Seitan: a DIY

Seitan is a vegetarian protein derived from wheat.  It's actually been made for thousand(s?) of years in China by washing the starch from a wheat flour dough, leaving behind a bouncy, proteinaceous mass.  The protein can be formed into cutlets, cut or pulled into chunks, or rolled into logs or loaves.  Once you have it in the shape you want, the dough should be either simmered in a broth, steamed, or baked in the oven.  

The basic recipe is a riff on a recipe called "Seitan o greatness" that apparently made the vegetarian food blog rounds...something like 5 years ago (what can I say, I didn't really cook back then and I wasn't a vegetarian, so you wouldn't have caught me making seitan!).  

The basic recipe from Yeah, That Vegan Shit makes a large batch and calls for 1.5c of vital wheat gluten, 1/4 c. of nutritional yeast, and a variety of seasonings.  Since this was the first time I was making seitan (and since I was already itching to switch up the seasonings), I decided to make one batch divided into 3 different flavors: Italian, sage/poultry, and chorizo.  

Basic recipe:

Dry ingredients

1.5 c vital wheat gluten 

1/4 c. nutritional yeast (for umami)

1 t. salt

~2 tsp. spices

Wet ingredients

3/4 c. cold water

4 T. tomato paste

1 T. ketchup

2 T. olive oil

2 T. worcestershire or soy sauce

1-3 cloves of garlic (or include garlic powder in the dry seasonings)

So, to make my 3 mini-batches, I put 1/2 c. vital wheat gluten and a heaping tablespoon of nutritional yeast into each bowl and added the following seasonings:

Italian seasonings

Italian: 1/4 tsp smoked paprika, 1 tsp rosemary, 1-2 tsp crushed fennel seeds, 1 T. basil

Sage & seasonings

Sage/poultry: 1 tsp sage, 1/4 tsp. smoked paprika, 1-2 tsp crushed fennel seeds

Chorizo seasonings

Chorizo: 1/8 tsp smoke powder (I got this at the Spice House in Wauwatosa...it's like a powdered essence of smoke but it's really strong, so if you get this I'd advise using only a tiny bit), 1/2 tsp cumin powder, 1/4 tsp smoked paprika, 1 tsp crushed fennel seeds, 1 tsp chili flakes, 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper powder.  Note: I used sea salt because I have foolishly run out of regular salt and need to go to the store.

Once you have all the seasonings in order, mix up the dry ingredients.  

Next, mix up the wet ingredients.  I did not plan ahead, so I thought I had tomato paste and had to sub marinara sauce from a jar instead (an imperfect substitute, sure.  But it worked out okay!).  Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir around.

At this point, everything kind of clumped up, so I ditched my spoon, sprinkled in a little more cold water, and used my hand to massage the dough in the bowl and knead it until the dough had come together.

Italian-flavored dough

Sage-flavored dough

Chorizo-flavored dough

Once the dough seems to have come together, I kneaded it a little bit more and turned to the seitan log-forming.  Use two sheets of foil stacked on top of each other (according to other people who have made this, they used heavy duty foil...I only had regular, so let's see how this goes).  I plopped the dough on the foil and tightly rolled it up.  Twist the ends tight like a tootsie roll and you're good to go.

Rolled up and ready to bake!

Bake in a 325 degree oven for 90 minutes.  Yes, 90 minutes.

After about an hour, I heard a loud noise from the kitchen.  I opened the oven door to see this:
 

Whoa! How did that get over there?

 It might be hard to tell, but the chorizo roll on the right had popped open, puffing up in the process and leaping over to the side of the oven.  I put it back on the tray and figured I couldn't do anything about it, so I'd just see how it played out.

Clockwise from top left: chorizo, sage, Italian

 Once 90 minutes has elapsed, pull your seitan from the oven, open up the foil packets, and let them cool completely before slicing (okay, I couldn't quite make it to "completely cool" but I tried to wait as long as I could! The chorizo had a big crack down the middle of it but otherwise was pretty similar to the other two.

Time for a taste test!

