Remember Tofu Brain? How about The Brain of Seitan? It’s turkey time again, and I’m experimenting with another faux turkey recipe. This year it's Bryanna’s soy and seitan turkey. It’s like Tofu Brain and The Brain of Seitan got together and had a baby brain. Mmm…brains! Tofu Brain was too tofu-mushy. The Brain of Seitan was pretty damn good, albeit a little salty, but that’s easy to fix. I’ve had my eye on Bryanna Grogan’s soy and seitan turkey since this time last year, but was saving up the experiment for Thanksgiving. I wish I had hopped on this recipe earlier. (Update: here's the recipe with step-by-step instructions.)
I will tell you about my experience, and things I would (and did) do differently. The first time I made the recipe was sort of a disaster. Mid-crisis, I ran to the faux-meat-friendly Post Punk Kitchen forums to see if any one else was having the same problems. Many people had success, with only a few not so lucky. I soldiered on. The end product was fabulous, despite my crisis.
Clockwise from to left: Tofu smoothie (a.k.a. wet ingredients), very wet dough, dough covered with broth, dough before being covered with broth.
First Attempt
- The recipe calls for 12 ounces of firm tofu. Every package I pick up is 15 ounces. I’m not tossing 3 ounces, so included it. This may have lead to my problem?
- My dough was very wet. I added more gluten, chickpea flour, and nutritional yeast. It was still wet. Afraid I’d make a heavy dough bomb, I quit adding more dry ingredients, and carried on.
- Bryanna’s directions give options for kneading the dough. She feels that kneading the dough is difficult, so suggests a mixer or a bread machine. I tried the bread machine since I had one. It works, but you have to clean it afterward!
- Poured the broth over the loaves and covered with foil. Stuck them in the oven at 200° (preheated first to 350° like her directions say) for three hours. Two hours into the baking, I take a peek. It looks just like the wet loaves covered in liquid that I put in two hours ago. No! This is not going to work.
- Poured off the liquid (saved it), left the loaves uncovered, and cranked the oven to 350°. Baked for about an hour, flipping a few times to get all sides brown (parchment paper really helps in flipping), and basting when the loaf dried out a bit.
- Turned out great despite the gooey, wet-loaf crisis. So good, in fact, I did it again.
And on the second day, she made brains.Second Attempt
- Still used all 15 ounces of tofu.
- Used ¼ cup less water in tofu smoothie.
- Dry and wet ingredients actually formed a dough, and not a wet mass.
- Kneaded by hand. I’m no wimp, and neither are you.
- Baked uncovered at 350° for 1 hour 15 minutes. Then flipped a few times over the next 30 minutes to get the surfaces brown. (Total cooking time 1 hour 45 minutes)
- Turned out great, and took less baking time!
The lesson here is that no matter how wet your loaf is, just bake it dry. The proportion of gluten, flour, nutritional yeast, tofu, and seasonings makes a perfect loaf. The water content may vary (tofu drained or not, more or less water), but you can bake that off.
I love the texture of this loaf – firmer than tofu, but not as chewy and heavy as baked seitan. The flavor is turkey-like, and certainly open to experimentation and personalization. Bryanna's loaf does slice up thinly (not as thin as Tofurkey slices, but maybe if you had a deli slicer), and is perfect for sandwiches. Thanksgiving, too! Put some gravy on it.
11 comments:
I can't believe I'm saying this but...Gimme some tofurkey!! I may be the only vegetarian out there that refuses to eat any tofurkey I've encountered before but yours looks downright delectable. I'm impressed. Very very impressed.
I agree! You are a Champion Taylor! I'm definitely giving this one a try!
it's good to hear about this recipe and your comments on it. i have an intense idea of what i want to make for thanksgiving, and this could potentially be a good starting point. it's going to be wild. in fact, it probably won't work.
Jenn- I've got a loaf in the freezer for ya.
Krista - Definitely give it a go.
Shaun Marie - Wild!! I can't wait.
looks great. reminds me a bit of a pot roast think I made last month, but I like how this recipe has tofu and seitan in it.
Thanks for all the words of advise.
dudes, you're amazing! I don't know if I would really like a homemade faux turkey flavor, since I didn't like tofurkey, but maybe? Thanks for the tips, though!
I made Bryanna's recipe twice, and both times they ended up being a bread instead of a seitan. I'm wondering about what you did, like the batches I made from her recipe seemed too large for a small foil loaf pan, did you halve the recipe to make a smaller amount? Also, when you cooked it the second time, did you use a broth at all to baste or just bake it uncovered? Did you use cooking method 1 or 2? And finally, how long did you knead by hand? Because I did it by hand the first time, and the first seitan turkey was far worse than the second. I hope you can answer these questions for me, I'm trying to make this for Christmas, thanks!
Meghan - We just made this twice a few weeks ago for Thanksgiving and it turned out well.
When I originally posted this, I did not have problems with the dough fitting in a loaf pan, but this go around we made it in a loaf pan the first time, and it did seem a bit much for the pan. So, the second time we just shaped it into a wide, low mound and baked it in a larger dish (8x8, 9x13, it doesn't matter; the dough was not touching the edges, but if it does, it doesn't matter).
I kneaded probably less than 10 minutes, just because I'm impatient.
I guess you could say I used cooking method #1, but ignore the whole "don't preheat the oven", specific temps, and cooking times. I bake at 350 degrees, with or without the parchment (have done both), and cover the dough with the liquid (doesn't have to completely cover the dough, as it might not if you're using a larger pan), flipping towards the end when most of the liquid is gone (flipping, just sort of allows the top to brown). Ovens vary, so the liquid may be mostly gone in 1 1/2 hours or 3 hours - it's a crap shoot, honestly.
This very last time we made it, we cooked it until there was just a smidge of liquid left at the bottom of the pan, instead of cooking all of the liquid off, and found the loaf to be much moister and better all around.
Hope that helps. Give it a trial run. It stores perfectly in the freezer and you can take it out to thaw before Christmas.
Hi- I linked to your post from my blog :)
Bryanna’s site doesn't show the directions for making this awesome soy and seitan turkey. Does anyone still have it?
Troy M - I've written the recipe and directions in this post.
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