Saturday, November 1, 2008

Pantry Raid Day 1 Iron Chef Day of the Dead

Katie from Don't eat off the Sidewalk has posted this weeks Iron Chef Challenge for the Day of the Dead. http://donteatoffthesidewalk.com/?p=241 November 1 is also All Saint's Day and more excitingly World Vegan Day!

I've been meaning to try out the Chicken-Style Seitan Cutlets from Joanna at the Yellow Rose Recipes. Man I really need to get this cookbook! http://www.yellowroserecipes.com/

Joanna's cutlet recipe is awesome and the dough was easy to roll out thin without ripping and stayed whole through the boiling. I used a silpat mat and a silicone rolling pin, instead of the parchment. I also used vegetable broth in the cutlet recipe instead of the water, but I used plain water with the bouquet garni for the cooking broth.

Chicken with red sauce was one of my Dad's favorite dishes. My Dad passed away 4 years ago after a 12 year battle with cancer. So here's my veganized tribute on the day of the dead.


Red Sauce covers 4-6 cutlets with some extra to pour over a side of rice
1 Cup Ketchup
2 TBS blackstrap molasses
2 TBS agave nectar
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup soy sauce

I lightly pan fried the cutlets in a little olive oil, then poured the sauce + added some broth (you could use water-the sauce is pretty thick and pungent) and simmered for about 20 min.

It turned out surprisingly authentic. Mom always makes rice as a side with this and Dad loved lots of extra sauce on the rice. I used a mix of brown & wild rice.

Extra bonus is the cutlet cooking broth is amazing. In the boquet garni, I used bay leaves, sage, thyme, rosemary, dried onion, and dried chives. I have these great Japanese tea bags that I just filled with the herbs. The final broth needs a little salt or kombu, but this is the best unchickeniest chicken broth I've ever made. With the little bits of seitan floating around, if I didn't know this was vegan, I wouldn't believe it.

3 comments:

Tara said...

What a wonderful post! I think that I will try to make a pie in honor of my beautiful grandmother-in-law.

the little one said...

A nice tribute to your dad!

Joanna said...

This sounds like a delicious meal. I love how certain foods remind you of people. It always makes me happier when I eat them.