Dragonfly's Vegan Ribs
2 cups vital wheat gluten
2 tablespoons vegan beef broth
1 tablespoon tomato flavored bouillon
1 7/8-2 cups water
2-3 tablespoons raw tahini
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast (I use KAL)
unbleached flour, for dusting
vegan BBQ sauce, to serve
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F, and grease a cookie sheet. Mix the gluten with the broth and bouillon. Using a fork, make a well in the center and add the water all at once. (Add more if you live in a dry area, less of you don't, hence the different amount.) Mix fast, rapidly encorporating all the gluten. Mix in nutritional yeast.
2. Dust a flat surface, dust your hands and lightly dust the gluten lump. Knead until rubbery and smooth. Use more flour if you need to. Flatten the gluten out with the tips of your fingers. Melt the tahini in the microwave or on the stove. You want it to be smooth, slightly warm and easy to spread. Using just your fingertips, poke the melted tahini into the surface of the gluten.
3. Turn over the gluten and repeat. It won't actually knead into the gluten, but will work in a bit and sit on the surface. Slice the gluten into strips. The thicker the strip, the chewier the rib, the thinner the crispier. Put the strips on prepared sheet and bake for about 10-15 minutes.
4. When the under side is golden, flip them over and bake some more. You want a crispy product. They should puff up at first and flatten as they are browning up. You can add sauce to each side as they are browned up, or add it at the end. We like a small amount of sauce, but you can drench yours, if you like.
These are a homemade version of the non-vegan rib mixes you can buy at the HFS (they require butter). That, and it is a much larger quantity. I have four girls who can eat them all by themselves. I have to triple the batch when my grown sons are here. Those boxes should be out of reach price wise. We eat these every Friday or there is a general household revolt.
Enjoy!
SO HOW'D IT GO?
Yes, the gluten is VERY sticky.
OH! We just bought a vegan DVD .. the Hardcore Vegan Chef? From Hot Topic. I totally recommend it!!! He makes some awesome-looking seitan. We're going to try to make some very soon!
Yeah, I did have to add some flour b/c the mixture was extremely wet and sticky-is that how it's supposed to be? Rinse the flour? What does that mean? Thanks for the help! ???
Did you use only gluten and not wheat flour? If you don't rinse the wheat flour enough, your mock meats can be quite chewy. If that's the case, try just using gluten!
Ok, I read all of the mixed reviews..but I was hoping I would have a positive result..These were quite tedious to make, and they came out like bread sticks with bbq sauce. That's an ok result..but not for a "rib." They might be better if I practiced..but I don't think I want to go through all that..They don't tasted bad, though. :err:
These were great! I liked that they were chewier than the seitan I usually make--of course that probably has to do with the fact that they were baked rather than simmered in sauce. I did make some modifications, though, because I don't think there were enough spices in the original recipe (no offense--I love dragonfly's recipes!).
I added 1/4 C nutritional yeast instead of 2 T yeast.
I omitted the broth but added about 2-3 T soy sauce
I added some liquid smoke
(I omitted some of the water so it kept the same liquid)
Added some garlic, onion, and chili powders
Used tomato paste instead of bouillon
I really enjoyed the tahini "rub", and next time will try it with peanut butter. I think PB would go well with the BBQ sauce.
All in all, a wonderful recipe, and thanks for a new way of preparing seitan!
Does vegan beef broth even exist? The woman at the hfs said no.
Yes, it does! I have never bought it, but my co-op sells it by all the bulk spices. I've seen vegan beef broth & vegan chicken broth. I've just stick with veg broth so far, though!
Just made these last night and they were really good! It was the first time I made my own seitan so I was really excited they came out so well. Only thing is I could not find vegan beef broth or tomato bouillon so I used vege broth and mixed that with a tblsp of tomato paste....that seemed to work fine. Does vegan beef broth even exist? The woman at the hfs said no.
Great recipe...my super picky husband loved it...actually ate the leftovers for days. I used unsalted veg broth instead of salted fake beef broth and it worked fine-I agree with the earlier poster that the BBQ sauce is salty enough. Also used ketchup because I didn't want to open a whole can of tomato paste. I always have trouble stretching and flattening seitan out enough, but the technique in this recipe of poking it with your fingertips really helped for some reason. I was able to get it perfectly thin. Realitively quick and easy recipe.
Wow, I think I didn't make this for a long time because I assumed it would be hard... but it's the easiest seitan I've ever made, and delicious. I forgot to add tomato paste, and they were still fine.
I have to say that for my first time making seitan, this turned out to be yummy!
I swear that I flattened this out for 30 minutes and still couldn't get it to be any smaller...I would've liked them to a little less chewy. I will definitely be making this again, though! No longer will I be buying the premade stuff! :D
On a side note, I have a strange sense of humor and really enjoyed the fact that I used Bone Suckin' BBQ Sauce but didn't have any bones. Maybe I'll rename it to Stem Suckin' BBQ Sauce...
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