Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Seitan Buffalo "Wings"

Okay, I felt kinda' strange bringing buffalo wings for lunch today, but since a lot of people seemed to be interested in how they turned out, and since we've been on such a seitan kick here lately, I went ahead and brought them. And now that I think about it, it's really not that bad of a lunch. First of all, I have, of course, the seitan buffalo wings that I made recently. They are just made of some chunks of homemade seitan (this time I used the recipe from La Dolce Vegan by Sarah Kramer - she has a gluten recipe that is specifically chicken-like in flavor) which I then covered in some buffalo sauce made by simply mixing Frank's Famous RedHot Sauce and melted Earth Balance Margarine. This is the most significant source of fat in today's lunch (more on that later), but it's really not that much fat (there was only 1/4 cup of Earth Balance in the whole batch and this is just a fraction of it). Plus, the types and ratios of fats in Earth Balance are proven to IMPROVE your cholesterol. So at least it has that redeeming quality. Trust me. These are good!

I brought along some celery and carrots to go along with the "wings". And then I've got a container of vegan ranch dip down there to dip everything in. There's a story here too. I used to make ranch dip by mixing a pack of the ranch mix from Kroger (which just happens to be vegan) with a container of Tofutti Better than Sour Cream. Well, that would be about 1/3 of that container in today's lunch, and a container has 60 grams of fat in it, so I would have been looking at probably 20 grams of fat just in the dip. So what did I do instead? I pulled out Sarah Kramer's cookbook again and found a recipe for sour cream that uses Silken tofu, lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, a little sugar, a little canola oil (only 1 Tbsp, which is 14g fat), and some Tamari. I made the stuff and it completely filled one of the Tofutti containers that I had washed and saved. Then I made the ranch dip from that. So instead of having 60g of fat in a batch of ranch dip, now I have 14g. And that means I've only got 4-5g of fat in the amount of dip in my lunch. Plus, if you wanted to, you could probably even leave that 1 Tbsp. of canola oil out completely, making the stuff virtually fat-free. And yes, it tastes just as good as the dip made with the Tofutti.

Since I HAVE to eat wings with my fingers (licking the sauce off your fingers is half the fun) that made today's lunch another one where I didn't need the utensils, leaving that compartment free to hold a Cashew Cookie Larabar.

I will probably try and do a picture tutorial on making seitan this weekend. If I do, I have something in mind that came to me when making the pieces for these buffalo wings. I'll keep it a secret until this weekend, but if it works like I think it will, it will be a delicious new recipe that I will personally make ALL THE TIME. Oh, I hope it works. I'm pretty sure it will. Okay, enough about that.

If you used to eat buffalo wings and miss them, I would recommend making them from seitan. They are very authentic. One thing I forgot to mention up top was that after boiling the seitan pieces in their broth for an hour, I did take Sarah Kramer's advice and then place them on a pan and bake them in the oven for 30-40 minutes to make them even chewier. This makes the outside of the pieces get a lot drier and more chewy, not to be gross, but it gives it a texture that is very similar to real wings with the outside being a tougher "skin" and then a softer, more tender, "meatier" inside. Not bad from something made at home from scratch.

Thanks for stopping by! See you on Thursday!
CELERYCARROTSSEITAN BUFFALO 'WINGS'VEGAN RANCH DIPCASHEW COOKIE LARABAR

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey, I read your blog everyday, and I think it's great how there's a male vegan out there who can definitely cook well. I have a blog, too, here, although it's quite laughable.

KariDyan said...

OMG, yum. Thank you so so so much for posting those. I'm so excited to try that this weekend YAY!
thanks again. (ooh, can't wait for my Seitan Class ;))

Anonymous said...

Wow! FANCY today! Would love to "see" the seitan recipe by pics. I've wanted to try it but it seems a little daunting.

Do you have rough nutritional information for a half cup of seitan?

Kris said...

I've been skeptical of the tofu sour cream recipe, but now I think I'll give it a go. Not only is it healthier, but sometimes Tofutti is hard to find. Good to know...

Anonymous said...

I've been reading your lunch blog for awhile now. I'm not a vegan/vegetarian but I'm always on the lookout for healthy & different lunch ideas. If it tastes good, I'll eat it.

As for the butter/margarine calorie count, butter also has 100 calories per tablespoon, NOT 100 calories per teaspoon! I'm not sure about most margarines, since I usually use Smart Balance Light which has only 45 calories per tablespoon and no trans fat.

Anonymous said...

One more thing... Last week I took Amtrak to visit my mother and wanted to bring something to eat on the train, since I'd be leaving in the afternoon and getting in late. I found a packaged vegan meal in the refrigerated section of a supermarket by work, "turkey" and vegetables. It was really, really good and I kept checking the "turkey" because it wasn't like any veggie meat I'd had before. It seemed very real, and I'm guessing it was made from seitan but I had thrown the package away at work so couldn't check. I packed the stuff in my Laptop food jar after heating it up before I left work and ate it several hours later on the train.

I would love to see your seitan recipe, especially if the "turkey" I ate was made from it.

Anonymous said...

Ohhh, I have to try making seitan at home, if I can make wings :)

I'm drooling on the keyboard now.

joanna said...

kenny, do you have bryanna clark grogson's almost no fat cookbook? it's all vegan low- or no-fat recipes and there are tons of recipes for things like sour cream, etc. it's a staple of mine; i don't know what i did without it.

anyway, if you're working on that stuff, you should check it out. :)

karen said...

That's a great idea to show everyone how to make seitan. They can see how easy it truly is to make. And it tastes incredible!

I am now going to try the sour cream recipe in La Dolce Vegan. I am always hesitant, but Sarah's recipes are really good too!

kennyboy said...

Yeah, I will probably make my own sour cream from now on. I didn't know it was so easy until I actually tried it. It was one of those things that I was always running out of and having to make a special trip to the store to get. And I hate that.

If you make your own, you can just keep a bunch of those boxes of silken tofu in the cabinet to use whenever you run out. Plus it has a whole lot less fat, and can be fat free if you want. Plus, here where I live, a package of Tofutti Better than Sour Cream is $4.00 while a pack of silken tofu, which makes the same amount of sour cream is $1.59

Technicolour Nightmare said...

Seriously, you make me want to be a vegan.