Weekend prep - Seitan and chickpea flour cutlets

Weekends are time for prep work for the coming week. This weekend it’s more white wine braised garlic (since I use tons of the stuff) and seitan cutlets. I like seitan but find it can be a little heavy at times, so I’ve been trying to figure out new ways to make it a little less dense and chewy. Today’s experiment involves adding some chickpea flour and steaming it in a bamboo steamer as opposed to simmering it in liquid. After steaming, they’ll be marinated in stock and white wine in the fridge until they get used in a day or two. (I’m thinking about sautéed seitan cutlets with some kind of pan sauce and twice baked potatoes where the stuffing is the potatoes mashed with braised garlic and some kind of cashew cream, but I haven’t gotten it all worked out in my head yet.)

Before steaming



After steaming but before marinating in the white wine and stock



Seitan and chickpea flour cutlets
Makes 6 cutlets

1 ½ cups of wheat gluten
½ cup of chickpea flour (besan)
¼ cup of nutritional yeast (nooch)
2 teaspoons of dried sage
1 teaspoon of dried tarragon
1 teaspoon of kosher salt
2 teaspoons of lemon pepper
¼ teaspoon celery seeds (optional)
¾ teaspoon dried mustard
2 tablespoons roasted garlic (mashed to a paste)
2 tablespoons of soy sauce
7/8 cup of water

Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl or stand mixer. Add the roasted garlic, soy sauce and water. Knead for a few minutes until the dough comes together in a ball. Divide into six pieces and let it rest for about 5-10 minutes to relax a little. Flatten each piece of dough into a cutlet. Lightly spray the racks of a bamboo streamer with oil. Place the cutlets in the rack and steam over water at a moderate boil for about an hour.

While the cutlets steam, make the marinade.

White wine marinade
1 cup of white wine
1 shallot finely minced
2 cloves of garlic minced
2 sprigs of fresh rosemary
2 sprigs of fresh thyme
2 sprigs of parsley
1 bay leaf
6 allspice berries
1 tablespoon of kosher salt
2 cups of vegetable stock

Add everything except the vegetable stock to a sauce pan. Bring to a boil and reduce by about a third. Add the vegetable stock, bring back to a boil, and then turn it off. Let it cool. Add the steamed, cooled cutlets to the marinade and refrigerate for a few hours or a few days.

Weekend prep work

Let’s be honest. A lot of us who like to cook do spend a lot of time in the kitchen. We brag about quick, easy dishes we can whip up in no time, but most of us probably spend a lot more time cooking than we mention to casual observers. There’s nothing wrong with it. I love to cook and find the entire process therapeutic and fun, but at times it can be a labor intensive hobby.

Weekends are my time to do a lot of the prep work for things I’ll use during the week. I have time to make some of the more labor and time intensive things that I’ll need during the week. This weekend’s prep includes a pot of white beans (likely destined for white bean cutlets – a variant of the PPK chickpea cutlets and perhaps a white bean, rosemary, and lemon juice dip), white wine braised roasted garlic (to be used in pretty much everything), and seitan sausages (for pastas and maybe pizza). The seiatan sausages are a variant of the ones in the Millennium Cookbook (a continual resource for inspiration and idea poaching).

Seitan Sausages

2 cups of wheat gluten
4 cloves of garlic, finely minced
1 dried negro entera chile (or substitute pasilla or ancho)
2 teaspoons pimento (smoked Spanish paprika)
1 teaspoon of fennel seeds
1 teaspoon cumin, ground
2 teaspoons of salt
1 cup of water
¼ cup of oil
2 tablespoons of tamari or soy sauce
Cheese cloth and kitchen twine (for wrapping and cooking the sausages)

For the poaching liquid:
4 cups of vegetable broth
½ cup of white wine
1 bay leaf
3 cloves of garlic, peeled but left whole

Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl. Mix the liquids in a separate bowl. Add the liquids to the dry ingredients and work into dough. Knead on a board for 5 minutes to get a smooth dough. Divide the dough into four pieces and roll each one into a cylinder about 4 inches long. Roll the sausages in the cheese cloth (to help them hold their shape) and tie the ends shut with kitchen twine.

Combine the poaching liquid ingredients in a pot large enough to hold the four sausages in a single layer. Bring to a boil, add the sausages, and turn down to a simmer. Simmer for one hour. Remove the sausages and allow them to cool slightly before removing the cheese cloth. Store the sausages in the poaching liquid in the fridge until ready to use.

Garlic braised in white wine

This is another idea stolen from Millennium. Whole heads of garlic are roasted in white wine and herbs until they get soft and creamy. It’s fat free but adds sweet, mellow garlic flavor and creaminess to anything you add it to. It’s perfect to thicken pan sauces and dressings without adding fat.

4 whole heads of garlic, top ½ inch or so cut off
1 cup of white wine
A few sprigs of fresh herbs of your choice (thyme, tarragon, and rosemary all work well)

Put the garlic in a small baking dish, add the herbs and white wine. Cover tightly with foil and bake at 350 for 75-90 minutes. When the garlic is completely soft and the tops have browned a little, it’s done. Check it half way through the cooking. If it dries out, you can add more white wine. When it’s done, let it cool. Squeeze the heads out and store it in the fridge. It’ll keep for a week, but you’ll probably use it sooner. You can easily double or triple this recipe.