Vegan roast chicken meal

July 25, 2021 

   

With all of my socks successfully darned, I was looking for a lockdown project last weekend. I found a bag of dried bean curd sheets in the pantry and decided it was time to try making them into roast 'chicken' skin. Some online browsing turned up a recipe and very promising series of photos from School Night Vegan. I liked that his seitan recipe mixed up tofu, beans and gluten flour.

I knew, though, that the 'vital wheat gluten' used internationally can differ from the 'gluten flour' that's most widespread here in Australia (and I've had a couple of seitan fails to prove it). I kept a close eye on this dough, holding back on the liquid until I was sure it could take it - it turns out the original proportions here work just fine! We're still working with a small blender bowl (our big one's motor failed during lockdown #1), so I had to blend my seitan ingredients in batches and knead the dough together in a large bowl. This turned out fine, and the extra unblended flecks of bean skin (gross as they sound) might actually have improved the texture of the seitan. I omitted the salt, because I thought the stock powder and miso paste would be plenty already, but I've put it back into the recipe below because I think this dough can take it.

   

I was pretty nervous about how the bean curd sheets would hold up to all this boiled water, wrapping, steaming and unwrapping. Certainly they can rip in the delicate early stages, but once they're wrapped up in foil and steamed, they undergo some kind of magical transformation! When I unwrapped my 'chicken' parcels, the bean curd skin layers had melded to the seitan and felt sturdy; they were easy to handle through marination, baking and serving.

The original recipe uses a marinade with cranberry sauce in it - I substituted pomegranate molasses for convenience and enjoyed that very much. The marinade recipe is excellent and I'll happily use it again, but I'll no doubt also try some different flavour combinations, and imitate the roast chicken seasonings of my childhood. The same goes for the side veges - I loved the soft, sweet shallot halves, and the carrots and potatoes were delicious but served in a different ratio than I'm accustomed to. I'm not quite convinced that the herbs and oranges added a lot of flavour beyond the marinade, and I'll give myself a chance to miss them next time around. 

This vegan roast chicken meal was a high effort, risky project that ended up being very successful and yielding four meals for two people. The core seitan chicken recipe is really impressive, and I'm looking forward to pulling it out on occasion, and gradually working towards my own favourite marinade and veges to complement it.

   

Vegan roast chicken meal
(slightly adapted from a recipe by School Night Vegan)

seitan

300g firm tofu

400g can cannellini or butter beans, including the liquid

2 tablespoons stock powder

4 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon white miso

2 teaspoons rice wine vinegar

350g gluten flour

8 sheets yuba/dried bean curd sheets

marinade

3 cloves garlic

60mL balsamic vinegar

3 tablespoons olive oil

2 teaspoons soy sauce

2 teaspoons dried parsley

1 teaspoon dried thyme

1/2 teaspoon pepper

3 tablespoons pomegranate molasses

roast veges

3 carrots, peeled and roughly chopped

4 shallots, peeled and halved

200g new potatoes (I would use more next time!)

1 orange, cut into 8 segments (I would consider skipping this)

1 small bunch parsley (I would consider skipping this)

4 sprigs rosemary

gravy, to serve

Start by making the seitan dough. The original recipe places all the ingredients from tofu through to rice wine vinegar in a food processor together. Due to space restrictions, I blended the firm tofu and most of the bean liquid and transferred it to a bowl, then blended the beans through to rice wine vinegar together and stirred it into the bowl of blended tofu. Although the original recipe is aiming for the smoothest, creamiest possible mixture, I had a bit of bean skin texture to my mixture and I was happy with the end texture. Add the gluten flour to the mixture, either blending to form a dough, or stirring in a bowl. I really dug my clean hands in there to scrunch and stretch the dough and form gluten strands. Divide the dough into 8 pieces, forming them into thick fillets, cover the with a teatowel and set them aside.

Place the yuba sheets into a shallow, heatproof dish and pour boiling water over them; drain out most of the water when they've softened. Prepare a 8 sheets of baking paper and 8 sheets of foil, each big enough to wrap the seitan fillets. Lay out a softened yuba sheet and place a fillet in the centre, and wrap the yuba around the fillet. Firmly wrap the fillet in baking paper, and very firmly wrap it all in foil. Repeat until all the seitan fillets are wrapped in yuba, baking paper, and foil. Place all of the wrapped fillets into a steamer, and steam for about an hour. Allow the fillets to cool for 20 minutes before unwrapping them.

While the fillets are steaming and cooling, prepare the marinade. Place all of the marinade ingredients plus 4 tablespoons water into the blender and process until as smooth as possible. When the fillets have cooled for 20 minutes, carefully unwrap and discard the baking paper and foil layers (I've saved mine for reuse), and place the fillets in a large shallow dish. (I made sure they weren't touching, because I wanted to avoid the yuba layers sticking to each other.) Spoon half of the marinade over the fillets and allow them to marinate for at least 30 minutes, and up to overnight.

When you're aiming to eat in an hour, preheat an oven to 190 C. Place all of the roast vege ingredients into one or two roasting pans; pour over the remaining half-quantity of marinade and stir it through. Roast the vegetables for 30 minutes. Place the seitan fillets on top of the vegetables, return the pans to the oven, and roast for a further 15 minutes. When the vegetables are tender and the yuba is nicely browned, serve the fillets and vegetables with gravy on the side.