Jack Daniels Glazed Stuffed Thanksgiving Roast

As the note suggests: Crazy Jack D's Seitan Stuffed with...Stuffing

This year's Thanksgiving roast was a product of two recipes coming together like Syba to treat, like Syba to dumpster, like soul mates. I took the roast I made last year from here and combined it with this stuffing concept created by Vegan Chick. Next year I might try VC's stand-alone, but this year it was about the Jack D.

I made the stand-alone roast last year. Looks delicious. And it was good....but needed a friend.

If you're looking for something quick, this ain't it. But if you embrace that Thanksgiving is all about waiting, then feasting, you have found your Roast. It's about a 5 hour process total (over half of a work day!)

Let's start with our stuffing -- use your favorite recipe. I adapted this one because I had a bag of cranberries on hand and like the idea of bright red specks throughout (I chopped the cranberries in my Ninja food processor).


A. Stuffing: Make and set aside.

B. Roast

1) Mix these dry ingredients in a medium bowl:

• 5 cups vital wheat gluten
• 1 cup chickpea (garbanzo) flour
• 1/2 cup nutritional yeast
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 teaspoons garlic
  

2) Mix these wet ingredients in a blender until smooth:

• 2 tubs o' tofu (2 lbs)
• 3 cups cold water
• 2 Tablespoons 'chicken' flavor broth powder
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1/8 cup olive oil
  

3) Once blended, mix the dry and wet ingredients together in a large bowl. [Start step 4) before kneading.]

• Knead for about 5 minutes, flipping around, punching it, etc. Or put in your bread machine for 10 minutes.
• Roll out and stretch out on a flat surface. I found it difficult to roll out, so I also used my pizza "know-how" as Dad would say, and stretched it like pizza dough then rolled. Like so:

• Place the stuffing (about 3 cups) in the middle:

• Roll up, and pinch the ends together. They will not stay together well - but the cheese cloth will solve that issue.
• Wrap with cheese cloth, and tie the end if need be.

Seitan mummy! (Pictured after step 4)

4) Boil the simmering broth. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Boil together:

• 5 cups water
• 4 'beef' flavored boullion cubes
• 2 Tablespoons Ketchup
• 1 Tablespoon olive oil
• 5 garlic cloves, minced or grated
• 2 teaspoons paprika
• 1 Tablespoon poultry seasoning
• 2 teaspoons salt

Once boiling, remove from heat.

5) Bake it! 300 degrees.

• Get a casserole large enough for your huge creature-sized hunk of seitan. Preferably with a lid. Something at least a foot long is a good size.
  
• Place a ladle-full or two of the broth into the baking casserole dish.
• Place the seitan hunk on top of the broth, and cover with the remaining broth.

• Put the lid on or wrap aluminum foil on the pot, sealing it well.
• Cook for 1 hour. (Start making the glaze).
  
• Flip -- no easy task; I used two forks, one for each end -- then cook one more hour.
  
• Flip again, then cook for another hour.
  
• Turn the over off and allow the seitan to sit for another hour.
• Let cool before using. Remove twine/ties and cheesecloth.
  

6) Glaze it! See C. below for the recipe. Then bake at 350 degrees F until the roast is heated through and the glaze looks nice -- usually about one hour.

C. JACK DANIELS GLAZE

I modified this recipe slightly (more JD!)

1) Combine the following into a small sauce pan:

• 5 cloves of garlic, roasted or fresh, grated
• 1 Tablespoon olive oil
• 2/3 cup water
• 1 Tablespoon tamari
  
• 1 cup pineapple juice
• 1/4 cup teriyaki sauce
• 1 Tablespoon crushed pineapple
• 1 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 3 Tablespoons lemon juice
• 3 Tablespoons minced onion
• 2 Tablespoon Jack Daniels
• 1/4 teaspoon yippie cayenne - a
  

2) Cook

• Bring ingredients to a boil
• Reduce to a simmer, then cook for 30-40 minutes or until the sauce reduces by half.
  
• Do not let it burn or boil over.
  

D. RESULT

Damned fine centerpiece, delivers on taste and texture. Someone said it was so much better than Tofurky, but through the phone chain this somehow got translated into Tofurky starting a class action lawsuit against me for making the roast. Nevertheless, by the end of the night, only a few drops of glaze remained.

