All Hail Seitan!

Greetings, puny humans! After another fallow period of barely managing to rouse myself enough to put the basic requirements of Spaghetti Bolognese and chicken with rice on the table, I got off my tush and started cooking again. And in so doing, I dedicated myself to a new lord and master, Seitan.

This is the point where all gluten-intolerant readers should look away.

Seitan, for all you non-hippies out there, is a vegetarian protein made of wheat gluten. It has a meaty texture, and like tofu is very good at taking on whatever flavors you season or sauce it with. It turns up in vegetarian versions of Chinese meat dishes, like the marvelous dim sum at the Vegetarian Dim Sum House in New York's Chinatown, where Mr. Gateau and I enjoyed many a fabulous brunch during his vegetarian days.

I'd eaten seitan before, but I never tried to make it. However, once I started reading vegan cookbooks, I became convinced I should give it a try. Turns out, it's extremely easy to make and is both versatile and delicious.

Using a recipe in Veganomicon co-author Terry Hope Romero's Vegan Eats World, I made a batch of Five-Spice Seitan, which mixed up in a snap and was fun to work with. Essentially, the seitan is made by kneading together a vital wheat gluten and chickpea flour dry mix with a seasoned broth, which quickly becomes a spongy dough. The dough is shaped into small loaves or cutlets, and then steamed or baked. Once cooked, the seitan can be sliced as desired and incorporated into dishes. 

Sticky, sweet perfection.

I took three seitan cutlets, cubed and cooked them in a sweet Chinese barbecue sauce. Right there I could have stopped and stuffed my face with the bits for days -- they tasted just like bits of barbecued spare ribs -- but instead I made a batch of fluffy bun dough and created a vegan version of Char Siu Bao, everyone's favorite dim sum treat. Lucas got in on the act and helped me stuff the seitan mixture into the dough rounds, which we then steamed. These were a huge success, and even more exciting was that there was extra seitan filling left over, which I hoarded for myself the next day.

One sad leftover bun, happily consumed for breakfast.

To round out the meal, I also made the spectacular New York Times version of Takeout-Style Sesame Noodles using very thick Shanghai noodles that were about three feet long (hijinks ensued), plus a milder take on Ma Po Tofu (also modified from Vegan Eat World) with shiitake mushrooms and peas, served with rice. With a dollop of chili-garlic paste added, it was perfect and made excellent leftovers.

Tea dinner. Teapot missing.

After the vegan Chinese feast, I had one Five-Spice Seitan cutlet left over, so I decided to experiment with it the next day when organized a Pan-Asian Tea Dinner. Along with the leftover tofu and noodles, I made chicken satay for the kids (they will eat pretty much anything on a stick) and prepared the seitan the same way -- marinated in a coconut curry bath, then put under the broiler and served with homemade spicy peanut sauce and a little cucumber salad. The seitan got a little too dried out, so I would probably handle it a little more carefully in the future, but it was perfect in a satay, and looked just like beef. I also took a stab at making Japanese egg tamago, which is the kids' favorite. They said it was delicious and tasted just right, though I'm sure my technique could use some practice. A platter of pineapple "boats" rounded out the meal, and the whole thing won a double thumbs up.

Tempeh fingers.

The VB6 experiment has also gotten me testing out tempeh. I don't think I love it as much as tofu and seitan, partly because it's a little dry, and partly for the slightly sour flavor, but it does fry up nicely. I haven't had much luck yet finding unflavored blocks of it, so have been using pre-seasoned strips and the occasional burger. But I did make a nice Thai-inspired salad out of it -- I dressed dark greens with a mixture of my spicy peanut sauce and a little extra lime juice and rice vinegar, then topped with lightly fried strips of coconut curry tempeh. It was quick and very flavorful, and I got the hit of protein I tend to crave. I do hope I can find some plain tempeh to play with, because I've read several recipes for maple tempeh "bacon" that sound like they'd be very welcome at brunchtime.

Next up: I get my Middle Eastern on!

In Which I Visit Veganland

Readers of this blog will know that since I assumed daily responsibility for cooking actual dinners I have found myself in an off-and-on struggle to perk things up. With the kids having relatively limited repertoires, I've sometimes had a hard time thinking of things to cook that will be nutritious, tasty, acceptable on the Lucas Thumb Scale, and not too difficult or tedious to cook. It's a process.

