Monday, November 16, 2009

a tale of two seitans

i made not one, but two batches of seitan this weekend so i could have them handy for thanksgiving. i'm planning on making a vegan version of my late MIL's "thanksgiving casserole" which was an orgy of turkey, taters, stuffing, veggies, and gravy layered lovingly in a casserole dish, the stuff of midwesterners dreams. we all know this can be veganified with no problems, and i'm gonna so do it. the batch above is lord seitan's seitan's recipe, post oven. note: you have to click on his specific bio with the link to see the recipe. most seitan you can just boil and make, but i like to bake it at three-fiddy for about 20 minutes or so (flipping over every 10 minutes) to make it nice, chewy, and meat-like.
here's bianca's recipe from vegan crunk. because this is in her cookbook, i can't disclose the recipe. here are some seitanic strips right outta the oven. you can visit her awesome web site here.
again, we have lord seitan's recipe freshly boiled and cut into strips. i noticed it was much more fluffy and porous than crunk's recipe.
bianca's is much more dense and cuts into better strips.

verdict: which is better? i love lord seitan and bianca, so i can't really pick sides. the more appropriate answer is to say that bianca's recipe lends itself to chicken like recipes-(like fake buffalo wings, mock chicken salad, fake chicken strips, or perhaps you could get creative and fashion a nice thanksgiving faust) because of the denser texture. lord seitan's has a bit of a chew to it and is more savory. better for casseroles and stir frys.

4 comments:

miss v said...

i do love me some crunk seitan. i usually make my own little 'faust' recipe for the holidays, but i need to give lord seitan a try.

The Voracious Vegan said...

I'll take seitan any which way I can get it! They both look delicious, thanks for reviewing them both and letting us know what they would each be good for. Seitan any way is YUM!

Bianca said...

Oh wow! I'm so glad my seitan stands up to that of the Honorable Lord Seitan's recipe. I still haven't tried his, but I've read about it so often on your blog. And if you like it, I know its good.

The casserole sounds awesome. I love anything layered with taters and gravy.

Monique a.k.a. Mo said...

That casserole sounds amazing! I think I'll have to try it in July when I'm craving Thanksgiving. I can only imagine how awesome that would be!