Taste-wise: the seitan was chewy and I really liked the chorizo the best.  It was spicy but not too much so.  The sage was a bit one-note and if I knew more about what is included in poultry seasoning (or if I had had thyme...okay, I really really need to go to the store), then it might have been a bit more balanced.  The Italian was pretty good, too.

I can already see myself making this regularly: it was relatively simple, came together quickly, and the baking time is completely hands-off.  I could see taking the key spices from a multitude of cuisines and turning them into seitan flavors (in a way that real sausage doesn't necessarily lend itself to): curry powder and cumin and garam masala for Indian, steak seasonings for a beefy flavor (??), ginger and garlic and a little rice wine vinegar and hoisin for a Chinese-inspired protein...the list goes on!

What do you think: have you eaten seitan before?  Have any good ideas for seitan flavors?

Lasagna, soup style

Grocery shopping while hungry the other day, I had a craving for lasagna.  It's starting to get chilly outside at night and in the mornings, and instead of craving cold sandwiches and ice cream I want to bake bread and cook soup in a crock pot and make warm casseroles.

I'd found a recipe a long time ago for lasagna soup, and the idea has always been in the back of my head as something I wanted to try.  I made mine completely from scratch and while it took a while, most of the time is pretty passive.  Here's three ways to make it, depending on how much time you have or how skilled you are.

Lasagna soup.  Like tomato soup, but waaaaay better.

Lasagna soup, level three

3-4 big tomatoes

1 medium onion

2-3 cloves of garlic

1 cup loosely packed fresh basil leaves, divided

1 cup cottage cheese

0.5-1 cup grated parmesan

4 wide lasagna noodles

S&P

1. Heat some olive oil in a medium pot.  Finely dice the onion and throw it in the oil, cooking until it's translucent.  

2. Medium-dice the tomatoes, reserving any juices that ooze out while you chop them.  

3. Either grate the garlic cloves or finely mince them, then saute them with the onions for about a minute.  

4. Once the onions and garlic are fragrant, add the tomatoes and juices into the pot.  Turn the heat on medium-high, salt the pot liberally, and bring to a boil.  (The salt will help the tomatoes release their juices.)

5. In the meantime, finely mince half the basil.  Add to the pot, which should be very juicy.  Add about a quart of water and bring back up to a boil, then turn the heat down to a simmer.

6. Combine the cottage cheese, parmesan, and the other half of the basil (minced fine), along with some freshly-ground pepper, in a separate bowl.

7. Once the soup has simmered for about 10-15 minutes, break the lasagna noodles into pieces and add directly to the soup.  Cook until the noodles are al dente.

8. To serve: dish up the soup into a bowl and take a heavy dollop of the cheese-basil mixture in the middle of the bowl.  

Holds up surprisingly well as leftovers, too.

Not that much time?  Try it this way.

Lasagna soup, level two

1 medium onion

2-3 cloves of garlic

1 jar pasta sauce

basil, fresh or dried

cottage cheese

grated parmesan

lasagna noodles or other pasta

S&P

1. Dice the onion and saute.  Mince the garlic and saute with the onions for a minute until fragrant.

2. Add the jar of pasta sauce and 1 jar's worth of water.  Bring to a simmer.

3. Add some basil to up the flavor.

4. Make the cheese garnish as above.

5. Add the noodles to the soup and cook until al dente.

6. Serve garnished with the cheese mixture.

This version leaves out the work of fresh tomatoes, but throws in a little prep so it's half-homemade.

Used up your food budget for the month? Haven't been shopping in weeks?  Here's a pantry items-only version.

Lasagna soup, level one

1 can tomato soup

dried basil

garlic powder

noodles of choice: macaroni or shells or lasagna noodles

Optional garnish: cottage cheese, or just parmesan

1. Prepare tomato soup as directed on the package.  Add dried basil (or Italian seasoning) and garlic powder.

2. Add noodles to the soup and cook until al dente.

3. Garnish if desired/available.  Enjoy!

Honey Mustard Salad Dressing

In undergrad, the "all you care to eat" cafeteria option had lots of daily choices of entrees as well as a handy selection of desserts and baked goods.  They also had the best salad bar, with all the trimmings and tons of different salad dressings.  Most of them were gloopy and pretty gross--your generic red French dressing, thick Ranch, oily Italian straight out of the bottle...and then one gem: honey mustard dressing.

