Mock Meats

There are several forms of veggie meats (or meatfree meat or meatless meat or mock meat); from VTP (vegtable textured protein) and veggie sausage to Seitan (wheatmeat) and forms of mock bacon. I’m going to share a couple of recipes here, so you can make at your own mock meats at home.

First up what is meant by veggie meat? Well, it’s a plant-based substitute for animal flesh. (There are many different types on sale at your local supermarket now days.)

But you don’t have to buy veggie meats, you can make them at home. And it’s relatively inexpensive to make them too.

V.T.P.

First up is VTP, or vegetable textured protein, a soya-based meat replacement. It comes in granular form to use in place of ground meat, or in larger pieces to use instead of meat chunks. Basically it’s hydrated, so all you need to do is add water and it plumps up.

But it’s a little flavourless, like meat is, if nothing is added. So here’s a simple VTP recipe to use to add a little meatiness to that soya protein, so it’s more tasty.

1 chunks ~ hydrated; 2 chunks ~ cooked; 3 grounds ~ hydrated; 4 grounds cooked; 5 soy sauce

~For ‘meat’~
– VTP (vegetable textured protein)
– 1 tbsp dark soy sauce
– 1 tbsp beef powder
– boiling water
– coconut oil, solid

~Method:~
1. Add all but the hot water and oil into a jug or bowl (preferably glass, so you can see that thing are mixed in fully).
2. Then pour over boiling water, enough to just cover the ‘meat’ and stir well. If there is any VTP that’s still dry add a little more water to that area and stir to cover the dry bits.
3. Now treat it like you would ground beef/pork/turkey/lamb or chicken pieces and fry it in a little coconut oil. (If you are replacing a light meat like pork or turkey, then add light soy sauce instead of dark soy sauce.)

Seitan

Next up is something a little more complicated. Seitan is wheat meat. It’s made like bread, but flavoured like a meat and has the same elasticity as meats do. The main ingredient is Vital Wheat Gluten ~ a flour with more gluten in than normal flour has (and it’s this gluten that forms into the mock meat texture).

You can find lots of recipes for Seitan Mock Meats on the internet, as it has become a stand in for meatless diets (where people want the taste/texture quality but don’t want to eat animal flesh), like vegetarians and vegans.

The basic procedure is to make the wheat meat, kneed and tenderise it, then simmer in a flavoured broth, and finally, to cook it as you would traditional meat. What you put in the wheat meat and the flavour of the broth effects the end taste of the ‘meat’, as much as how you then use it in your recipes.

Seitan steaks: 1 raw; 2 simmering in broth; 3 (left) fried & (right) marinated and fried

Seitan Steaks

• Servings: 2
• Time: 1 hour 20 mins
• Difficulty: moderate
• Print

These are large steaks. (If you want smaller steaks divide the seitan into smaller pieces.)

by Mr WitchCraft November-10-2017

Ingredients

• 2 cups Vital Wheat Gluten
• 1 tbsp onion powder (or garlic powder)
• 1 tsp beef powder, optional
• 1 tbsp soy sauce (or tamari sauce)
• ½ tsp sea salt
• ½ tsp cracked pepper
• 1 tsp paprika (or ½ tsp smoky paprika)
• 2 tbsp tomato puree/paste
• ¾ cup chickpeas, mashed
• 2 cups vegetable stock (I use homemade stock, or you can use bought)
• For broth:~
• 1 small onion (I used a red onion), roughly chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, cut into quarters
• 2 cups water
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 cup of vegetables (carrot slices, broccoli or cauliflower, mushrooms, or a mix)

Directions

1. In a bowl, add the flour, onion powder, salt, pepper, paprika and tomato paste ~ and rub everything together with your hands. (You need to make sure the flavour is well incorporated before adding any liquid, because as soon as the gluten starts to work, it becomes very difficult to distribute the flavour. So make sure you don’t add the liquid until after you’ve mixed all the flavour into the flour.)
2. Now crush up your chickpeas or beans. (You can pulse them in a blender if you want a smoother texture.) Rub the chickpeas into the flour mix; totally incorporate them.
3. Add ¾ cup (or 1 cup) of the stock to your mix, and form into a stretchy dough with your hands. Pull and knead it in your hands for 5 mins. Keep working the gluten until it has the texture of muscle or meat. You don’t want it too spongy or it will end up like rubber. You need to work the gluten so that its elastic and can be torn apart. Now’s the fun part; you get to beat up the wheat meat, you can tenderise it on a clean work surface with your fists or with a potato masher or meat hammer. The idea is exactly like with traditional meat to make it less grisly and tough, and to produce something tender when you eat it. So beat it up for about 5 mins.
4. Divide the dough by ripping it apart. Pull and stretch it into the rough shape you want it to end up. I formed two large steaks, but you can produce any shape or size pieces of seitan.
5. Add the rest of the stock to a large pot and add in the onion, garlic, water and soy sauce and give it a stir. Next carefully lay your seitan pieces into the broth so they are next to each other, not in layers. (If there isn’t enough liquid to cover them add a little more.) Throw the veg in on top.
6. Slowly heat up the broth until it is simmering (not boiling, or the bubbles will break up the gluten and make it spongy). Set a timer from the moment the water starts to simmer ~ simmer for 50 mins to 1 hour.
7. Once the seitan has been simmered it will increase in size slightly. Now you can cook it in any way that you would cook meat. (If you intend to fry, it pat your mock meat dry with kitchen towels first.) You may simply season it with salt and pepper, or you can marinade it to add further flavour. The choice of how you use it is as wide as the range of meat recipes available to you.
8. (Optional) You can blend the broth with the veggies in it to make a meatless or mock gravy. To thicken the gravy, return it to a pan with a cornflour slurry (mad from 1 tbsp cornflour and 2 tbsp water, mixed) and bring to boil, stirring. Once it thicken enough turn off the gravy and use it as normal.

NB: You can either use dark or light soy sauce depending on whether you need the mock meat to look like chicken, turkey, pork, lamb, or beef. You can even use spices (like curry powder, chilli powder, cumin, etc) if your looking for a more spicy result.

Next week, we will look at how to make your own sausages and mock bacon.