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:

Pan-friend, and served with homemade red marinara over multigrain and flax penne, roasted broccoli with olive oil, garlic and sea salt and mozzerella teese, ready for melting.  Using teese really made the meal memorable was was the best faux cheeze I've tried for the job.

Melted, sliced and shortly, devoured.

Truly no need for dessert following this.