Next year I'd like to try stuffing it with something else, perhaps shiitakes and leeks as created here.



More pictures from the 4th Annual Thanksgiving Record Party

Seitan '10 or 麵筋

Seitan! (as seen on My Carolina Today.)

Intros and Inspirations

I guess I've been making seitan too long since I had to think about where my homemade seitan process began. I found a recipe online and adapted it. This is for certain: the need arose out of thriftiness. Some might say cheap-skate-ness. It's a heck of a lot more economical to make your own, and quite easy. This recipe will cost you about $4.50 for a couple pounds, or .56 per serving. That's crazy!

Since seitan is made from the protein part of the wheat (gluten) it is extremely high in protein. As with all non-animal products, it's cholesterol free.

Finally, it's tasty as all heck and holds up great whether BBQ'd, skewered, or stir-fried. I believe that we as a culture are just at the tip of the seitanic iceberg and more variations are forthcoming. If you have any, feel free to post them below.

My previous recipe called “Saved by Seitan” featuring Chef Shirle and Phil & Brad of Megafaun is also available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-XJjQip44M

This version is not too dissimilar: based on inspiration from this Vegan Sausage recipe I added some friendly Garbanzo Bean (Chickpea) Flour to the mix and reduced the salt.

History of Dish

From Wikipedia:

“Wheat gluten...is believed to have originated in ancient China, as a meat substitute for adherents of Buddhism....One story attributes the invention of imitation meat to chefs who made it for Chinese emperors who, traditionally, observed a week of vegetarianism each year.”

It is the stuff of royalty!

Yield and Pre-heat

Eight 'servings' of about ½ cup each.

Order of preparation: Start your stock, then stir your dry ingredients together while the stock heats.

Ingredients

Broth

• 8 cups water
• ½ cup Bragg's Liquid Aminos or soy sauce
• 2 T olive oil
• Add to broth: fresh sage, garlic, onion...or whatever spices float your gluten boat

Dry

• 2 cups vital wheat gluten (I use Bob's Redmill – available in the health sections of most stores)
• ½ cup chickpea/garbanzo bean flour
• ¼ nutritional yeast flakes
• 1 T ground pepper

Mixing/Blending

1. Put all the “broth” ingredients in a large pot (I use a cast-iron cauldren) and set heat to medium-high to begin heating.

2. Meanwhile, mix all the dry ingredients with a fork.

3. Once almost boiling, reduce heat to simmer/low.

4. Scoop out 11/2 to 2 cups broth and add to the dry mixture and stir with your fork as the broth might be too hot (It will be hard to handle with a fork and you will need to switch to clean-hand kneading in a moment.)

5. Knead by pulling the dough almost apart and together, folding in on itself (see the video if needed). You can also punch it. The idea is to get it very elastic and firm, or as Phil said, “brain-like.” Most recipes call for 5 minutes kneading, but I usually knead for 2-3 minutes only until the desired firmness is achieved and the dough is a big ball.

6. Once consistency is reached, tear the ball in half. Carefully drop each half into the now-hot broth.

7. Make sure the heat is turned to low so it just simmers.

8. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes, then flip. Cover and simmer another 30 minutes.

Eating

Since it's summertime, lately I've been going the easy route with these suckers. Once boiled, let it cool and drip-dry in a sieve. Then, cut the seitan ball into small shishkabob pieces, and marinade in your favorite BBQ sauce. Skewer, then place in aluminum foil to BBQ. Right before it's ready, seer on the grill for those pretty lines. This way it won't dry out. Or you can baste them and not use the foil as a random 4th of July party-goer suggested.

Another favorite is to coat them in a mixture of oat flour, garlic powder, and nutritional yeast, then lightly fry in a cast-iron pan. Delicious coating almost like Shake-n-Bake. Which should be the standard of excellence for all foods.

Conclusion

I interrupted Rob's practice to ask him to pose for these seitan shots.

With the flash on:

And off:

Another happy customer.

Rob post-bite and prior to throwing seitan chunks across the room after one too many takes of this pose.

Also brought this new version out at parties, and it's a hit. Whether or not the praise is statistically significant is a debate for another blog....or up to you. I'd love to hear your variations. Post them below if you'd like. I want to figure out a way to make seitan have fatty pockets. Any discoveries of how to do this would be worth 1,000 drachmas.