For some reason, this dressing was amazing: tangy, sweet, zippy, a little bit of a bite, strong mustard flavor.  It went well with everything, and my roommate loved it so much we would eat at the cafeteria just so she could get the honey mustard dressing.

I was making a salad for lunch today and that honey mustard dressing popped into my head.  I figured it was worth a shot to try and make it, so I pulled out a few things and whisked them together.  I couldn't have been more shocked that it was pretty spot-on!

Even if you've never had the original, this is a pretty awesome salad dressing and a great sauce for dipping veggies into.  It took about a minute to put together and I doused it all over my salad, which I am now enjoying with relish.

Honey Mustard Salad Dressing

1 T. dijon mustard (I used Grey Poupon)

1 T. honey

~1-2 t. rice wine vinegar

~1-2 T. olive oil

Whisk the mustard, honey, and vinegar together, then drizzle in the olive oil while you whisk briskly.  (Then say "whisk briskly, whisk briskly" five times fast!)  Serve on your favorite salad or dip crudites into it.

Tabbouleh, revamped

Normally, when I think of tabbouleh, I think of something that I always sort of wished I enjoyed but which in reality always kind of overwhelmed me.  Usually, the intense green flavor of the parsley and mint knocked my socks off.  It wasn't until I read a bunch of tabbouleh recipes that I realized that, actually, that was sort of the point: a punch of fresh flavor and brightness with the chewy goodness of bulgur.  Either way, tabbouleh has never been my thing (even though it always seemed just out of reach--I wanted to be cool enough to like tabbouleh!).

Tabbouleh!  Only, not as punchy.

Rewind to last Saturday: I was going to a potluck for Alice's Garden, and my plan wasn't to make tabbouleh at all. I wanted to make a broccoli slaw, something with a yogurt dressing and maybe some curry powder and dried cranberries and almonds.  Well, turns out I completely imagined buying broccoli at the store.  There was absolutely no evidence in my fridge that the purported veggie had even come near it.  So, with only a few hours to go til the potluck, I needed to reassess.  I have taken the liberty of recreating my inner monologue for your enjoyment:

What do I have on hand?  Crap, where's the broccoli?  Wasn't it right here next to the celery...wait, did I put it back?  Maybe I changed my mind...shoot, I definitely changed my mind and put it back.  Well, now what am I going to do?  No time to go to the store.  Need a new idea.  (Open cupboard.)  Umm...what do I have a lot of?  Let's see...ooh, how about this barley stuff, I haven't used that yet and I have a whole quart jar of it.  Perfect.  Uhhh...what goes well with barley?  No idea.  (Back to the fridge.)  Hmm.  Okay.  Available green stuff: celery (meh), carrots (err..), kale....hmm.  What about kale? That could work...hmmm and here's a lime...I could do a citrusy vinaigrette to go with it...okay, got it.

So that's how this tabbouleh came to be.  I've recently become really enamored with raw kale salads, so I figured that idea could work combined with cooked whole-grain barley to make a hybrid grain/green salad.

---

Recipe:  Kale and Barley Tabbouleh

Time: 1.5 hours, mostly passive

Yield: 5-6 c. salad, probably at least 8 hefty servings

1 c. whole-grain, hull-less barley (I used Bob's Red Mill from the grocery store)

3.5-4 c. vegetable broth

Combine barley and broth (or 4 c. water and some bouillon) and bring to a boil.  Cover and boil for about an hour, or until the barley is cooked.  It will be chewy and sort of pop in your mouth the way corn does when you bite it off the cob.

Cooked & drained barley.  I didn't rinse it or anything, just let
it drain in a strainer in the sink.

