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Make this vegan corned beef from washed flour using the broth twice. Once to cook your seitan, and again for the vegetables.
Ingredients
Directions
Measure out 8 cups of flour into one bowl, and 2 cups into another. For the 8-cup bowl I mix 3 1/2 cups of water with red food coloring, but only add about 2 1/2-3 cups to start and add a little more as you need it.
For the 2 cups of flour, I start with about 2/3 cup of clear water and again add a little more if I need to. I want to avoid over-hydrating the dough because I find I get stronger gluten development and more yield this way. Knead both balls for about 5-10 minutes until they are uniform and spring back a bit when pushed.
Cover them with cool water and let them rest for at least one hour, no more than 8-10.
If you've never washed flour before, check out this "Wash the Flour" video and step-by-step instructions.
IMPORTANT: Wash both of these dough balls as directed in the steps or video, until your water is cloudy and most of the blobs of starch have shrunk. When simmering washed flour as the primary cooking method, you can wind up with "dumplings" instead of "meat" if you don't wash enough starch out, so make sure to wash at least to the cloudy water stage!
While your dough balls are resting, prepare the broth/brine ingredients. I use a 6qt Instant Pot on the slow cooker "normal" setting for the broth, but most slow cookers should do the job well. My goal is to keep the temperature just below a simmer to avoid spongey seitan. I put all the broth/brine ingredients into a cheesecloth to make it easier to strain, but you can instead simply strain the broth through a sieve later when it's time to prepare the vegetables.
Get the broth cooking for at least a couple hours so it is well seasoned by the time the dough is ready to go in.
After washing, let the dough rest in a colander for at least 20-30 minutes. Wring it out a bit to remove as much excess water as possible.
Add the small, washed and drained "fat" dough to a food processor, along with the 1/2 tsp. each of salt, garlic, and onion powder. Blitz it until it crumbles apart. No worries, it will come back together. Set it on a cutting board to drain and begin to reform.
Then add the larger, washed, "meat" dough to the food processor, along with all of the red "meat" ingredients, and process until it crumbles apart. With all the added seasonings, this dough will likely need to rest an hour or two. If you let it rest longer than that, keep it in a container to catch the liquid so it "marinates" in the flavors.
Once rested, tie the "red meat" dough in a knot or 2 and tuck the rest under. Then take the "fat" dough and stretch it as thinly as possible over the red dough, and press it flat to resemble corned beef. Let it sit just another 10 minutes to give both doughs a chance to stick to each other, and place it in the hot broth to cook for about an hour and a half.
When it's done cooking, simply unplug it and lift the lid to let it slowly come to room temperature. Once cooled, let it sit like this in the brine overnight or for several hours in the fridge.
Once your seitan has had a good rest in the fridge, it’s ready to be finished. Take it out of the broth and let it come to room temperature. This is a good time to prepare your carrots, potatoes, onions and cabbage.
Preheat your oven to 325F. Mix together the glaze ingredients. Put the corned beef in a roasting pan, add more salt and pepper to taste (corned beef is typically salty!), and cover. Once the oven has come to temperature, cook to heat through for 45 minutes, basting in 15 minute increments with the glaze. Leave the roast uncovered for the final 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, transfer your strained seitan broth to a large pot. Add another 2 quarts of water, 1 tsp of salt or more to taste, about a 1/2 tsp of pepper, 2 bay leaves, and a tablespoon of olive oil. Bring your broth up to a boil and then reduce it to a simmer. Add the potatoes, carrots, and onions, and give them about a 5-10 minute head start before adding in the cabbage. Then cook for another 10-15 until the potatoes are fork tender and the cabbage is soft enough to eat.
More Beaf & Holiday Recipes
Ingredients
Directions
Measure out 8 cups of flour into one bowl, and 2 cups into another. For the 8-cup bowl I mix 3 1/2 cups of water with red food coloring, but only add about 2 1/2-3 cups to start and add a little more as you need it.
