Seitan gyros & lemon potatoes

January 13, 2018

Cindy's been going over all her old recipe bookmarks and reorganising them, which means she's been reminded of a few winning-looking dishes that we've never got around to making. These seitan gyros were one of them, from a 2011 post over at Veganise This! It seemed like a good Saturday kitchen project for me, so I got to work, adding in a batch of Greek lemon potatoes for company.

This was the first time I've baked seitan (I usually use Cindy's sure-fire slow-cooker version) and it worked out really well. The seitan had real flavour - the lemon zest in particular shone through, and the texture was great. This may be my new favourite version, and it was really easy. We sliced it up and fried it and then served them in pita bread with a yoghurt and garlic sauce, salad and some little pickles. Superb.

The potatoes were just as successful. They were tender, rich and lemony and reminded me of the old favourites we used to get at Lefkas 15 years ago. This was such a good Saturday night meal - it'll definitely move into our regular rotation.

Seitan gyros
(based on a recipe from Veganise This!)

1 1/4 cups gluten flour
1/4 cup soy flour
4 tablespoons nutritional yeast flakes
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary
2 teaspoons dried oregano
zest from one lemon
1 1/4 cups water
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon liquid smoke
2 tablespoons tomato sauce

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C.

Mix the soy flour, gluten flour, nooch, salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, lemon zest and dried herbs in a large bowl.

In a separate bowl, combine the water, soy sauce, sesame oil, liquid smoke and tomato sauce and stir them together well. 

Pour the wet mixture into the dry ingredients and smoosh everything together thoroughly - you should get a really sloppy dough. Knead for a couple of minutes and then leave it to rest for 10 minutes or so.

Knead it again for about a minute and then divide the dough into two small loaves. Wrap them loosely in foil and bake them for an hour. 

Leave the loaves to cool and then slice them into little strips for your gyros.

Roasted lemon potatoes
(based on a recipe from Epicurious, who were excerpting it from this book)

1 kg of potatoes
1/2 cup olive oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground pepper
1/2 cup of veggie stock (we used Massel mock chicken)
juice of a lemon

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

Peel the potatoes and cut them into 4 cm cubes. Lay them out in a baking dish with the olive oil. Add the garlic, dried oregano, salt and pepper and stir everything together. 

Bake for 15 minutes. Add the stock, toss and bake for another 10 minutes. Throw in the lemon juice and bake for another 15 minutes until the spuds are nice and tender. 

Season with more salt and pepper if necessary and serve.