Friday, April 10, 2009

Chicken Seitan Parmigiana with Roasted Broccoli

The week before I made this meal, I had been busy after work and missed dining at home. Not just cooking, but the practice of changing out of my officey clothes, feeding my two cats and winding down in the kitchen. Weekend hit and it was time to lose myself in my kitchen for a couple hours, while entertaining side projects like cleaning and petting cats while things simmered and roasted.  
I recall channeling my Italian parents and after successfully making boiled seitan (which is actually simmered) for the first time in years and thinking about the mozzerella teese in the fridge, I set out to make Chicken Seitan Parmigiana.  In the same afternoon, of course.

Mangia!

The boiled seitan was made with vegetarian chicken style bouillon cubes and based on the recipe from Veganomicon.  I used fresh thyme, rosemary, dried bay leaf, extra pepper, garlic and nutritional yeast.  After it was done simmering I put aside some in the broth, froze a tray of broth ice cubes and cut off a section for the parmagiana cutlets.  

Here they are, freshly...pan-fried in extra virgin olive oil:

I can't say that I'm a fan of kneading bread dough, but I don't really mind seitan.  It's more forgiving, for sure.  Savoury productivity.

After simmering:

The breading station:

The fundamentals of vegan Italian breading go as follows - dip in flour, dip in a water or soymilk cornstarch slurry, dip in pulverized breadcrumb mixture.  
My third mixture was of homemade breadcrumbs, various herbs, black pepper, sea salt and nutritional yeast.  Doing this takes me back to making real animal cutlets and dipping them in egg and flour as a little one....and I say that fondly.

Ready to pan-fry:

21 comments:

nora said...

ohhhhh gosh, that melty teeseeee mmmm

Lisa said...

whoa. I've bookmarked this for reference! You must be the breading goddess, those pan fried cutlets look incredible.

Mary said...

Those cutlets look superb!

Sindy said...

I am teese-deprived, but will enjoy the eye candy for sure!

veggievixen said...

so awesome!! this looks so delicious. what's better than italian??

IsaChandra said...

Slurry.

Gina said...

I got my hands on some Teese recently (hard to come by here), and I've just been debating over what exactly to use it on. This looks awesome!

Unknown said...

Those look pretty!

Laura said...

i am still baffled by how well teese melts!!! thanks for the breading tips btw! very different from southern-style breading that i'm used too...i think i need to make this soooooooooon....

Janet said...

Best looking chicken seitan cutlets I've ever seen! Yummmm!

jb said...

This looks absolutely incredible, wow

paula said...

Yuuuuum!

I just perfected my seitan making with NO BOILING as well. I've been getting better and better at it each time, but this last time the water didn't boil for even a second and it was the best looking/best textured seitan I've made! Yours looks great

Anonymous said...

Wow Jess, that looks pretty darn splendid!

esme said...

your seitan is awesome! i need to have you come over and teach how to boil seitan. i am horrendous at it.

Elyse said...

WOW! This looks totally delicious. I love what you've done to the seitan. Mmm, I want this for dinner tomorrow. I wonder if I'll get my act together enough to go to the grocery store and get some seitan. How wonderful!

Veganissexy said...

Holy moly that looks good. Geesh breaded seitan....uhm sign me up :)

Karla said...

that's some good porn, jess.
i second the slurry.

Bianca said...

OMG!!! This looks great! I'm gonna half to try making seitan cutlets like that. I've made the VCon recipe, but never breaded. Brilliant!

Anonymous said...

these appear to be breaded to perfection! i'm so impressed :)

Melisser; the Urban Housewife said...

Ooh wow! That breading looks crazy good!

Sarena Shasteen - The Non-Dairy Queen said...

WOW, that looks so good!