Braised BBQ Ribs
In my carnivorous life, I would make these braised bbq ribs on occasion. I recently stumbled across this vegan version of a class BBQ rib that looks utterly fantastic. Because I'm not a fan of canned BBQ sauce and just love the sauce that comes from the braising liquid in the previous recipe, I'm going to try my hand at converting the old version to a vegan one.
The process includes seasoning the ribs with a rub and then braising in liquid & foil at a low temperature for a longer period of time. My concern is that I'm not certain how this will transfer to wheat gluten.
Some main questions I have:
• Will the braising liquid make the seitan soggy? Should I reduce/modify?
• Temperature & Time - Considering the length of the original is largely do to cooking raw meat, do I need to adjust for seitan?
Any help would be appreciated!
Definitely reduce the cooking time. If you overcook seitan, it'll just be tough, chewy, and not close to the texture you remember from the recipe. at 250, I'd check it after 45 minutes to an hour.
Personally, I would recommend adding some other things into the braising liquid. Seitan will not lend any flavor to the liquid like the animal flesh did, so you'll need it to pack a punch. I would recommend adding some tamari and maybe a little tamarind paste. (and while you're at it, add some tahini to the seitan mixture. Trust me on this).
Let us know how it comes out.
Personally I would season the seitan itself a bit, and not depend on the cooking liquid to do it all. The famous Seitan O' Greatness (from PPK, I think) does that, and I have used this technique in my own baked seitan with good results. I did braise some seitan in flavoured liquid but the air in front of my face had more flavour than the finished product.
Great tips, thank you both! I'm just learning to make my own seitan, so this is very helpful! I'll follow up with my results
Did you make the ribs yet? I just saw your post and I wanted to suggest that to make a tender rib-type consistency you would probably need to experiment with more than just wheat gluten for the seitan piece.
This is a link to a recipe on ellen's kitchen, which is not a veg site but has many veg recipe:
http://www.ellenskitchen.com/recipebox/glutpnut.html
I am not suggesting you use this recipe for your ribs--I don't think the taste is compatible--but if you look at the ingredients for the loaf you will see there is a decent amount of fat and some ohter items--tapioca plus oats or soy flakes--to give it additional texture. She has a couple fo other loafs and faux meat things that are a variation. The result is a more tender product and I think you want to strive for something like that in your ribs to get the melting texture you are looking for.