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 What We're Making:Those of you who tend to stay away from meat probably know that there are some great meatless products out there that taste close enough that you won't mind eating them (I can't say that a garden burger really tastes the same as a real hamburger, however they do taste good). If you know this, you also know that these types of foods can be rather expensive, often more so than actual meat. Today I will show you how to make a great substitute for chicken nuggets or patties for a fraction of the price of store bought. One of the keys to making this cheap is to buy your raw ingredients in large quantities. I personally use Bob's Red Mill products as they offer some great deals online. Buying wheat gluten at the store can run you around $5 a pound. Or you can buy a 25 pound bag for around $25 + shipping. Even with a moderate shipping charge, its still about 1/3 of the price of buying the small bags at the grocery store. The same holds true with them for their soy flour. There may be an even cheaper source out there, but this is about the best price I could find anywhere, This dish is a variation on a seitan recipe that has been floating around the net for some time. Seitan can be a little intimidating to try to make, but after a year or so of practice, I think I have it down right - So I will share my experiences and tips with the rest of you in hopes of saving you a few months of trial-and-error.
The version I am showing you is admittedly not low-fat, you could reduce the fat and calories considerably by skipping the frying process. Instead, you would take the cooled patties out of the freezer, dip them in the egg wash, then right into the bread crumbs. You would then bake them in a 350 degree oven on cookie sheets lined with parchment paper for approximately 5 minutes each side to set the coating. Even the fried version is still far healthier than a hamburger. You can also skip the breading completely and cook them on the grill, or even barbecue them. The texture is soft and slightly chewy, very similar to real chicken patties - this is one of the first foods I made to start weaning myself off meat and especially fast food. What You'll Need:
2 Cups of Vital Wheat Gluten How To Make Them: Wheat gluten is essentially wheat flour with the starch removed. There are recipes for seitan that involve using flour, but it takes an incredible amount of time and patience to do it that way. If you use wheat gluten, you can get right down to business. You can usually find at larger chain grocery stores, and health food stores. The cheapest way is generally online direct from a manufacturer. The recipe calls for a 2-1 ratio of wheat gluten to soy flour. If you use wheat gluten alone it can be a bit on the rubbery side, which doesn't work well for this type of dish. The soy flour adds a bit of sponginess to the finished product, as well as helping to provide a complete set of amino acids  First we start off by measuring out 2 cups of wheat gluten.  Now you need one cup of soy flour. You can eventually adjust this to your liking, this recipe can be tweaked to create many different types of "meat" by changing the amount of soy flour added and the method of cooking. If you bake it in the oven it becomes a bit chewier, which works great for making fake barbecue ribs. Add a little less soy flour and you can actually make "beef jerky" at home using a dehydrator and some beef jerky seasoning mixed in the the dry ingredients.  Add a little dash of salt to taste. You don't need a whole lot, because this is going to soak up the cooking stock and take on that flavor.  For even more added nutrients and flavor, I like to add one of my favorite foods - nutritional yeast. If you are unfamiliar with this product, it is a yeast that is grown on molasses and then harvested and dried into flakes. The taste is sort of nutty or cheesy, and it is packed with protein, fiber and a full set of amino acids. It is great sprinkled on just about anything from salads to popcorn.  Add a few tablespoons of the nutritional yeast to the other dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. You will want to use a large bowl because mixing this stuff becomes tricky real quick.  When you add the cup of cold water to the dry ingredients, you will need to stir it very quickly and vigorously with a very sturdy spoon, as it acquires a rubbery consistency very quickly. You want to blend it all together until it just starts to form a large clump. If it is too dry and won't cling together, add water a tablespoon at a time, but quickly. This stuff sets up hard in about 30 seconds so you really have to be ready for this.  When its all mixed together, dump it out onto a clean and sanitized counter top for some kneading. This will require a bit of muscle, as by now this stuff is very hard to work with. Note how it has a stringy appearance, you will see as you begin to work with it that is has a very unusual texture.  