At the same time, I've also been trying to get my own diet into a new place that helps me get more fit without forcing myself to go against my usual tastes and food interests. While Weight Watchers worked very well for me during the years after I'd given birth, I am emphatically not a Dieter. I've had good experiences in the Land of Low Carb (as a former employee of Atkins Nutritionals, I suppose that's a good thing) but this time when I tried to move back in that direction, I was feeling less inspired than usual.

One of my favorite food writers is Mark Bittman, whose "How to Cook Everything" books have been constant resources for me over the years. He has come to espouse a lower-animal product diet he sums up as "Vegan Before 6" or "VB6" -- eat vegan during the day until 6pm, and then incorporate whatever animal products you like for your last meal of the day. This seemed appealing to me in a way it never had before. Perhaps the flexitarian safety valve made me feel it was doable (plus Bittman's sensible recognition that sometimes you need to pass over the quinoa in favor of a bag of chips or a candy bar). I'm also living in a city that is very vegetarian-friendly, and where a majority of our friends are mostly vegetarian with the occasional pescatarian tendency. Plus, Vancouver is a city boasting of beautiful produce and access to global ingredients that make it easy to explore a zillion and one ways of cooking plant products.

I'd never actually looked at a vegan cookbook, so my friend Nicky kindly let me borrow a few of hers. I was immediately smitten with Isa Chandra Moskowitz of The Post Punk Kitchen. Her recipes are delicious, unfussy, smartly written, and infused with a New York-GenX spirit that feels right at home for me. So far everything I've made from her books Veganomicon and Vegan With a Vengeance has been a huge success.

So what is this bacon-loving, rare-steak-craving, sushi-addict eating? Well, avocados, a/k/a vegan lard, for one thing. While I could probably stuff a few whole ones down my gullet in a sitting, I'm trying to show restraint and eat them half at a time. My favorite way is laid on a slice of garlic-rubbed sourdough toast, and sprinkled with lemon juice and Maldon sea salt. Sometimes I will make a second slice of toast topped with my other new staple -- tahini. This is made even more fantastic by spreading a thin layer of Marmite underneath it, which adds a tang of salty yeastiness to the unctuousness of the sesame paste. This makes a fantastic lunch, and I'll add a little cherry tomato salad, green salad, or fruit salad to the plate to complete the meal. I've also tried avocado on a toasted bagel as a substitute for our usual lox and cream cheese on Sunday mornings, and that has been satisfying enough that I don't pine for the lox. I have even made a very satisfying vegan take on the BLAT by frying up thin slices of smoked tofu brushed with a little maple syrup and using them with the avocado (I didn't have any ripe tomato, but would add it if I had it) on toasted sourdough.

Lunch is served.

 I was somewhat terrified of vegan baking, and I haven't yet attempted a cake (so no final conclusions here) but I have discovered that at least with some things, eggs, milk, and butter are less necessary than I'd thought. I've made terrific buckwheat-blueberry pancakes using almond milk and applesauce in lieu of milk and eggs (plus vanilla and cinnamon) that distracted me even from the presence of bacon on the table during the last two Saturday pancake breakfasts. I made absolutely killer chocolate-chocolate chip-walnut cookies from Veganomicon that used almond milk, canola oil instead of butter, and ground flaxseed in place of eggs, and they're easily one of the quickest and most delectable cookies I've ever made.

The devil is obviously a vegan.

The real test was, of course, whether I could cook anything that the kids would be willing to eat. Tofu to the rescue! They are pretty good with tofu, and have eaten with gusto a vegan stir-fried noodles with plain and smoked tofu dish on several occasions. I cooked a tofu tikka masala, substituting coconut milk for cream and using tofu where my kids have previous had chicken. From Veganomicon I made a very easy and flavorful dish of lentils flavored with tamarind, and served it all with basmati rice. It went so well that nobody complained when I offered the leftovers for dinner the next night.

A surprise thumbs up on the Lucas Scale was achieved when I attempted "cheesy" vegan kale chips. Kale chips, as everyone knows, are complete crack, but they are totally irresistible when prepared with a paste of cashews, lemon, garlic, coconut oil, mustard, and that umami delivery system, nutritional yeast. My only regret is that I can't produce more than one bunch of kale's worth at a time, due to limited space in my oven.

So have I been West Coast brainwashed? When I tell you that I have also been RUNNING. Sometimes at 7am IN THE RAIN you will probably conclude that I have indeed. But I am really enjoying both the running and the new explorations in cooking, and I feel good. I still identify as an omnivore, and do not intend at this point to forego all kinds of eating experiences (animal and vegetable) when they present themselves, but I'm very happy to make daily visits to Veganland.