Teriyaki Seitan

This past weekend was the DISKovery Holiday Potluck.  It was nice to socialize with all of the awesome people who help keep our computer lab running and who make use of the classes and public computer access.  I finally was able to get my grandma's recipe for teriyaki marinade, so I felt it was time to make some serious teriyaki seitan.

Teriyaki Seitan

2 lbs seitan (or however much you want.  I used homemade, but any fake beefy seitan would work well)
1/2 cup sugar
2/3 cup good strong soy sauce
2 T sake, sherry, or vodka (I used vodka)
1/2 t salt
2 t grated fresh/frozen ginger
1 clove minced garlic
green onion

Mix up the marinade and let the seitan soak up the tastiness for at least 3 hours, but the longer, the better. I fried up the slices of seitan along with some onion, carrot, and edamame.

I think many of the potluck attendees did not know this was fake meat when they tried it, but they really enjoyed it and all of the seitan was gone by the end of the party!  I love sharing tasty food with people, and I'm so glad that this turned out well.  My grandma is awesome, what can I say?

The sauce/marinade is very gingery and garlicky, and the sugar carmelizes when you cook the seitan.  Om nom nom.

I also made a couple of batches of gifflar filled with apples and apple butter.  Ahh I'm almost getting tired of baking and cooking.  After the holidays, maybe it'll be time to take a break and just eat french fries.

Vegan MoFo: Thanksgiving Catch Up

Thanksgiving was relaxing and fun.  This year and the last, we hosted Thanksgiving at our little apartment with a few friends.  

A tomato waiting to be sliced up for the salad.  No one ate the salad, except for me and the boy I guess.  Vegetables are delicious, what are people thinking? ;P

I made a quick agave and sesame oil dressing to go along with it.

Spinach and almonds and tomatoes and carrots and thin slices of cucumber!

Next, the cider.

Stash Tea (hometown awesomeness) packages mulling spices.  I wouldn't have bought it, but it was a gift and leftover from last year.  We added it to the cider and brewed it for several hours.  Very tasty.

Mullin' over.

I made a seitan roast, but I only took photos of its making.  Here is the dough after kneading #1.

And the basting broth.  Mm full of paprika and sage and garlic.

I also made the butternut squash dish from Veganomicon.  So good!  I made it with filberts instead of pricey chestnuts.

And homemade cranberry sauce...

The boy made apple pie and apple crisp in addition to my pumpkin cheesecake, which he said tasted like malt.  Hmm, I didn't see that but hey, whatever, it was good and the other cheesecake lover at the party approved.  It's a win in my book.

We spent the evening doing three things: consuming food, consuming cozy beverages, and playing Rockband.  Is there a better way to celebrate our thanks for harvests and plenty?  I think not.

Seitan Bao

Bao are (typically) steamed and (usually) savory pastries.  You find them served with other dim sum treats, or as to-go food from Asian markets.  You can also find them frozen.  My grandparents used to bring packets full of perfect, round teriyaki-filled bao.  They would cut open the ten-times-taped cooler and unearth their gifts from Hawaii: bouquets of orchids from their yard, lau lau, leis, sometimes poi.

I think a lot of vegans try to pretend that they don't remember the meaningful moments they had before they stopped eating animal products (and most vegans aren't lifelong, so they do have memories of "preganity").  It is delusional to think that the family meals and treats from grandpa were shameful and cruel or that "missing" those memories of spending time with family is somehow a betrayal of principle.  I think it is okay to miss those things.  I miss raving about my grandma's ultra-amazing teriyaki.  I miss Christmas cookies.  I miss not having to make everything myself, getting to share.  My family puts a lot of effort and love into their food; I know it hurts them when I reject their slabs of meat - and I know that I can't control what they feel.  I know it offends them when I "veganize" recipes.

I'm not trying to recreate family recipes and memories by making old favorites into vegan versions.  I'm just trying new things.  I want to make things that I can share with my omnivorous family...  I wish they would see that I'm not trying to convert them or threaten them.  It would be nice to have everything normalized someday...   Does anyone else have trouble with their omnivorous families?  What do you do to normalize things with your family?  I hate having them step on eggshells, so to speak :P

Now, a recipe.

Seitan Bao, dough based on this recipe from the LA Times

1.5 t rapid / instant yeast
3/4 c lukewarm water
2 T canola oil
2 T sugar
2 t baking powder
2 T nutritional yeast
3 c flour

Filling
1.5 c chopped or ground seitan (should be finely chopped)
3 T soy sauce
1/2 T agave
1 T sesame oil
1 t garlic salt
1/4 t ground ginger

Soften yeast in the water, then add oil, sugar, and nutritional yeast.  Sift in the baking powder and flour.  Knead until elastic, not sticky, adding extra flour if necessary.  Let rise 30-45 minutes.

While the dough is rising, make the filling: combine the soy sauce, agave, oil, salt, and ginger in a small bowl.  Add the chopped seitan and toss until seitan is coated.

When dough is done rising, punch down and then divide into 12-16 balls.  Knead balls into rounds - these should be about the same diameter as your palm, and the edges should be thicker than the center.  Place seitan in the dough, then wrap and crimp around it.  I don't have the technique down on this yet, but when I do, I'll post with pictures :P  Cut out squares of parchment paper and then put the balls on them.  Let rise for 20 minutes.

Heat up a steamer (or do like I did and use a colander, a pot, and a lid).  After their second rise, place the bao in the steamer (with a bit of space between them as they will puff out a bit).  Steam for 15 minutes.

Enjoy.

Sourdough

Last weekend (and again this week, and again) I made Alton Brown's "sourdough" recipe.  You bake it in a dutch oven...or a pot with a lid.  Then you remove the lid and let the crust get crispy!

Out of the pot...

It crackled as it cooled, its crust settling.  Sliced open, it revealed its moist, pocketed texture:

This week (unphotographed, it was late!) I also made a whole wheat version of this recipe...doubled and cooked in a much larger steel pot.  It was much softer than its AP flour cousin, and it was also VERY salty...nearly too salty.  This recipe is a step in the right direction when it comes to crusty, artisan loaves...but I think it still needs a bit of something...and less salt.

I also made some seitan cutlets ala Bryanna Clark Grogan's seitan turkey roast recipe.  I decided to make them into little cutlets, however, to make it a bit easier to freeze.  The texture wasn't as fabulous as it was on the full size roast, but this could have been to my lazy kneading as much as to the size of the cutlets.

Mmm wheat meat.

At the farmer's market, we bought some big ol' onions.  The tops of the onions were too pretty to toss, so I chopped up a couple.

And threw them in a stirfry with seitan, butternut squash, a bit of bok choy...

And put in too much sauce for my boy's taste.  I like mushroom sauce, okay?!

He's also not a fan of sweet + savory, which the butternut and soy/mushroom sauce does with gusto.  But my point is that onion tops are super tasty.

Anyhow, looking forward to another weekend of cooking.  Tomorrow I'll post about the tasty beefy seitan and barley soup the boy made this week... so good!