First of all, sprinkle a bit of soy flour on the counter and on your dough ball. This will help keep it from sticking to everything, which is a good thing. When this stuff dries onto your counter top, it's like any other protein - not easy to get off. You want to knead the dough for a minute or two, just to try to get it all mixed together well. Today I am going to be making sandwich-sized patties, so I am going to form this ball of dough into a tube shape.  Here we form the tube to be about half the diameter that we actually want the sandwiches to be. Remember, this stuff is going to soak up quite a bit of liquid, and thus will just about double in size after cooking. When you have the tube formed, let the dough sit for 15-20 minutes. This will make it easier to work with in the next few steps.  Using a sharp knife (preferably a serrated knife), slice of thin wheels from the tube of dough. If you use a dull knife, you will never be able to make a clean cut.  Using a lightly floured rolling pin, roll the disc out a little bit until they are nice and even thickness. Don't roll them out too big - remember, they will get almost twice their original size!  In your large stockpot, slowly add the patties to the broth, and turn the heat down to a simmer. Throw the lid on the pot, set a timer for one hour and sit back and relax. It is very important to cook them for the full hour to get them nice and tender.  Here we see the patties after half an hour of cooking - they are all floating , and have gotten quite a bit bigger.  These patties have been cooking for the full hour now, and have gotten HUGE. It is now time to take them out of the stock using a slotted spatula and place them in a pan or dish to go into the freezer to cool down. 15 minutes or so and they will be ready to go.  Off to the freezer we go. I use the freezer to cool everything down quickly to help prevent bacteria growth.  Here we have our flour and egg wash (or egg substitute for you vegetarians), as well as a plate line with some paper towel to absorb the excess oil from the patties.  To make the breading, simply dip the patties into the flour, then the egg wash, and then back into the flour. You can repeat this step additional times for a thicker batter, but that will also mean more fat in the finished product. It works much better if you use one hand for the dry bowl, one hand for the wet bowl. Otherwise you will end up with a five inch thick coating of batter on your hands before you are done, and that's not easy to wash off either.  I have a pan with canola oil already heated to 350 degrees. Turn the heat down to medium on the oil, then carefully put the patty into the pan, putting the part closest to you in first so that if any grease splashes, it splashes away from you. Cook for about 1-2 minutes on each side, until golden brown.  This one looks ready to come out, are you hungry yet?  Take the finished patty out, and drain it on the paper-towel lined plate. Other IdeasI generally make these once a month, making a much larger batch and just freezing them all in big Ziploc baggies. The recipe as made here will make approximately 20 sandwich-sized patties, for a total cost of around $4-5. So not only are they better for you than the store bought varieties (which are still loaded with preservatives and other not-so-nice stuff), but also much much cheaper. I often will pay $5 for a pack of 2 or 4 patties like these. You can also cut these into smaller pieces and make them into "chicken nuggets", which are almost indistinguishable from the real thing once you dip them in a little barbecue sauce. One of my favorite variations is to mix Parmesan cheese and Italian spices (basil and oregano especially) in with the dry ingredients and make "mozzarella sticks", breading them with seasoned bread crumbs. Once you dip those into a little marinara sauce, the flavor is almost identical. Nutritional InformationBelow is a chart comparing the nutritional information of one serving of this recipe to two of the main store-bought products, Morningstar Farms "Chik Patties" and Boca "Original Chikn Patties". These numbers assume you follow this recipe and make 20 patties (which will give you patties approximately the same size as the Morningstar and Boca products).
If you add the Nutritional yeast to the mix, you will be adding in good chunks of your recommended daily intake of vitamins B1,B2,B3,B6,B12 and folic acid. The yeast also packs a healthy dose of 18 amino acids. Be sure you use nutritional yeast, not brewer's yeast - the brewer's yeast tends to have a rather bitter flavor, somewhat like beer. Which makes sense, because brewer's yeast is a byproduct of beer production. Another good tip is to make sure you preheat the oil before frying the patties, it will cause the them to absorb far less oil (and calories) then if you add them to a non-preheated pan. CreditsThis article Copyright (C) 2008 DavesWorkout.ComIf You wish to reprint this article on your blog, please be sure to give credit and provide a link back to the original.
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Comment Posted By kim On Sunday, August 24th, 2008 - 5:06 pm