Vegan Steak - Wheat Meat - Seitan Steak - THE HAPPY PEAR_2

Yo dudes! Welcome to Vegan Steak! So we did say the word vegan and steak in the same sentence. Aha! It does seem like a complete contrast. But it wasn't until yesterday we tried this and it's amazing. It's easy. It's super, like, it's amazing. Super versatile. It can go great in sandwiches, in burgers, on its own, or in stews or casseroles. Easy to make. Here we go. The core ingredient you're going to use for this is wheat gluten. And that's vital wheat gluten. You will be able to get it in most health food stores. Just to show you, this is the one we used. We got it in the Asian supermarket. And interestingly enough, it's 70-80% protein. So this is high-protein vegan steak. Okay, so anyway, we've got 250 grams of vital gluten. Vital wheat gluten. Vital wheat gluten, and it goes into a mixing bowl. Okay, so this is going to add the elasticity, the protein, and essentially this is the carrier of flavor. Time to season it. Garlic powder. We're going to go with one teaspoon. Pinch of sea salt. Yes, go with a generous pinch, my friend. I'm more than your friend. I'm actually your twin. Okay, great. Smoked paprika, just to add a sense of meatiness and to add a little bit of sense of oxtail. I've gone with about half to a quarter teaspoon. In it goes. I'm going in with a tablespoon of tamari. Just use soy sauce if you don't have tamari. One tablespoon. In it goes. We want to make, we said the word vegan steak, so we want this meat to be slightly red looking. We're going to put in two tablespoons of tomato puree. In it goes. Okay, next step, which might seem a little weird, is we're taking half a tin of chickpeas. So that's a 400 gram tin of chickpeas that we've drained and rinsed. We are taking half of it. So then we're going to take them and we're going to mash them. Or I am going to take them and mash them with a potato masher, just to mash them up and give it a bit of texture. Because otherwise this would end up just a bit too bland or a bit too monotextured. You see what I mean when you make it, it ends up quite tight and quite kind of rubbery. The beauty about the chickpeas is they'll add a little bit of lightness to it and they'll also add a little bit more air. Good bashing, darling. I think I can't really bash it anymore. So I've pretty much levelled. Take it out and just insert. I believe is the proper word, isn't it? No, just pour it in the bowl. Okay, pour it into the bowl. Next step, take your ten mixing spoons. This is best done with your hand, make sure they are clean. And in they go and just mix it. And what we're trying to do here is to spread the garlic powder throughout it. To mix the tomato puree and just to spread that flavour before we add in. Because you'll see as soon as the water goes in, the gluten will bind very quickly and it's harder to spread flavour. Okay, great. Now time to add in a bit of moisture to this party. Okay, make a little well. Okay, so we've got 500ml of veg stock. We're not going to use it all. We're going to have to measure a little by eye. Because obviously gluten each time is slightly different. So we're going to start with maybe half of it. We're going to start with adding in about half of it. Okay, that's about half of what we started with. We're going to mix it in together and you'll see it'll just come together like a big dough ball. And if it's not coming together enough, we're going to add in more. And now the thing, what we're going to have to do is we're going to knead it for about three to four minutes. By us kneading, one, we're going to help bring it together. And two, we're going to help release more gluten and make it even more elastic and more dough-like. Okay, so we've kneaded that for about five minutes. And as you can see, the tomato puree, we did add an extra two tablespoons of tomato puree. So that's a whole four in total. Because we wanted to give it just that sense of red. Tense of blood. Blood-like feel. You'll see there, it looks very flesh-like. It is remarkably glutinous. Intense. It's almost like muscle. It looks like muscle. So what we're going to do is we're going to soften the muscle in our gluten. We've made our dough. What I like to do is I like to take it and just stretch it around so you get a smooth outer surface. Okay, so if you want to pour in the remainder of the stock into the saucepan there. So we have one onion that we've chopped. A small onion that we've chopped finely. It's probably half a large onion. And we have one clove of garlic. You can have two. Whatever you're going to eat it. So the beauty is you can shape it whatever way you want. So we're tenderizing our flesh here. Okay, so we