For the 2 cups of flour, I start with about 2/3 cup of clear water and again add a little more if I need to. I want to avoid over-hydrating the dough because I find I get stronger gluten development and more yield this way. Knead both balls for about 5-10 minutes until they are uniform and spring back a bit when pushed.
Cover them with cool water and let them rest for at least one hour, no more than 8-10.
If you've never washed flour before, check out this "Wash the Flour" video and step-by-step instructions.
IMPORTANT: Wash both of these dough balls as directed in the steps or video, until your water is cloudy and most of the blobs of starch have shrunk. When simmering washed flour as the primary cooking method, you can wind up with "dumplings" instead of "meat" if you don't wash enough starch out, so make sure to wash at least to the cloudy water stage!
While your dough balls are resting, prepare the broth/brine ingredients. I use a 6qt Instant Pot on the slow cooker "normal" setting for the broth, but most slow cookers should do the job well. My goal is to keep the temperature just below a simmer to avoid spongey seitan. I put all the broth/brine ingredients into a cheesecloth to make it easier to strain, but you can instead simply strain the broth through a sieve later when it's time to prepare the vegetables.
Get the broth cooking for at least a couple hours so it is well seasoned by the time the dough is ready to go in.
After washing, let the dough rest in a colander for at least 20-30 minutes. Wring it out a bit to remove as much excess water as possible.
Add the small, washed and drained "fat" dough to a food processor, along with the 1/2 tsp. each of salt, garlic, and onion powder. Blitz it until it crumbles apart. No worries, it will come back together. Set it on a cutting board to drain and begin to reform.
Then add the larger, washed, "meat" dough to the food processor, along with all of the red "meat" ingredients, and process until it crumbles apart. With all the added seasonings, this dough will likely need to rest an hour or two. If you let it rest longer than that, keep it in a container to catch the liquid so it "marinates" in the flavors.
Once rested, tie the "red meat" dough in a knot or 2 and tuck the rest under. Then take the "fat" dough and stretch it as thinly as possible over the red dough, and press it flat to resemble corned beef. Let it sit just another 10 minutes to give both doughs a chance to stick to each other, and place it in the hot broth to cook for about an hour and a half.
When it's done cooking, simply unplug it and lift the lid to let it slowly come to room temperature. Once cooled, let it sit like this in the brine overnight or for several hours in the fridge.
Once your seitan has had a good rest in the fridge, it’s ready to be finished. Take it out of the broth and let it come to room temperature. This is a good time to prepare your carrots, potatoes, onions and cabbage.
Preheat your oven to 325F. Mix together the glaze ingredients. Put the corned beef in a roasting pan, add more salt and pepper to taste (corned beef is typically salty!), and cover. Once the oven has come to temperature, cook to heat through for 45 minutes, basting in 15 minute increments with the glaze. Leave the roast uncovered for the final 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, transfer your strained seitan broth to a large pot. Add another 2 quarts of water, 1 tsp of salt or more to taste, about a 1/2 tsp of pepper, 2 bay leaves, and a tablespoon of olive oil. Bring your broth up to a boil and then reduce it to a simmer. Add the potatoes, carrots, and onions, and give them about a 5-10 minute head start before adding in the cabbage. Then cook for another 10-15 until the potatoes are fork tender and the cabbage is soft enough to eat.
Hi, I would like to give this a try for this St. Paddy’s day and was wondering how far in advance I can roast the corn beef? Saving the strained seitan broth and roast (separately) in the refrigerator. Then the day of add it to the stewing vegetables.
Hi Ed! I wouldn’t roast the corned beef until the day of, because that step is really just to finish it with the glaze and heat it through for serving. Unless you’re planning to heat it another way on the day of? After roasting, slicing, and storing in the fridge, the color got darker, but it does microwave well to reheat heat or you can pan fry the slices if the color is not as much of a concern. You can, however, leave the seitan in the liquid/broth for several days after it’s been simmered which shouldn’t effect the color too much if that is an option for you.
Where do you get flour that has ll% protein? All of the regular and organic AP flours I’ve seen only have 6% or less.
