Viva Vegan!: 200 Authentic and Fabulous Recipes for Latin Food Lovers (9 page)

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Authors: Terry Hope Romero

STEAMED RED SEITAN
 
 
•
Makes four seitan “loaves,” each loaf serving 2, generously incorporated into entrées and other dishes
•
Time: Less than 45 minutes
 
 
Latin food is meaty food, as any quick glance at a Latin American menu will tell you. That’s where a few “loaves” of easy homemade seitan come to the rescue as an exceptional meat substitute. I love the look and texture of seitan in many traditional Latin dishes. Unlike the latter, you can almost pull a fast one over omnivores by serving up seitan entrées (unlike trying to convince your
abuela
that she’s eating
mondongo
when it’s just a lump of tofu).
 
Seitan’s chewy, firm texture seamlessly works with many traditional cooking techniques (shredding, grilling, and marinating) and can hold its own paired with hot chiles and bold salsas. In fact, you may even encounter seitan—or in Español,
seitán
—if you travel in Latin America. Always keep a few seitan loaves wrapped up and waiting in your fridge for a variety of “meaty” meals.
 
This tomato-flavored seitan is designed for use in “beefy”-style dishes. For more “chickeny” or “pork” dishes, use Steamed White Seitan (page 35). This seitan is my go-to seitan when wheat meat is required for more complex dishes, as it’s easy to steam this while attending to more time-consuming recipes.
 
Make-ahead Tip:
For best texture and flavor, prepare this seitan a day or two in advance. An overnight chill helps firm up the texture and lets the flavor fully develop. Seitan should not be eaten straight up; rather, serve it fried, roasted, marinated, or grilled for maximum enjoyment.
 
1½ cups cold vegetable broth
4 cloves garlic, peeled and pressed or
grated with a Microplane grater
3 tablespoons mild soy sauce
4 tablespoons tomato paste
2 tablespoons olive oil
1½ cups vital wheat gluten flour
¼ cup chickpea (garbanzo) flour
¼ cup nutritional yeast
1 teaspoon dried oregano
½ teaspoon ground cumin
 
 
1. In a measuring cup, whisk together the broth, garlic, soy sauce, tomato paste, and olive oil. In a large bowl, combine the wheat gluten, chickpea flour, nutritional yeast, oregano, and cumin, and form a well in the center. Pour the liquid ingredients into the well and stir with a rubber spatula until the dough leaves the sides of the bowl. Knead the dough for 2 to 3 minutes to develop the gluten. Let the dough rest for 10 minutes; knead again for 30 seconds. Place the dough on a cutting board and with a sharp knife, cut the dough into four equal pieces and lightly knead each piece a few times. Shape each into a roughly oblong loaf shape.
2. Tear off four 12-inch-square sheets of aluminum foil. Place a piece of dough in the center of a piece of foil. Fold the short sides of foil over the loaf, then fold over the ends. The foil should be secure but there should be some loose space around the dough to allow it to expand during steaming. Repeat with the other three pieces of dough. Place the wrapped dough in a steamer basket and steam for 30 minutes. Allow the dough to cool to the touch before chilling in the fridge for an hour or overnight.
3. Store the seitan in the fridge, tightly sealed in a plastic bag or airtight container, for up to 2 weeks. Seitan can also be frozen (wrap tightly), then thawed in the fridge for later use.
STEAMED WHITE SEITAN
 
 
•
Makes four seitan “loaves,” each loaf serving 2, generously incorporated into entrées and other dishes
•
Time: Less than 45 minutes
•
Soy Free (be sure to use soy-free vegetable broth)
 
 
Steam up a batch of this soy-free seitan for “chicken”- and “pork”-style dishes in this book, or anytime for seitan that’s fast and relatively mess free. This seitan is very chewy (more so than the Red Seitan) and is well suited for cooking with moist foods (stews, rice dishes) or slicing very thin, marinating, and grilling or roasting (heavenly in a Cubano Vegano Sandwich [page 66]). This seitan (and the red recipe, too) are also firm enough to grate for surprisingly realistic-looking ground “meat.” This recipe makes four compact loves for use in two recipes.
 
Tip:
Make sure to look for soy-free vegetable broth if you’re looking to completely eliminate soy. Vegetarian “chicken”-flavored broth is a sneakily easy way to season this seitan!
 
 
1½ cups cold vegetable broth or
“chicken”-flavored vegetable broth
4 cloves garlic, grated
2 tablespoons olive oil
1½ cups vital wheat gluten flour
¼ cup chickpea (garbanzo) flour
¼ cup nutritional yeast
1 teaspoon dried thyme
½ teaspoon ground sweet paprika
½ teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon salt, or more to taste
 
 
1. In a measuring cup, whisk together the broth, garlic, and olive oil. In a large bowl, combine the wheat gluten, chickpea flour, nutritional yeast, thyme, paprika, cumin, and salt, and form a well in the center. Pour the liquid ingredients into the well and stir with a rubber spatula until the dough leaves the sides of the bowl. Knead the dough for 2 to 3 minutes to develop the gluten. Let the dough rest for 10 minutes; knead again for 30 seconds. Place the dough on a cutting board and with a sharp knife, cut the dough into four equal pieces and lightly knead each piece a few times. Shape each into a loaf shape.
2. Tear off four 12-inch-square sheets of aluminum foil. Place a piece of dough in the center of a piece of foil. Fold the short sides of foil over the loaf, then fold over the ends. The foil should be secure but there should be a little give around the dough to allow it to expand during steaming. Repeat with the other three pieces of dough. Place the wrapped dough in a steamer basket and steam for 30 minutes. Allow the dough to cool to the touch before chilling in the fridge for an hour or overnight.
3. Store the seitan in the fridge, tightly sealed in a plastic bag or airtight container, for up to 2 weeks.
CHORIZO SEITAN SAUSAGES
 
 
•
Makes six 6- to 7-inch sausages
•
Prep Time: 15 minutes
•
Cook Time: 35 minutes
•
Cooling Time: 40 minutes
 
 
These past few years, steamed or baked seitan sausages became something of a vegan Internet meme. Suddenly vegan home cooks everywhere were doing something most of their omnivorous contemporaries only dream of . . . making sausage in their own kitchen! And being vegan makes it easy, far less messy, and requires only a fraction of the time.
 