While the barley cooks, cut up the kale.  I used about half a bunch from the store.  It was probably 4-5 cups of greens when it was all fluffy.  Here's the secret, though: cut the kale really, really fine.  I cut it into strips about half an inch wide cross-wise, then turned my cutting board 90 degrees and did the same thing going the perpendicular way.  Then I just mowed through the kale in all directions some more until it was like kale confetti.

Barley + Kale.  This is only about a third of the kale that I used.

Once the barley is cooked, drain it and let it cool before you stir in the kale, or it will get all wilted.

Caution! Contains lime!

Now, make some dressing.  I juiced half a lime over the barley & kale, then poured on a few good glugs of olive oil (maybe 1/4 c. or so--eyeball it so it's not too greasy or anything).  Salt and plenty of pepper, and then a good stir so everything's combined.

This was really mild-tasting.  The kale wasn't too bitter or strong, and the lime wasn't too biting, either.  The barley sort of soaked up the dressing, too, so it wasn't too wet.  Overall, this was bright-tasting enough to be fresh but not too strong, such that a tabbouleh-novice like myself could handle it.

Enjoy!

Margherita pizza

I think if I had to pick one food to eat for the rest of my life, pizza would be near the top of the list.  It's versatile, you can put anything on it, and at its most basic level, you can't get any more sublime than bread and cheese.  Throw in some tangy tomato slices and some fresh basil bits and whoa.

Those red things are tomato slices, not ginormous pepperonis.

When I make pizza, I like to go ahead and make a whole pan's worth.  If I'm going to mix up the dough, grate the cheese, and prep toppings, I might as well get dinner and a couple lunches out of it.  This recipe fills up a half-sheet pan (or your basic cookie sheet).

Pizza dough

3 c. flour (I like to use 50:50 whole wheat and AP flour, or 33:67 WW:AP for a slightly lighter crust)

2 t. salt

1.5 tsp yeast

about 1 1/4 c. warm water

optional: 2 T oil, 1-2 T honey

In a bowl, mix the flour, salt, and yeast together.  Add 1 c. water and the oil & honey, if using.  Mix with a spoon or spatula until the dough forms a shaggy ball, adding more water if necessary.  Once it's kind of shaggy, start to knead with your hands.  (To save on clean-up, I use a wide bowl and just knead the dough in the bowl, rotating the bowl to get all the crumbs worked in.  I learned this tip from my mom!)  Once all the flour is incorporated, knead for about 5 minutes or longer if you want until the dough is smooth and slightly elastic and just barely tacky.  If it's too wet, work a little more flour into the dough.  If it's too dry, sprinkle on some water about 1T at a time.  Once it's kneaded, drizzle a little olive oil over the top and roll the dough in it, using the dough to spread the oil over the bowl and make sure the dough is completely covered.  Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set in a warm place to rise for a couple hours or until doubled.

Margherita Pizza

1 recipe pizza dough

cornmeal

mozzarella cheese

1 awesomely-ripe tomato

fresh basil, cut into chiffonade

parmesan cheese

Preheat the oven to 425F.  Take out your pan and sprinkle some cornmeal on it to keep the crust from sticking to the pan.  Be liberal.  Pat the dough into the pan and smush it to cover the pan.  Spread shredded mozzarella cheese to cover the surface of the dough.  I like lots of cheese, so I make sure there's thick, even coverage of the crust.  Take the tomato and use a serrated knife to make nice, thin slices--I cut mine about 1/4 " thick.  Chiffonade the basil and sprinkle it around on your cheese.  Then take your parmesan and grate it over the top of everything.  I added a pretty liberal amount of parmesan, too, because I like cheese a lot and because the parmesan helps it brown up nicely.

Bake the pizza for about 20 minutes or until the cheese is the right shade of brown for you.  Let it sit for a minute or two if you can help it, then slice and enjoy!

This is perfect for a lazy weekend day, but if you think ahead you can make it on a weeknight pretty easily, too--if you mix up the dough before you go to work/school, leave it on the counter all day, it's ready to go when you get home (in fact, that would make for a pretty airy, easy-to-crisp crust, especially if you rolled it thin with a rolling pin).

