Thursday, December 27, 2012

Retro KFC-Style Sandwiches

This recipe is from Vegan Sandwiches Save The Day by Tamasin Noyes and Celine Steen.
Recipe: see page 95 of Vegan Sandwiches Save the Day.
Oh mercy, this was a really tasty recipe.

I wasn't expecting much because I've never successfully made seitan. It always comes out kind of spongy, and it feels like I am eating a chicken-flavored sponge. Usually I just buy Trader Joe's Chickenless Strips, which are vegan, but the taste is very bland. Happily, this is now my go-to recipe for chicken-flavored seitan.

These sandwiches consist of two recipes from the book. Before you make the sandwiches, you need to make the faux-chicken No Cluck Cutlets on page 181. There is a lot of flavor in these. Part of it is in the dough, and then it is baked in broth where more is absorbed.

According to the book, these can be stored in the fridge for up to a week or put in the freezer for up to three months. The recipe makes 10 cutlets that are about 4 inches wide after cooking. I thought they were too small after I rolled them out, but after they baked in the broth they expanded to sandwich size.

The cutlets are then dredged in a spicy batter made from nondairy milk, flour and herbs, then covered with crumbled cornflakes and fried in a pan. That gives the cutlets a crispy coating, which contrasts nicely with the chewiness of the chicken-flavored seitan. These go on sandwich buns along with lettuce, tomato and a sauce that is made from vegan mayonnaise, pickle and red onion.

One of the things I noticed about the recipes in this book (I've made 8 so far), is that they tend to have BOLD flavors, and that's definitely the case here. It's fairly spicy (cayenne), and it has that strong chicken-flavor (McKay's Vegan Special Chicken Style Instant Broth and Seasoning is the bouillon I used).

I still enjoyed these the next day, after they were reheated, but the best way is to eat them fresh, right after they have been fried and the coating is still crispy. The cornflake coating loses the crunchiness after being in the fridge, but still tastes pretty good.

I'm a little afraid to figure out the sodium in each sandwich, because I know that is going to be a little high.  So I might not have these on a regular basis because of that, but just based on taste, I'd say this is another winner from Vegan Sandwiches Save the Day.

Ingredients:
(for sauce) vegan mayonnaise (Vegenaise used here), red onion, dill pickle, ume plum vinegar, white pepper.

(for seitan) vital wheat gluten, nutritional yeast, chickpea flour, soy flour, garlic, onion powder, white pepper, vegetable broth, dry white wine, olive oil, vegan chicken-flavored bouillon powder (McKay's Vegan Special used here), dried thyme, mustard powder, onion powder, salt

(for fried coating) cornflakes, dried parsley, dried thyme, onion powder, sea salt, mustard powder, paprika, cayenne, black pepper, all-purpose flour, nondairy milk (Trader Joe's Unsweetened Soy Milk used here), canola oil. 

(for sandwiches) burger buns, shredded lettuce, tomato.