Seitan Holiday Roast
[u]Seitan Roast[/u]
2 cups vital wheat gluten
2 tablespoons unbleached flour
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1 tablespoon rosemary, or to taste
1 tablespoon sage, or to taste
1 tablespoon thyme, or to taste
1-1/2 cups vegetable broth
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 celery stalk, minced
1/8 small onion, minced
2 tablespoons vegan Worcestershire sauce
1 to 2 cloves garlic, minced [u]Broth[/u]:
2 cups vegetable broth
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 celery stalk, minced
1/8 small onion
2 tablespoons vegan Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon rosemary, or to taste
1 tablespoon sage, or to taste
1 tablespoon thyme, or to taste
1 tablespoon liquid smoke
1. Seitan Roast: In a bowl, combine the vital wheat gluten, flour, yeast, rosemary, sage, and thyme. In another bowl, combine the vegetable broth, soy sauce, celery, onion, Worcestershire sauce, and garlic.
2. Slowly combine the wet into the dry ingredients, kneading as you go. Knead for at least 2 minutes, and then divide into two small roasts. Put the roasts into a 1-1/2 quart baking dish.
3. Broth: In a bowl, whisk together the vegetable broth, soy sauce, celery, onion, Worcestershire sauce, rosemary, sage, thyme, and liquid smoke. Pour half of the broth into the baking dish with the roasts.
4. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 25 minutes. At this point, most of the broth will have evaporated. (I cut my roasts into slices before i baked the second time. This allowed the juices to really get in and marinade the roast.)
5. Pour in the second half of the broth over the roast and bake 20 to 25 minutes at 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Serve warm.
Variation: Cut up baby potatoes to bake with the roasts.
Source of recipe: i opted to get my hands wet and create a homemade 'faust' this year for the holidays. it was the first time i ever worked with seitan, and i think it turned out pretty well.
SO HOW'D IT GO?
I made this a few months ago and wasn't that pleased with it. I had to slice then fry it in a pan to make it not so soggy and then it was too chewy. I did a few things this time around and it came out great!
1) the less you knead it, the less chewy it is (I did some research on this)
2) I made the roast thinner to help it cook through more
3) At the half way point, I cut it into quarters and then placed the roast pieces on top of the veggies to help cook the bottom while still letting the veggies soak up the juices and keep enough juice for serving
With these changes it came out great!
....
Oh, I forgot, I added half the nooch the recipe called for as well. These are incredibly juicy! I must fry them up for sandwiches soon.
I made a fair number of changes but nothing crazy. I cut down on the amount of soy sauce and spices as well as some cooking time changes:
I used 1/4 of the soy sauce and subbed for water. for each part of the recipe. Maybe even less. I wouldn't recommend this to anybody using non-salted broth but I certainly did not do that.
I added about 2 tablespoons cashew butter and that meant they definitely needed kneading longer than 2 minutes otherwise they would be grainy.
I made a double batch, which divided into 4 roasts.
I used veggie broth for the seitan part and not chick'n broth for the broth.
I wrapped the roasts in cheese cloth tightly for the entire baking time.
Cooked them for about twice as long: ~30 minutes the first time around (with lots of peeking and a second thermometer to make sure my lying oven was doing it right), then added more liquid and let it go another ~20 minutes then flipped them. Then finished them off with another ~25 minutes to get them roasted a little. I did not cut them up to get the pieces roasted because of the cheese cloth.
I did not add all of the cooking liquid as per gut feeling for the second part.
I flipped them halfway through cooking.
when I make these again, and damn I will make them again, I will use less of the sage, thyme and rosemary and add more potatoes and carrots to the roasting set-up. Otherwise I am terribly proud of how these turned out and they cost me around $5 to make! They browned up so well. I fed them to 11 people.
I haven't made this one yet, but reading the reviews I have some ideas. I think I may change the recipe a bit. I made a "seitan roast" one time that din't cook in a broth, but instead was shaped into a log and then wrapped in tin foil air tight then baked. I may try that instead, and use the broth from this recipe as a gravy. Sounds really good though.
From Miss V:
"i'm not sure if this will make a difference in the saltiness factor, but i did use low-sodium soy."
This DEFINITELY makes a difference ;) So when I try this I will probably dilute soy sauce with a bit of water to lessen the sodium content. This looks beautiful, though, I love the color on the roast. Much better browning than on any kind of wheat meat I've seen!
I tried this one again but used Rosemary and Sage (I didn't have any on my 1st try) and left out the nutritional yeast and most of the soy sauce. Also doubled the onion and the celery. And did not need for as long as I did before. Rather than one big roast I followed the directions and did two smaller ones.
It still needs to be left in the oven about twice as long for my tastes (and I'm using a separate oven thermometer to be sure of the temp).
It's also much more rubbery than I would like - I'm sure my non veg friends and family would find that disconcerting if I tried to serve it to them. With less kneading, it was less rubbery but possibly adding bread crumbs and/or another whole grain might reduce that aspect of it.
It still tastes great, I did the usual roast veggies around it and now I have some food for a week or so.
Thanks again.
I had to brown all sides of the cut slices and then it was edible. After we had our dinner, I put it all back in the oven with the heat off (but it was still hot) and let it sit there. I forgot about it for a few hours and, well, the insides were finally done.
I don't know if the temp needs adjusted on this, or the time, but the instructions as given do not yield a cooked roast. It was much better when cooked all the way through. Take your pictures before you cut it up-it was much prettier before!
I'd love to somehow get a puff pastry around this thing so its like the field roast.
This does make your house smell delicious!
Oh, and I wish I had read the dx all the way through...as I was making the wet ingredients I was putting things away, and then needed to get them all out again for the broth!
This smells so good cooking in my oven right now....however, after the full hour, it is still like mush. It reminds me of uncooked meatloaf. Bleck.
So, I took the slices and lay them cut side up on a different pan and turned it back up to 350. I hope this works! Will report back.....
thank you for this recipe. my BF and i made this tonight to see if we could bring it to an upcoming holiday dinner but it needs a few modifications. it is definitely too salty, even after halving the soy sauce, Worcestershire and liquid smoke. i ended up eating it with some ketchup, which nicely counteracted the saltiness/savouriness. for the next attempt, we're thinking of adding tomatoes, sugar and/or bread crumbs to contrast or 'soak up' some of the flavour. also, we're going to increase the onion and celery- we couldn't really taste them. planning to cut down on the soy, W and liquid smoke even more.
thanks again, this certainly has potential in our household- just needs some tweaks!
This was tasty, and the first time I cooked seitan without doing the whole simmering for an hour bit.
I did find it was a bit chewier than I would like it, we'll see how it goes tomorrow for lunch at work.
Possibly frying up the cutlets might help with that. The veggies came out awesome too - I used Yams, carrots, celery and onion.
Thanks for posting!
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