Dragonfly's Vegan Ribs
2 cups vital wheat gluten
2 tablespoons vegan beef broth
1 tablespoon tomato flavored bouillon
1 7/8-2 cups water
2-3 tablespoons raw tahini
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast (I use KAL)
unbleached flour, for dusting
vegan BBQ sauce, to serve
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F, and grease a cookie sheet. Mix the gluten with the broth and bouillon. Using a fork, make a well in the center and add the water all at once. (Add more if you live in a dry area, less of you don't, hence the different amount.) Mix fast, rapidly encorporating all the gluten. Mix in nutritional yeast.
2. Dust a flat surface, dust your hands and lightly dust the gluten lump. Knead until rubbery and smooth. Use more flour if you need to. Flatten the gluten out with the tips of your fingers. Melt the tahini in the microwave or on the stove. You want it to be smooth, slightly warm and easy to spread. Using just your fingertips, poke the melted tahini into the surface of the gluten.
3. Turn over the gluten and repeat. It won't actually knead into the gluten, but will work in a bit and sit on the surface. Slice the gluten into strips. The thicker the strip, the chewier the rib, the thinner the crispier. Put the strips on prepared sheet and bake for about 10-15 minutes.
4. When the under side is golden, flip them over and bake some more. You want a crispy product. They should puff up at first and flatten as they are browning up. You can add sauce to each side as they are browned up, or add it at the end. We like a small amount of sauce, but you can drench yours, if you like.
These are a homemade version of the non-vegan rib mixes you can buy at the HFS (they require butter). That, and it is a much larger quantity. I have four girls who can eat them all by themselves. I have to triple the batch when my grown sons are here. Those boxes should be out of reach price wise. We eat these every Friday or there is a general household revolt.
Enjoy!
SO HOW'D IT GO?
For what it's worth, I've tried them twice now with the idea I had previously--mixing the gluten with broth according to this recipe, but then boiling them in a broth of soy sauce and onions (from the fluffiest gluten steak recipe). It works wonderfully! After I boiled the seitan I cut it into rib-shaped pieces, and then followed the second half of the instructions on here (rubbing with tahini, baking, brushing with BBQ sauce along the way). Yum.
I couldn't get these to come out at all--I'm so disappointed. It may have been my gluten--I don't know what it was, but for some reason my seitan seemed drier than usual, and this was even after using more liquid then i usually do.
I subbed the water with low-sodium veg broth, and instead of the nooch and broth I used a combination of ketchup, soy sauce, and liquid smoke. When I put them in the oven, they puffed up huge and nothing worked to get them down. I kept waiting for them to go down and they didn't. The outside was quite bready. The parts that weren't all puffed up were good (my seasonings worked well), but most of it was just SO chewy to the point it was inedible.
After reading all of these reviews I might give these another shot, keeping a better eye on the time and not waiting for them to deflate. But if not, I might use this recipe more for seasoning and cook the seitan differently. I have really good luck with the fluffiest, juciest gluten steak recipe here. I could see using this (dragonfly's) recipe as inspiration for the liquid to mix with the gluten and the liquid in which you simmer the seitan--then I see cutting the steaks into ribs, using the tahini/bbq sauce, and putting everything in the oven. In other words, I could see making the seitan first then cooking them into ribs next. I'll definitely play around :)
They haven't finished cooking, but I ripped a piece off and loved it so much. Everytime I try a new Seitan recipe, it gets better. I think this may be where I'm stopping.
I don't have any broths, so I replaced them with tomato soup, used liquid smoke and herbs, etc. I had to modify a bit, but it's basically the same recipe.
Boiling was good, but I'm baking my seitan from now on!
These ribs are amazing. Nuff said. :)>>>
I guess I did something wrong with this recipe because these were ridiculous. I cooked them for over an hour and they were still doughy. They ended up being hard to eat and they really only tasted good because of the BBQ sauce. When it was all said and done, this is just sticky bread covered in BBQ sauce, and that's what it tasted like.
For my sauce, I used vegan BBQ sauce, liquid smoke, some hot Chinese mustard and ketchup. The recipe's directions were really unclear as well in several areas and could probably use a rewrite. I don't think I'll be using this recipe ever again.
I made these last night after not having them for SOOO long! I forgot how simple they are to make. I didn't have some of the ingredients so I just seasoned the VWG with garlic powder, onion powder, salt, ketchup, etc....
Mine took longer to rise than the recommended time. After they seemed done I rolled them in BBQ sauce and then put them back in the oven for 5 or so minutes. YUM!
We had them with sauteed kale and jalepeno poppers.
I saved a few for later in the week (no sauce). I'm going to try to make "wings" out of them with hot sauce.
These were my first try at seitan. The ribs were really really tasty, perfectly chewy and crispy in all the right places. I've made seitan a few times since then, but other than this recipe, it always comes out kind of funky. Then I see other people's pictures that look so perfect and it makes me sad, cuz mine looks nothing like them. I'll keep practicing, hopefully getting better. But these ribs are great! =)
I really loved these. I do recommend adding the water more cautiously as it can end up sloppy wet and impossible to control. Because I only had one cup of vital wheat gluten I couldn't add more to dry it up so I used flour and still they came out delicious. Also, this makes tons of ribs so halving it might be better as you'll be eating them for a few days. Lastly, don't be too skeptical if they seem like they're not going to turn out (I was); in raw form they can be very deceiving. I agree with another poster and think these would be great as "wings".
I have actually had the 'veggie ribs' brand before. These are very similar. :)>>> I used PB instead of the tahini, a veg cube instead of the broth and omited the nutritional yeast. I hate kneading this kind of stuff so I threw it in the bread machine until rubbery like. It was hard to roll out (but I have yet to get this down :() so I basically pressed it and streched as best as I could, lathered both sides with PB (straight out of the jar) and then began to cut. As I was cutting I pulled at the dough and it became thin (just how I wanted it) with a few smaller chewery pieces.
yummy. Will make again. ;)b
So I just made these, as I have a BBQ at my parents house tomorrow. I had to sub a few things and halve the recipe, as I only had half the ingredients, and OMG are they ever tasty! Awesome! Thanks so much for posting this! :)>>>
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