Satanic Stew

[rikibeth]

I have wanted beef stew for DAYS. However, if I cook around here, I cook vegetarian. I have already determined that tempeh is TOO DISGUSTING TO EAT, so I figured I'd try making a "beef" stew with seitan.

Here's what I did:

1 tennis ball sized yellow onion
1 stalk celery
5 baby carrots

chopped to oblivion in the mini-chopper. Put a tablespoon or so of vegetable oil in the bottom of a Dutch oven or other heavy pot, heat it up, and start sauteeing these, with a little salt. Add:

one medium glob Marmite (I just dug some out with a flatware teaspoon, it's probably somewhere between half and three quarters of a measuring teaspoon)
one larger glob tomato paste (again, I just did a glob with the flatware teaspoon, maybe two measuring teaspoons total?)

Keep sauteeing for a little while, until there's some fond built up in the pan. Deglaze with red wine (no, I don't know how much, I just kept pouring until I had all the fond scraped up nicely. I used cabernet sauvignon).

Add 8 oz plain seitan, cut into chunks. Then add water until you've got the pot mostly full. Add a bay leaf. Thyme would also be excellent (I'm out right now). Crank up the heat so it comes to a boil.

While it's coming to a boil, peel three fist-sized potatoes and cut them into chunks. Cut a few more baby carrots into spoon-sized chunks as well. Dump them in the pot. Crush up a few cloves of garlic and add them too, if you like.

When it's bubbling nicely, turn the heat back down to a medium simmer, put a lid on it partway ajar, and cook until the carrots and potatoes are nice and tender.

If you like other vegetables in your stew, feel free to add them at such time as seems suitable, so that they won't cook to indeterminate mush before the potatoes are done.

The secret ingredient here is really the Marmite, which tastes sort of beefy while being entirely vegetarian.

eternaleponine ate it without saying "yuck." This is as close to a winning recipe as I get, if the food in question has ANY ingredients that aren't potatoes and onions.

It doesn't really taste like beef stew, but I think it's pretty good.

Comments

[fabricdragon.livejournal.com]

cool

for a "beefy" flavor and gravy stew, without any meat.. i suggest lentils and roasted onions..

first roast or sautee some onions in oil, put that into your pot.
now add a cup or so of lentils, and about three cups of water and simmer.. keep simering..
when you swear its done put in some seasoning.

thats your base soup/pot roast stock
honestly, it tastes like thin beef stock, only not quite rich enough.

if you add some good mushroom s(i like portabellas, others like shitakes)to the stock it really picks up a beefy flavor

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

I would love this, but I can almost guarantee that eternaleponine would not. She's the reason the onions in this got chopped to oblivion -- had I been doing it for my own pleasure, I would have cut thin slices and caramelized them as step 1, but she doesn't like the texture of large onion pieces, and I would have had to puree them before adding anything else or put up with big complaints about the onion pieces. And she doesn't like lentils very much, so.

[surelle.livejournal.com]

Tempeh is good when it's crispy! If I can get panzerschrek to eat it, it must not be that bad ;)

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

I tried using tempeh in a stew and it was DISGUSTING. The weird moldy flavor was just too horrible for words -- and I'm a big fan of blue cheese. Usually I'm willing to eat whatever I make even if everyone else thinks it's yucky -- but I threw that pot of stew OUT.

So I know I couldn't make Satanic Stew for you (gluten!) but it's nice to know that I can make it for the household and have something people will eat.

[surelle.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't like it unless it's crisped up. I'd imagine it would be gross in a stew. I wish I could eat seitan. *sigh*

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

How do you feel about mushrooms? Because, honestly, button mushroom caps or chunks of portobello would give a lot of the same mouth-feel as the seitan did, in this stew, and if you browned them first, you'd get good umami flavor notes, too.

[surelle.livejournal.com]

I don't mind *cooked* mushrooms. Raw mushrooms in a salad are the most vile thing EVAR.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Use sauteed mushrooms in Beefless Stew, then. They will be good.

And, yeah, raw mushrooms aren't really very tasty.

[head-shrinker.livejournal.com]

Icon love!

And that stew sounds decent. Although I'm with you on carmelizing onions first. I <3 onions. But after I <3 them, everyone </3 me.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

But after I <3 them, everyone

But you live alone!

[head-shrinker.livejournal.com]

I live with a cat! And I tend to eat onion rings when I'm with people. Which is Not Smart...

[ghilledhu.livejournal.com]

Have you considered making a small batch of beef stew just for yourself? I know it's a pain to double up on the cooking, but it's not entirely fair that you should be deprived of something you want just because you live with folks who have different eating habits.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

At this point I'm not even sure how easily I'd digest real beef stew! The Satanic Stew fed the craving.