Seitan barbecued ribs: variations on an otherwise good recipe.

Being a planteater has its  downsides. One of those is forever giving up hickory smoked barbecued spareribs.

I found this recipe and have made a few modifications. I am not sure those helped or not, but here goes.

Here is the original recipe from Food.com, which borrowed it from fatfreevegan.com:



"This is an original recipe by Susan V from fatfreevegan.com. It's so easy to make and incredibly yummy! You can buy Vital Wheat Gluten at most grocery stores (look for Bob's Red Mill). I did not have nutritional yeast so I omitted this ingredient with no lack of taste. These were "grilled" on a griddle and it worked out great. My meat eater hubby loved it as did the kids. Check out http://everydaydish.tv/cookingshow_video.html for a video on how to make this. (it's under Susan's Ribz)."

Ingredients

• 1 cup vital wheat gluten
• 2 teaspoons paprika ( smoked Spanish)
• 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
• 2 teaspoons onion powder
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 3/4 cup water
• 2 tablespoons nut butter ( peanut butter, tahini, cashew)
• 1 teaspoon liquid smoke
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 cup barbecue sauce

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F and lightly spray an 8x8-inch baking dish with canola oil.
2. Mix the first 5 ingredients together in a large bowl. Mix the water with the nut butter, Liquid Smoke, and soy sauce and add it to the dry ingredients. Stir to mix well in the bowl for a couple of minutes.
3. 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.
4. Put it in the oven and bake for 25 minutes. While it's cooking prepare your grill pan or grill.
5. Remove it from the oven and carefully re-cut each strip, going over each cut to make sure that the ribz will pull apart easily later. Generously brush the top with barbecue sauce. Take it to the grill pan or grill and invert the whole baking dish onto the grill (or use a large spatula to lift the seitan out, placing it sauce-side down on the grill). Brush the top of the seitan with more sauce.
6. Watch it closely to make sure that it doesn't burn. When sufficiently brown on one side, turn over and cook the other side, adding more sauce, if necessary. When done, remove to a platter and cut or pull apart the individual ribs to serve.

 Here's how I modified it:

I used regular paprika instead of smoked Spanish paprika. I used creamy peanut butter and I added about 2 Tbs garbanzo bean flour to the dry ingredients. I have read that certain bean flours enhance the development of the gluten when the liquid is added.  


Instead of soy sauce, I added Braggs Liquid Aminos, which I think is more flavorful. I also added 1 TBS of tomato paste to the liquid and reduced the amount of water.

Gluten is impossible to cut without a very sharp knife, which you will probably dull if cutting inside a glass baking dish. Just use a kitchen scissors such as this one:

I roasted the ribs at 350 degrees for 24 minutes with the thought they would be drier, less bread-like and chewier. Then I grilled them on a Jenn-Air with KC Masterpiece barbecue sauce.

Along with the seitan, we also grilled Vietnamese portabello mushrooms and spice-rubbed sweet potato slabs from today's New York Times Sunday Magazine:

The appearance shouted "ribs" all the way. Even the grill marks looked authentic. The texture wasn't bad, although it didn't develop meat-like fibers. 

Seitan ribs, grilled marinated portabellos, cumin-spiced grilled sweet potatoes
 Click to enlarge

It was good seitan, but alas nothing substitutes for real pork ribs.

Taste: B+
Texture: B-
Appearance: A (it really looks like meat)
Shredding: C- (still shreds like seitan, not meat.)