If you don’t mind me asking, where are you located? Most of the AP flours in my area have at least 11%. I typically buy bread flour which has 12.7% protein to make this. Some labels don’t list the percentage of protein, but instead show amount of grams of protein either per serving (here that’s 30g) or per 100g. You could calculate the percentage based on that.
Northern Calif. Is there a specific brand you use?
Are you referring to the flour? I like to use King Arthur Bread Flour but I’m in NJ. Pretty much any bread flour should work well, just check the protein content to be sure it’s over 10%, though I recommend 11% or higher (the bread flour I use is 12.7%) for best results.
For the flour portion, can it be a combo of vital wheat gluten and chickpea flour? Or should it solely be bread flour? Thanks!
You can try making this with vital wheat gluten, though I haven’t experimented with it. I usually find vital wheat gluten needs more flavor, and it will definitely need some more liquid, but if you experiment please let me know how it turns out! 😊
Awesome recipe right down to the Russian dressing.
I used King Arthur bread flour and was surprised and delighted by the results. I may have used too much red dye and I didn’t have all spice or juniper berries but I did have pickling spice and it worked fine.
Yesterday and today, I spent a long time making a vegan pastrami (not from this site). I could not believe my tastebuds! An absolutely foul, vile taste, and so spicy that I thought I was eating a Dragon’s Breath pepper (2,483,584 on the Scoville scale). I’ve eaten meat off and on all my life. Regarding pastrami, I eaten it in multiple countries. That recipe tasted nothing like it. (I’m not deluded to think that seitan will taste exactly like its meat analog; I’ve eaten it off and on for over 50 years, and tasting like the meat analog…it ain’t so! But there should at least be a hint!) For what it’s worth, I fed the “pastrami” to my garbage disposal! 🙂
Back to this recipe. Have you eaten non-vegan, non-vegetarian–that is real meat–corned beef? Have you tasted beef corned beef. If yes, is this close? Corned Beef and Pastrami are close to each other, so if this tastes “real,” maybe I can massage it into Pastrami.
My reason for asking is because in order for me to make this, I’ll need to buy $100 or more of ingredients. Now, I know those ingredients can also be used for other recipes. But I still have to spend the money, so it’s an long-term investment, but it is also a today’s money spending. 🙂
Lawrence
To answer your question, yes, I have had real corned beef. I’m working on a new version of this recipe that I hope will improve the texture (it has come out soft for me on occasion), but I think the taste is great. That said, I don’t think you need to spend $100 on groceries to make it. Some tricks I have learned with washed flour recipes after making it so much is that the less “wet” seasonings you use in your batch, the better the texture will be.
(My favorite combination of flavors to make something taste beefy is here: http://seitansociety.com/recipes/beefy-blend/ )
So on this list, I would highly recommend you buy the dried porcini mushroom powder. If you can find dried porcinis and grind your own, the taste is even better. I think it makes all seitan taste beefy and you may find yourself using it again and again like I do. I have purchased dried soy sauce powder and Worcestershire sauce powder to help save the texture as well, but if you want you can make a paste with liquid and dry seasonings before adding to help, or cook them down.
Beetroot is for color, you can omit it if you choose. You can also sub all of the vegetables in the broth for (low sodium) vegetable broth, then just add soy sauce and porcini to beef it up. I like to add Marmite as well but you can skip it. I’d add extra an extra onion or two along with fresh garlic to the broth mixture, and instead of all the spices buy pickling spice. To me, that is the true taste of corned beef, anyway.
Finally, this year I seared the roast after seasoning, then put it in the oven at 350F and braised it, only covering it halfway with the broth and found the results were a little more firm. (This also saves on the broth ingredients.) Hope that helps you at least save some money if you’re looking to experiment.
The $100 was just to get six spices I don’t have. :O
Me again. Do you know how much vital gluten flour would be needed to be equivalent to the 10 cups unwashed flour? I’m lazy–actually, I can’t stand up too long. So I would like to start with gluten flour.