~Lindsey

Amateur Recipe Invention and Hurricane Noodles

We cook because we are hungry. It is for this reason that cooking, even at the most basic level, guarantees a sense of satisfaction. Whatever it is you cook, be it a soup or a fried egg, the end product will not only leave you fed but also with a sense that you have fed yourself. That is the fundamental. The act of creation. It is what makes cooking deeply personal. It is what makes it both endlessly rewarding and daunting.

This authorship in cooking inevitably means there is risk. Your self-esteem is on the line here. Right before I eat what I cook, my heart sinks in anxiety. I get stupid, my sympathetics go into first-world stress overdrive. The food is me, and if it is no good, neither am I, and the hours I had spent grocery shopping and dicing vegetables and adjusting heat and stirring and tweaking spices were a waste. It wrecks me. Don't get me started on how I feel when I cook for others.

It is for the moment of pure ecstasy---that food porn, imaginary camera shot in our own kitchens---that keeps us coming back with new recipes and ingredients and tools. On the flip side, there will always be those times when the stuff you cook is just bad. Blech. Bland stews. Gratuitously soy-sauced stir fries. Bone dry cakes. We've all been there. Most of the time,there's at least something to blame. Carrots just aren't for me. The recipe wasn't good. My oven thermometer is a fibbing piece of shit.

All those excuses become moot when you start from scratch. For the amateur cook, nothing feels more risky than inventing a recipe. It seems ridiculous that you would even attempt it. There are thousands of tried and true recipes that are already out there. Why even bother? What do I know? Well, I'm here to say there are lots of reasons to try and that you know more than you give yourself credit.

Reason #1 – You like food things
Jacque Pepin said that if you take a recipe someone else wrote and over time you make small adjustments to that recipe to fit your liking, that recipe is now yours. This definition of “your recipe” includes all the dishes that have been made by taking a recipe from Joy of Cooking and doubling the butter. While that may sound like L.H.O.O.Q.esque kitsch, it illustrates something important, which is to say, recipe invention happens when you take something you enjoy and combine it with more stuff you enjoy. I'd like to think that many of the gustatory combos we love today were made when some dude took a risk and made a strange combination of stuff they liked. Mint and chocolate. Tomato and cheese. Egg and paprika. If you like more than one food thing, you are on your way to inventing recipes.

Reason #2 – You already think about cooking with a critical and analytical mind
Cooking gives you freedom to eat what you want. It gives the freedom to not eat the same Subway sandwich for lunch everyday, to not pay the huge overhead cost, and to not get the teriyaki sauce that's sweeter than you'd like. You can definitely make something better.

That's pretty much the whole ball game of creating recipes: defining what you like and figuring out how to get there. But how DO you get there? Sounds tricky, like learning a new science, but you already do it all the time both purposely and accidentally. You like garlic, so you add triple garlic to your stir fries, and it's really good. You kind of burn your onions while caramelizing them, but it turns out really good in a different way. You're out of strawberry preserves so you substitute honey into your PB&J, and you have a new snack staple. You are watching out for your arteries so you use half the butter in your Alfredo sauce, and still, it's really good. You don't have bay leaves, so you leave them out of your soup, and you can't really tell the difference. You don't have baking soda so you use baking powder, and that was silly. You don't have onions so you use onion powder, and that was also really silly. Each time you have cooked, you have learned a little more about what each step does for the final product. You realize what you can leave out and what you absolutely can't. You begin to parse the flavors of a dish. You develop your palate.

