of Dijon mustard
• ½ cup of apple cider vinegar
• Hard rolls or French bread cut into quarter inch slices
• 1 apple, cut into long slices
• 4 slices Swiss cheese (vegans: use vegan parmesan)

The first thing to do is change the flavor profile of the seitan slightly. Because seitan is an Asian dish, it is normally flavored with soy sauce, but that flavor can be lessened by boiling the seitan. Also, boiling tends to soften seitan and make it easier to chew.

To do this, bring a pot of water to boil. Use water, not broth, but flavor the water with sausage spice mix. Boil the seitan for about 5 minutes. Take it out of the water and bring back to room temperature.

While the seitan is cooling, mix the mustard and the cider vinegar in a bowl with a whisk.

Construct the sandwiches by covering the bottom of a roll or a piece of bread with seitan and adding a piece of cheese, a few slices of apple, and topping with the mustard/vinegar mix.

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.

Chris Perrin so outclasses me in the kitchen… He’s a columnist for BIAO Magazine, writes on food for KC Generations and KC Wellness magazine, and — starting next week — he’ll be flaunting his kitchen skillz on the Well Fed Network, at Grows & Grocers, Paper Palate, and EdibleTV. Chris has a cook’s certification from the Kansas City Culinary Institute and (wouldn’t you know it?) he’s working on a vegan cookbook exploring the mysteries of seitan. Heh. If he keeps this up, we’ll all be eating healthy — and loving it!
Enjoy!   ~ Jen

Many people have never heard of seitan, one of the more versatile vegan meat substitutes. Sometimes called wheat meat or Buddha food, it is formed by taking the gluten (proteins) from milled wheat, kneading it with water, and simmering the resulting dough in broth. Oh, and it is pronounced “SAY-tan” like everyone’s favorite Biblical bad boy. Which means I get a lot of weird looks when I start saying how awesome it is.

But the thing is, seitan (the food, not the archdemon) is a fantastic go-to ingredient for everyone because it’s high in protein, low in fat and if cooked properly, it has a texture and flavor very much like meat. Which is why I used it to make gyros when I was craving Greek.

Mediterranean restaurants are often vegfriendly and while I love hummus, dolmades and falafel, I often find myself sitting next to people blissfully munching on meat-stuffed gyros and I wanted some! This recipe was the result. It is a great meal to prepare the night before and take for lunch the next day. Even better, for picky children, quickly stuff the seitan inside a pita and top with salsa or hummus. They’ll never know the difference.

Seitan Gyros

Photo: iLoveButter

1 package of seitan
1 cup of broth (optional)
3 ounces of olive oil, preferably Greek
½ teaspoon of oregano, preferably Greek
¼ teaspoon of thyme
1 clove of garlic, minced
½ teaspoon of white pepper
1 lime, juiced
Salt to taste

Some seitan is sold as stir fry strips which are about an eighth of an inch thick. If you can’t find stir fry strips, cut your seitan into one-eighth thick inch pieces. This will allow the seitan to cook completely and feel more like meat.

Next, anytime I cook seitan, I like to simmer it for 5-10 minutes before sautéing or frying it. I find that it makes the seitan less firm and again makes it feel more like real meat.

Lastly, preheat a skillet over high heat, then add olive oil. Wait until the olive oil is blazing hot before adding all of the ingredients except the lime juice and the salt. Sauté the seitan until it is well browned on both sides. Add the lime juice and cook for another thirty seconds, then check for salt. It may need a pinch or two, especially if the broth was low sodium.

Serve with whole wheat pita, hummus and salsa that has been kicked up with roasted red peppers and a little more olive oil and you’ll never miss the fact that you’re not eating meat.

Need a quick meal?

A number of companies are turning seitan into really good cold cuts, but they tend to be dry. For those not willing to slather their sandwiches in mayonnaise or mustard, Lightlife has a product called Fakin’ Bacon Organic Smoky Tempeh Strips made from tempeh (a soy-based protein.) Lightlife says they are supposed to replace bacon, but their deeply smoky flavor and elegant sauce propel them far past mere bacon. Put them on a sandwich, add a little mayonnaise, tomato, and lettuce and you have an instantly delicious BLT.

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.