Seitan Baked in Sweet and Sour Orange Sauce

Yippee! Today is finally the last day of school! You'd think I was still in school (or teaching freshman comp) the way I get so excited. (Though to be honest, when I was teaching I was much, much happier to be finished; there are some of us who were born not to teach!)

Anyway, E. is finished with 4th grade today at noon, and the two weeks leading up to this day have been hell...for the parents! I swear, I have spent more time at the school during these last two weeks than I have at home. There have been awards ceremonies, lunch with the grandparents, performances, and recitals (she's in an arts magnet school). And then outside of school there have been more recitals and the eye doctor, dentist and orthodontist check-ups which all seem to need to be scheduled right at the end of the school year. Right now, I'm looking forward to a little break. (And I'm taking one, but more about that in my next post.)

This all has absolutely nothing to do with today's recipe; I'm just bubbling over with so much excitement that I can't help sharing. No, today's recipe stems from another kind of excitement--my newfound passion for baked seitan.

I've been a little obsessed with baking gluten (which is what it technically should be called, since seitan is by definition simmered in broth) ever since the Veggeroni. My success with that recipe led me to try making Ribz on the grill, and my whole family loved them so much that I knew I'd have to start working on variations of the recipe. So a couple of nights ago, with no grill at hand, I decided to rework the Ribz recipe with a sweet and sour pineapple-based sauce. I had the gluten in the oven and was ready to make the sauce when I discovered that I was all out of pineapple chunks. So I racked my brain for about 5 seconds and came up with orange juice as a substitute.

The seitan came out delicious, though I have to say that I like it better on the grill. (You have to be careful not to over-cook it because it can dry out along the edges.) Otherwise it and the sauce were a big hit. And once again, I should have doubled the recipe, but didn't. The three of us devoured it in record time!



Seitan Baked in Sweet and Sour Orange Sauce
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This isn't as complicated as it appears at first glance. Get your gluten in the oven and then make your sauce and, if you want, your vegetables. By the time the seitan is done, the vegetables should be ready too.

If you make this recipe, please drop me a comment telling me how long you baked it; I'm still looking for the optimum cooking time, though individual ovens will vary.

For the seitan:

1 cup vital wheat gluten
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
1 teaspoon onion powder
3/4 cup water
2 tablespoons peanut butter
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon ginger paste or minced ginger
1/2 recipe Sweet and Sour Orange Sauce, below

Preheat the oven to 350 and lightly spray an 8x8 baking dish with canola oil. Mix the first 3 ingredients together in a large bowl. Mix the water with the peanut butter, sesame oil, soy sauce, garlic, and ginger and add it to the dry ingredients. Stir to mix well and then knead lightly for a couple of minutes.

Put the dough into the baking dish and flatten it so that it evenly fills the pan. Take a sharp knife and cut it into 8 strips; then turn the pan and cut those strips in half to form 16 pieces.

Put it in the oven and bake for 20 minutes. While it's baking, prepare the sauce, below. After 20 minutes, pour half of the sauce over the top of the seitan, spreading it to cover completely, and return the seitan to the oven. Cook for 10-15 minutes. Remove from oven and cut apart to serve.

Sweet and Sour Orange Sauce

1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon ginger paste or minced ginger
1 cup orange juice
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons tomato paste
3 tablespoons brown sugar or demerara sugar
2 tablespoons agave nectar
1 teaspoon sesame oil
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1/2-1 teaspoon chili sauce (more to taste)
2 tablespoons corn starch
1/3 cup vegetable broth or water

Spray the bottom of a non-stick sauce pan lightly with canola oil and heat over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and ginger and cook for about 2 minutes. Add all remaining ingredients except the cornstarch and broth and heat until boiling.

Mix the cornstarch with the vegetable broth until smooth and stir it into the sauce. Cook, stirring, until mixture thickens. Keep warm on lowest heat until needed.

For the vegetables:

You can use the remaining sauce for dipping, or you can do as I did and use it to season some "steam-fried" veggies. Use your choice of veggies or try my "what-I-needed-to-use-up" combo:

1 large onion, cut into wedges
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon ginger paste
1 head cauliflower, cut into small florets
1 red bell pepper, cut into strips
1/2 recipe of Sweet and Sour Orange Sauce
vegetable broth

Heat a large, covered wok or deep skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onion, and sauté until translucent and beginning to brown. Add the garlic and ginger paste and sauté for one more minute.

Add the cauliflower and about 1/4 cup of water. Cover immediately and steam for 4 minutes. Add the bell pepper and a little more water if necessary; cover and cook for about 2 more minutes, until cauliflower is tender but still crisp.

Add the sauce to the vegetables and use a little vegetable broth to deglaze the pan and get all of the sauce out. Stir and cook until warm throughout, about 5 minutes. Serve over noodles or grain with seitan strips.

Tags: vegan recipes vegetarian cooking food fat-free