Dragonfly's Vegan Ribs
2 cups vital wheat gluten
2 tablespoons vegan beef broth
1 tablespoon tomato flavored bouillon
1 7/8-2 cups water
2-3 tablespoons raw tahini
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast (I use KAL)
unbleached flour, for dusting
vegan BBQ sauce, to serve
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F, and grease a cookie sheet. Mix the gluten with the broth and bouillon. Using a fork, make a well in the center and add the water all at once. (Add more if you live in a dry area, less of you don't, hence the different amount.) Mix fast, rapidly encorporating all the gluten. Mix in nutritional yeast.
2. Dust a flat surface, dust your hands and lightly dust the gluten lump. Knead until rubbery and smooth. Use more flour if you need to. Flatten the gluten out with the tips of your fingers. Melt the tahini in the microwave or on the stove. You want it to be smooth, slightly warm and easy to spread. Using just your fingertips, poke the melted tahini into the surface of the gluten.
3. Turn over the gluten and repeat. It won't actually knead into the gluten, but will work in a bit and sit on the surface. Slice the gluten into strips. The thicker the strip, the chewier the rib, the thinner the crispier. Put the strips on prepared sheet and bake for about 10-15 minutes.
4. When the under side is golden, flip them over and bake some more. You want a crispy product. They should puff up at first and flatten as they are browning up. You can add sauce to each side as they are browned up, or add it at the end. We like a small amount of sauce, but you can drench yours, if you like.
These are a homemade version of the non-vegan rib mixes you can buy at the HFS (they require butter). That, and it is a much larger quantity. I have four girls who can eat them all by themselves. I have to triple the batch when my grown sons are here. Those boxes should be out of reach price wise. We eat these every Friday or there is a general household revolt.
Enjoy!
SO HOW'D IT GO?
I once used flour in with the wheat gluten for the same reason, different recipe tho, but the resulting product altho nice did also have a bready thing going on, i think you should always add the liquid slowly with seiten, and if you do put too much water in add extra nutritonal yeast and wheat gluten and NOT flour....keep trying, ive had some brilliant recipes ive created with seiten. It will get there in the end i promise ;D
I don't know if I did something wrong or what, but I was disappointed with these. It was like eating rubbery bread with bar-b-q sauce on it. It was too wet, so I worked some flour into it. Could i have put too much water in the first place? then too much flour?? I've about given up on seitan; this was my 2nd time trying to make it and both times it was almost inedible.
Have been wanting to make these, but have questions. Is the broth liquid or powder? And the tomato bouillon, liquid or powder? Is there a substitute for the bouillon, as I don't have any and am not sure where to get that? Thanks!
Everybody liked these so much, that I was really excited to make them. It was also my first time with seitan. Well.....I just really didn't like them at all. Very rubbery. I have no idea if I did something wrong or what. I did noticed that the thinnest ones were best, but I found it practically impossible to make thin slices as the dough was just too doughy. I used the full amount of water...maybe too much? I did noticed that they didn't puff up a lot in the oven as they were cooking, like some others mentioned. I used "gluten flour" which I posted about in Q&A and I've been assured it is the same as vital wheat gluten. I've still got the leftovers in the fridge, determined not to let them be wasted. Perhaps the sandwich idea can salvage this?
thank you for making my first attempt at homemade seitan a good one. I love the tahini. some ribs managed to survive for 5 days and then went bad. (weren't in the fridge, though.) when they're cooled, they're like jerky! yum. at first, the gluten wasn't soaking up the water; it just got waterlogged, like a sponge leaking water. so, I kept adding whole wheat flour, probably two cups in all, and kneaded like mad until it finally became more like a dough. the end result was heaven.
the thin ones were much better tasting than the thicker ones, so i think next time i'll just make them all very thin. i ate these like there was no tomorrow... then i came home drunk that night and ate them cold on whole wheat bread with some dijon mustard and avocado. i did, however, forget to put the nutritional yeast in until after i had them in the oven, so i sprinkled some on top when they were finished. i'm sure they would be even better with the NY inside!~
These were so amazing!! I can't give enough praise. They were even better the next night sliced thinly on sandwiches (crusty bread, tomatoes, and lots of veganaise).
If you add a couple tablespoons of whole wheat flour, it will soften the batch slightly-- at least that's what happens when I poach it.
I made these again and added a couple teaspoonfuls of jerk spice paste along with the liquid. If you like spicy food, it's a really worthwhile modification-- make sure your daubing/basting sauce is compatible!
Wow, what a great idea! I've tried seitan recipes before... but they've always been either too chewy or too gooey. I LOVE this one!
I added 1 tbsp of Dr. Fuhrman's veggie zest seasoning, 1 veggie bouillion cube and 1 tbsp of red pepper to the gluten before mixing in the water. And you are right - just a little sauce makes it taste amazing. And I stretched and kneaded between my fingers each piece of seitan before laying it in the pan. It came out with a great texture! Crunchy on the outside and textured and spicy on the inside. I cooked them until they almost burned. Perfect!
My husband thought these were still chewy - and prefers Gardenburger's Riblets. (And I think the riblets are too soft and gooey!) Does anybody have a softer gluten recipe that I can try for him?
Great recipe!
These are luscious and such a fast way to make a tasty seitan! I'm going to be eating these once or twice a week. They're addictive... I may have to make half batches, as my husband and I could not leave them alone and kept bringing each other "just one more" all evening (there's just the two of us.) Don't leave out the tahini... it gives these a richness and a very authentic-rib kind of texture in the bite and it smells so heavenly while they're baking.
I gave these a try last night to complement leftover blackeyed peas and mustard greens. Made some coleslaw and had a real comfort food extravaganza! I'm a lots-of-sauce person but I merely daubed one side of these with a 50/50 mix of commercial barbecue sauce and tomato puree, and they turned out so delicious I couldn't bear to smother them in more. Mmm!
The recipe makes four WHOPPING servings, and I can see that it could easily feed six. It fed us at dinner, was the treat we were nibbling all evening, and will be a part of lunch today.
My oven is being chancy ever since I cleaned it (although I think it's finally fixed as of last night!) so I don't know if it's to blame, but the cooking times needed to make the "ribs" golden and crunchy/chewy were about 10 minutes longer per side than listed-- no biggie, as I was not in any rush.
The whimsical part of me wants to twist loooong triangles of this into "wing" shapes and use Buffalo Wing sauce on them after they're crisp/chewy. Is that perverse of me?
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