Reason #3 – It's your kitchen, and you don't give a fuck
So you tried to make macaroni and cheese stuffed tomatoes, which on paper sounded awesome, but the end product was mushy red-tinted mac and cheese. Who gives a fuck! It's your kitchen. No one is judging. You are cooking for you and only you. You hold onto that fantasy of cutting into a oven roasted tomato bowl filled with creamy and crunchy macaroni and cheese that holds form for a mere moment before melting in your mouth. It's not going to be perfect the first time around. Of course it's not! There is so much to cooking and you don't know the half of it. Like me, you're a pretty big noob, but you're dish is going places, and even though it isn't THE divine macaroni and cheese stuffed tomato, it's still macaroni and cheese with tomatoes, and that's still pretty fucking great. Drizzle on some hot sauce, mix in a slice of butter, smile like a fatty, and try again tomorrow.

Aaand the recipe – Hurricane Noodles, aka miso chili noodles with basil

Here's a recipe I've made recently using the amateur principles I've outlined above. Cooped up waiting for Hurricane Irene to strike, I decided to cook what might have been … my last meal. I was craving both miso soup and bean and tomato chili, stuff I've cooked before. I thought, why not, let's combine them. And what the hell, chickpeas are awesome, and so is ginger, and so is teriyaki sauce, and so is Sriracha, and so is that Korean hot pepper paste (gochujang), and so is beer, and so is fresh basil, and hey, why not some noodles, because noodles make everything awesome. Sounding pretty good. (It's also vegan if you use miso without fish.) Let's do it.

INGREDIENTS
4 tbsp olive oil
1 pound extra firm tofu, pressed and diced into ½ inch cubes
½ medium Vidalia onion, diced
6 cloves ginger, minced
1 tbsp ginger, minced
5 dried shitake mushrooms, soaked for at least 4 hours and then diced

Powders – mix well beforehand
2 tbsp Chipotle chili powder
2 tbsp miso soup powder mix (powder called for 1 tbsp per 3 cups of water for miso soup)
2 tbsp ground cumin
1 tbsp all-purpose flower
1 tsp fresh ground pepper
1 tsp granulated sea salt

Teriyaki sauce – mix well beforehand
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp Sriracha sauce
1 tbsp Korean hot pepper paste (gochujang)
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp mirin
1 tbsp rice wine vinegar
4 tbsp cold water

1 can (14.5oz) diced tomatoes
3 oz tomato paste
1 can (15.5oz) chickpeas, drained and rinsed

1 bottle Magic Hat #9 (or whatever beer you think would be good)

½ pound somen noodles (or whatever noodles you like), cooked according to package directions
a few handfuls of basil, chiffonade-ed
a bunch of scallions, chopped

METHOD
In a large pot, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat and fry the tofu until golden.

Add onions and cook for about 5 minutes.

Add garlic and ginger and mushrooms. Cook for another 30 seconds.

Add in all the powders and stir until even distributed.

Add in teriyaki sauce. Stir well.

Add in half bottle of Magic Hat #9. Drink the rest. Bring pot to boil.

Add tomatoes, tomato paste, and chickpeas. Stir. Bring back to a boil. Then immediately bring back down to a simmer and COVER. Leave it for at least 2 hours, stirring every half hour or so.

Remove chili from heat (or continue simmering, since the longer the better, but you're starving by now). Adjust seasoning.

In an appropriately sized bowl, toss together the chili and noodles. Divide into individual portions. Top with basil and scallions.



And that's it. The dish turned out a little spicier than I expected, and more ginger would've been good, and my basil was a little old, but you know what? A lot of it was fantastic. The miso really comes out and works well to balance the heat and makes the chili so, so hearty. The mix of different spiciness along with the teryaki makes for a chili that is sweet, tangy, smoky, and rich. The tofu absorbs all this and makes the texture of the dish a bit creamy, and the mushrooms give a meaty bite. The basil is absolutely critical with its crunch and lemony and peppery aromatics that combines perfectly with the sweet and sour chili. The noodles and tomatoes serve their tried and true role of bringing everything together. I came away from this first attempt proud and elated and begged my roommate to eat some even though he was already stuffed from free med school pizza. And next time it will only be better.

title image from http://hoosonline.virginia.edu/atf/cf/%7B7A479B31-0AD7-4154-814C-2C6C72C03E93%7D/Jessica%20Tabacca%20-%20My%20Cooking%20Disaster.JPG