took our big lump of carcass of flesh. And we've divided it into five different steak burgers. In essence, we tenderized it with the potato masher. Our meat tenderizer. And now we have five steaks. So what we have done is we've taken our 250 ml of stock. We've put in one onion that we've chopped finely. It was a small onion. We've put in two cloves of garlic. We've filled it up with about another 500 ml of water. Just so that it's slightly above the edge of the steaks. So we're going to put in our steaks now into the water. Just make sure that they're not on top of one another. We're going to put in another two tablespoons of tamari. The thing with this is what we're not... Okay, this is one of the secrets to seitan, as this is often referred to. Is that we're going to simmer it, not boil. When you do boil it, the bubbles come up at too, I guess, high a speed. And they tend to break it up and make it look kind of almost like brain-like texture. What's really important here is that it's a gentle simmer. That it's slowly boiling. So should we bring it to the boil first and then turn it to simmer? We're going to bring it to a simmer. And we're going to leave it simmer for 30 minutes. Okay, so we've simmered our steaks away for about half an hour, I'd say. And we simmered rather than boiled. So it was a gentle simmer. And they're looking very meat-like. Look at that. Extremely meat-like. And it smells almost meaty-like as well. It's amazing. The texture, although that might look crumbly, look. It's really fleshy. It's really like muscle. What I'm going to do is we're going to cut this in half. Because right now, what we want to do is we want to season the outside and fry it. So just to give it that sense of crisp it off and give it more flavor. Because at the moment, there's a bit of flavor and if we want to make this, bang it. So what we're going to do is I'm going to cut it in half. So you'll need a really sharp knife. In it goes. And beware, this is really sharp. Be careful of your fingers. Okay, let's do two to start with. Let's do two to start with. Okay, we're going to make a quick marinade. So I've got David's dear friend, Tamari, weekly soy sauce. I'm going in with four tablespoons. I've got garlic powder. I'm going in with about half a teaspoon. And I'm going to go in with a little pinch of smoked paprika. I'm going in with, again, about half a teaspoon. In it goes. Give it a good mix. Take our steak and we're going to really get it in there and really try to get it to absorb as much of that as possible. So we're going to fry our steaks in coconut oil. I've got a pan on a high heat. And I'm going to add in a good whack of coconut oil. So I've got a good heaped tablespoon there. Okay, one of the few reasons why we're frying it in coconut oil, one, it has a higher, I guess, burn rate. Higher burn rate or higher resistance to temperature anyway. And two, it's got a higher saturated fat content, so it's just going to add more fat. Because as you know, steak generally will have a lot more fat than, say, wheat gluten. So I've really marinated that. And look, you can see it's really starting to go brown like steak. And I really want it to absorb it. Ready for me? Oh, look at that. Proper steak work. So it looks very steak-y. And when you are massaging it, to really kind of tenderize the meat, if you will, and really try to get it to absorb as much of that tamari as possible. Okay, you ready? Next one, in it goes. Wow, it really is like meat. Okay, so she's cooked. She looks epic. Genuine looks. She, it's a she, is it? Right now. It looks amazing. We've invited Peter, our friend Peter. He's representing the Arch Carnivore here to do the Yale Taste Test. So here we are. We're going to put it down. We've got a steak knife because this really is like a steak. And you'll see it there. Even it's, you know, it's quite, Peter. Wow, it's amazing. There you go. It's a touch. Okay, here we go. You genuinely need a knife to cut this because it really is grisly. Jeez. What do you think? Wow, it's got a really meaty texture. And flavor? Chewy. It's great flavor. It's like muscle. Could you pull it off like there's a, obviously it's kind of different, but for a vegan it's quite remarkable in its meat-like texture. Absolutely. I'll put a bun on it. Some pickles. There you go. There you are. Vegan steak. Genuinely, this is so meaty. And as a vegan and someone who hasn't had meat in about 15 years, this really tastes like as much as I can remember meat. Works perfectly in a barbecue. Great in a bun. You'd fill your friends. Yeah, share it with anyone who you think would enjoy it. Thanks for subscribing and sending you some Vegan Steak Love. Cheers.