A mouth watering recipe that mimics the texture and tenderness of a piece of meat, without having to harm an animal or the environment to get it.
Inspiration
This recipe has been a goal of mine for awhile now. I wanted to try and mimic the fat lines found in meat fillets that melt when cook and add to the tenderness of the fillet when pan fried. To do this I used a previous chicken fillet recipe, where I found silken tofu provides the most tender seitan, and agar agar powder to hold the coconut oil in place. Finally I was able to achieve this recipe with a good amount of trial and error.
Tips and Tricks
The most crucial steps for this recipe are the steaming and the resting. The steaming ensure the seitan proteins don’t make for a tough fillet, and the cooling lets the agar fat lines solidify holding the layers together.
When creating the fat line mixture, make sure to reduce it enough. If not left to boil long enough, the mixture will be too runny, and won’t create those thick lines between the seitan.
The image below shows what your fillet should look like when you slice it open.
Crucial Ingredients
Tender Salmon Seitan Fillet
Ingredients
Equipment
Method
- Blend the Wet ingredients (1/2 cup silken tofu, 1/2 cup water, 1 tbsp miso paste, 1 tbsp lemon juice, 1 tbsp beetroot juice, 1 tbsp paprika). Then pour this goop into a large bowl where the dry ingredients are already mixed (1 cup Vital wheat gluten, 2 tbsp tapioca starch)
- Knead this dough for 2-3 minutes. Your dough ball should by slightly tacky, firm and springy, but not so tight that knots start to form like in other seitan recipes. It should almost feel like a wet pizza dough. Use extra Vital wheat gluten and water to adjust the texture if absolutely necessary.
- Roll out this dough into 4 roughly equal rectangular pieces, about a quarter inch thick each. I found a wet cutting board works best to prevent sticking.
- Now for the fat lines, combine the 1/3 cup soymilk, 1/2 tsp agar agar powder, 3 tbsp coconut oil, and 1 pinch salt in a small sauce pan. Bring this mixture to a rolling boil for 1-2 minutes. It should thicken very quickly. Once you take this off the heat it should look like a big white booger.
- Lay out a big sheet of aluminum foil. Place one seitan piece on the foil and then a thick layer of the booger fat on top. Repeat this process until you have 4 layers of seitan separated by 3 layers of fat lines. Then wrap this messy block very tightly in the foil.
- Steam this tight brick for 45 minutes, do not rush this step. Then place in the fridge to cool for 2 hours minimum, best if overnight.
- Slice the brick into fillets, and pan fry with a little bit of oil to get the fat lines going.
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