Chicago Style Italian Beef Seitan

Chicago Style Italian Beef Seitan

 

Chicago Style Italian Beefs are one of those foods visitors “must-have” when visiting, along side stuffed pizza and our well-known hot dogs.... and for good reason. The flavors are simply incredible, once mixed into the saucy mess of bread, along with either hot or sweet peppers.

These sandwiches had been a long-term craving – one of those things I could have almost broken down for. Once I got the seitan recipe going well, one of my first goals was to figure this out. If I have something of a specialty, this would be it.

A few notes before we begin. When you first make your seitan loaves, add a ton of oregano and fennel, as well as a T of Hot Giardiniara to the broth. Start the flavoring early. You will need a Slow-Cooker/ Crock Pot as well. Finally, Giardiniara seems to be a Chicago only thing (as were Flamin' Hots for many years.) I've searched for it on the coasts in sandwich shops to no avail. It's a mix of olives, chopped celery, cauliflower, carrots and hot peppers, heavily salted and oiled. However, it is pretty amazing – the hot stuff is VERY hot. You can get regular as well.

Time: 2-4 hours, nearly completely unattended

Difficulty: A cinch

Ingredients:

2 prepared seitan loaves, sliced as finely as possible

3-5 cups vegetable stock (depends on the size of the slow cooker)

2 T dried oregano

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 T fennel seed

1 sliced green pepper

2 T giardiniara

some freshly ground pepper

4-6 6” French Bread Rolls

Process:

1. Put all ingredients in a slow cooker and cook on high for 2-4 hours.
2. Stir occasionally.
3. When preparing to serve, slice roll and dip into the broth. Collect broth in  bread to your liking - sloppy is just fine.
4. Load up bread with seitan and green pepper slices. Add additional giardiniara to your liking.
   
   

   

   1. Sliced and ready to be slow-cooked.

   
   

   

   2. In the crock pot.

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

3.  Hot Peppers and all!

Seitan Marsala Recipe (or something like it)

Given that my meat eating days ended just past my teens, there were many carnivorous dishes I never indulged in- I found limiting myself to hot wings, burgers, etc. did the trick just right. Fast forward a decade.... I'm sitting in the Blind Faith Cafe (just north of the Chicago border in the suburb of Evanston,) and Seitan Marsala is an option. Having heard of this dish from friends who savored it in Italian restaurants, I decided to give it a try, and I loved it. The mushrooms, the thickened and heavily flavored sauce coupled with the tender seitan, was a dish I would be craving long after clearing my plate.

Over the last several years I had tried and tried, to no avail, to replicate that meal. However, once I began cooking my own seitan, I sought out recipes once again and came across one which I could eat on a weekly basis. Certainly it requires some effort and a bit of time, but now you have those seitan loaves, here is a recipe worth giving a go. While I have changed some of the process and ingredients to my tastes, this is a recipe inspired by Emeril. His seasoning recipe (listed separately below) is used.

Time: 1 hour, first ½ hour unattended

Difficulty: not so bad, once you have the ingredients

Ingredients:

½ cup All Purpose Flour 

1 cup vegetable broth

1 T Essence seasoning 

salt and pepper to taste

1 loaf of seitan, split 

1 T olive oil

4 T butter 

1 diced red bell pepper

1 8 oz package sliced mushrooms (I prefer Baby Bellas)

¾ red wine (no, I don't use Marsala and it's still tasty)

Process:

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F. Slice boiled seitan loaves in half. Place on cookie sheet and bake for half an hour. This will dehydrate the setian making it more absorbent.
2. Combine flour and Essence seasoning with a whisk. Dredge seitan loaves in the powder.
3. Heat oil in a large skillet on medium until hot, but not smoking.
4. Cook seitan for about 3 minutes per side. Place on a plate.
5. Add 1 T of the butter and add mushrooms and bell pepper. Cook until mushrooms are golden brown and giving off their own juices. Add the wine and turn up heat to medium high. When the liquid has reduced to about half, add 1 T of the butter and the broth. Cook until sauce begins to thicken – several minutes.
6. Lower heat a tad and add seitan. Cook about 5 minutes per side. Sauce should reduce and thicken.
7. Salt and pepper to taste.

1. Oven baked seitan

2. The pan-fry

3. Mushrooms and pepper

4. Ready to eat

“Essence” Seasoning

2 ½ T paprika 

2 T salt

2 T garlic powder 

1 T black pepper

1 T onion powder 

1 T cayenne pepper

1 T dried oregano 

1 T dried thyme

combine all ingredients; yields 2/3 cup

At War With Seitan - A Basic Seitan Recipe with Pics

Seitan... oh lord seitan. After years of reading recipes, blogs, watching videos, and making boiled seitan, I feel as though I have finally found consistency when it comes to making seitan. This post is for those who have struggled with texture – whether it be too gooey, too doughy, or problems with getting it to expand properly. Several little tricks have been have been suggested (use some soy or chick pea flour, start with cold water, etc.,) some of which have been useful, some not so much. After many practice runs of getting greatly varied results, I've settled on this process to produce consistent, well-textured and tasty seitan. I generally use Bob's Red Mill Vital Wheat Gluten and whatever Nutritional Yeast is available. The recipe/ process I use is built off of Bittman's recipe from “How to Cook Vegetarian,” but there are some helpful changes which I have added.

Time: 1 hour 30 minutes, mostly unattended

Difficulty: not bad, but can occasionally be frustrating – results can occasionally vary

Ingredients:

1 cup vital wheat gluten

1/3 cup of nutritional yeast

seasonings as needed (1 tsp. liquid smoke or soy sauce is a great place to start, though spice and flavorings can be used in any way )

apx. ¾ cup of cold water or vegetable broth (oddly, this is a place you will need to adjust depending on the dough's absorption of the liquid)

Stock pot (the larger the better) filled with veggie broth

Process:

1. Mix vital wheat gluten, nutritional yeast and dry seasonings (whisk works well) in a small mixing bowl.
2. Add wet ingredients (the cold liquid seems to help with the texture in the long run,) mix with fork
3. Knead for a minute or 2 (you may need to add more liquid or gluten – the texture at this point should be slightly gummier than Play-doh)
4. Leave sit for about 20 minutes.
5. At this point, you have to make a decision – do you want loaves or medallions? This will depend on what seitan dish you will be creating. If you choose loaves, divide the seitan into 2 roughly equal pieces. You can roll between your hands for a minute to shape, though it will be quite sticky.
   Should you choose to want smaller pieces, often referred to as medallions on other sites and cookbooks, use a knife or tear seitan into very small (a little larger than a thumbnail) pieces. This will take a little time (5-10 minutes.)
6. Place seitan into the large stock pot, filled with cold vegetable stock. Starting with cold stock (straight from the fridge) was recently suggested and has lead to much better consistency.
7. Bring to a rolling boil. Reduce heat to a boil, cover. Stir or flip on occasion (every twenty minutes or so.) Boil for 1 hour.

1. Dry ingredients

2. Wet ingredients mixed

3. Post-knead/ pre-boiled

4. Boiling

Storing and other stuff:

Once the seitan has cooled, you can store and refrigerate for a little over a week, though I will take it out every few days and re-boil it. I won't swear this is a necessity, but I have had stock go bad in the past, and I have read about moldy seitan as well.  As we post other recipes, we will let you know what works in terms of textures for specific dishes. However, 2 things you will likely do for many dishes is to either oven bake (to dehydrate a bit,) or pan-fry. When I first started making seitan, I was always disappointed that I could not achieve the textures I've found at many of the great restaurants of the veg-world. The two-aforementioned techniques have really helped significantly.