Seitan pepper steak

June 13, 2011 at 10:19 am (F (0 stars, inedible), Ron Pickarski, Seitan)

Derek chose this recipe from Ron Pickarski’s Friendly Foods.  Pickarski says it’s a vegetarian version of the classic recipe for “beef pepper steak,” whatever that is.  He recommends serving it over jerusalem artichoke pasta, flat spinach noodles, or quinoa noodles, but says that it’s also good over rice or mashed potatoes.

Ingredients:

• 1.4 ounces dried, sliced shiitake mushrooms or 1 1/2 cups regular, sliced mushrooms
• 2 cups flaked (angle-cut) seitan
• 1 cup diced onions
• 1/2 cup diced red bell peppers
• 2 Tbs. oil
• 2 Tbs. minced garlic
• 2 Tbs. chopped basil
• 1/2 cup diced green bell peppers
• 1/4 cup sherry
• 1 3/4 cups water
• 3 Tbs. barley miso, dissolved in 1/4 cup water
• 2 Tbs. tomato paste
• 1 Tbs. tamari
• 1/4 cup arrowroot, dissolved in 1/4 cup water

Instructions:

If you’re using shiitakes Pickarski says to soak them in hot water then simmer then with tamari for 30 minutes.

You saute the seitan, mushrooms, onions, red bell pepper, garlic, and basil.  Then when the veggies are half-cooked you add the green bell pepper, sherry, and water along with the dissolved miso, tomato paste, tamari, and dissolved arrowroot.  You then simmer the mixture until the sauce has thickened.

My notes:

I didn’t have any mushrooms so just used quite a bit more peppers to compensate.  I wasn’t sure what flaked seitan means so I just cut a ball it into thin slices and cut these slices into thin pieces along the bias (i.e., diagonally).

The sauce turned out dark brown and extremely goopy.  I think this recipe calls for way too much arrowroot.  And the small pieces of seitan and peppers kinds of get lost in all that goopy sauce.  It would have been better with bigger pieces.  The dish didn’t taste bad exactly, but simply didn’t have a lot of flavor.  I thought it was fine, kind of like a very dark, goopy, mild gravy, but Derek thought it was really tasteless.  But then again he never likes gravy.  In some ways this sauce reminded me of the sauce in the seitan stroganoff recipe in vegan with a vengeance, but that one is much tastier and the texture is better.  In any case, I wouldn’t make this dish again.

Rating: C

Derek: C-