Faux-(Cho)Rizo

I don’t know if I’ve ever used both an X and Z in the same title.  Is there a blog title scrabble out there?  If so, I just scored big points.  If it wouldn’t be a lie, I would have said Quick Faux-Chorizo and gotten ‘Q’ points too.

I’ve already admitted to hogging The Kind Diet from the library.  I’m also avidly reading my library copy of Viva Vegan.

I too chop my plantains in a sparkling white kitchen while wearing a lovely purple dress and straightened  hair.  Don’t you?

The first recipe I tried was for a Chorizo Style Seitan.  Seitan (say-tan, not satan) is a meat like food made from wheat gluten.  I’ll be the first to say I generally avoid meat substitutes.  I’m a bit leery of soy, so I don’t buy all the soy ‘meats’ and ‘cheeses.’  If you open my freezer and dig past the Coscto Bags of frozen fruit, Blue Bell Ice Cream and frozen peas (which my kids eat like candy), you won’t find Boca or Morningstar Farm boxes. They aren’t my thing.

Seitan, being from wheat gluten, seemed a bit less hormone mimicking than soy meats to me.  The recipe looked straight forward enough so I put the kids in front of PBS Kids and starting making (fake) sausage.

First up, wheat gluten and chick pea flour.  I bet anyone reading with gluten issues is now clicking off the page….

Then every spice in my kitchen spices like oregano, smoked paprika, nutritional yeast, cumin, coriander, chili powder and a few others.

The spices and flours were mixed with broth, oils and tomato paste.

The mixture was kneaded.  I’ve kneaded my share of bread dough and kneading seitan felt nothing like bread dough.  It was very spongy and, for lack of a better word, puffy.  As this was my first experience making it, I’m not sure if that was normal.  Also, the paprika and chili powder turned my hands nice and orange and the oils made them nice and greasy.  Orange greasy hands and not a cheetoh in sight.  Who knew?

The dough was formed into sausage shapes which looked both fecal and phallic.  I preferred not to dwell on that.

Then the sausages were rolled up like candy and baked.

After cooling and unrolling, I had 6 of these little guys:

They were put in the fridge and used in a dinner the next day.  Stay tuned for the continuing saga of the wheat sausages.  How do they taste?  Where they worth the effort?  Did anyone in the family actually eat one?

Any seitan lovers out there?