In the spirit of that home industry, here is our friend seitan, tarted up with plenty of paprika (the essential flavor and coloring spice of chorizo), more spices, and vinegar, shaped into links, and baked for a sliceable texture. This recipe makes a tangy, moderately spicy chorizo that has a slow after-burn from the cayenne for a pan-Latin American (not just Mexican) cuisine application. Depending on your preference, you can add Mexican or Peruvian hot chiles, more or less spices, or more or less vinegar, to customize it to your liking.
 
If you store it in the refrigerator, it’s easy to toss the chorizo into soups, stews, and beans, fry it again with potatoes or vegetables, or tuck it into tacos or
pupusas
. A little chorizo sausage goes a long way, especially if you make it very spicy, so freeze any portion that might go unused longer than a week. For best results, chill seitan chorizo, then slice and fry before adding to your favorite recipes.
 
1½ cups vegetable broth
4 tablespoons tomato paste
3 tablespoons Annatto-Infused Oil
(page 31) or olive oil
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
6 cloves garlic, grated
1⅔ cups vital wheat gluten
¼ cup chickpea (garbanzo) flour
3 tablespoons nutritional yeast
4 teaspoons ground smoked sweet or
smoked hot paprika
4 teaspoons ground dried chile powder
(a standard store-bought blend is fine)
3 teaspoons dried oregano or Mexican
oregano
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1½ teaspoons ground cayenne, or more
to taste
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1½ teaspoons salt
½ teaspoon ground black pepper
 
 
1. Tear off six pieces of foil about 8 inches wide each. Preheat the oven to 350°F. In a measuring cup, whisk together the broth, tomato paste, oil, vinegar, and garlic. In a large bowl, combine the wheat gluten, chickpea flour, nutritional yeast, paprika, chile powder, oregano (rub between palms first to eliminate any chunky leaves or stems), cumin, cayenne, coriander, salt, and pepper and form a well in the center. Pour the liquid ingredients into the well and stir with a rubber spatula until the dough leaves the sides of the bowl. Knead the dough for 3 minutes to develop the gluten. Let the dough rest for 10 minutes; knead again for 2 minutes.
2. Divide the dough into six equal pieces. Place a piece on the foil and shape it into a log about 6 inches long by 1½ inches wide. Bring the wide ends of the foil together, fold over the dough, and firmly wrap it around the dough to form a sausagelike shape. Wrap it so that it’s fairly secure but leave it a little bit loose so that the sausage can expand during baking and not burst through the foil (it can happen if you wrap your seitan too tightly, so leave some slack!). Twist the foil at each end of the sausage (so it looks like a candy wrapper). Repeat for the other five pieces of dough.
3. Place the foil-covered chorizo directly on the middle baking rack in the oven and bake for 35 minutes. Cool the chorizo for 40 minutes before using, to allow the texture to firm and the flavors to meld. For best flavor and texture, chill overnight before slicing. Store seitan chorizo in the fridge, tightly sealed in a plastic bag or airtight container, for up to 2 weeks or freeze.
Variations
 
Chipotle Chorizo:
Replace half or all of the tomato paste with chipotles in adobo sauce. Remove the seeds and puree the chipotles with their sauce, then measure out in tablespoons to add as desired.
 
 
Hot
Ají
Chorizo:
Add 1 to 2 tablespoons amarillo, panca, or—for really hot chorizo—
rocoto ají
paste, along with the wet ingredients.
 
 
 
Un Pocito Ways to Serve Up Chorizo
 
T
he best and most direct way to enjoy this chorizo is to slice and fry it in a little oil to crisp the edges. This is easy to do by slicing prepared “veganrizo” into thin rounds or diagonal slices and lightly sautéing it for 4 to 6 minutes over medium heat in a few tablespoons of the oil. For that proper neon orange, oily glow that resembles the grease that accompanies the traditional sausage, use Annatto-Infused Oil (page 31).
 
Use fried chorizo immediately with the following:
 
• Stirred into beans (as with Drunken Beans with Seitan Chorizo, page 91, or Portobello Feijoada, page 147)
• Tucked into tacos (see “Taco Toppings!,” page 176)
• Served as “croutons” on top of a thick soup (see Potato-Kale Soup, page 159)
• Kneaded into arepa dough (see Arepas, page 177)
• Stirred into either side dish rice or main entrée rice dishes right before serving (such as Rice with Pigeon Peas, page 140)
• Embraced in enchiladas, sprinkled on salads, quombined (okay, not a word but . . . ) with quinoa, tossed into tortillas, or enfolded in empanada filling!
Seitan chorizo is great grilled, too! Slice the sausages down the center, brush or spray generously with olive or any vegetable oil, and grill for 2 to 4 minute per side, until hot. Serve paired with any beans and rice plate. Or savor it in a simple but outstanding Argentinean-style chorizo sandwich, the
choripán
.
 
 

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