Vegan Meat in BBQ Sauce and Sundried Tomatoes (Beet Seitan)

• Food processor/Blender
• Oven
• Roasting pan
• Frying pan
• Cutting board
• Knife
• 1-3 Mixing bowls
• Pastry brush

Ingredients:

Wash The Flour Seitan:

• 15 cups (2,100 kg) all-purpose flour
• 6 cups water (Might need a little more) 
• Water for washing

 Beet Mixture:

• 1/2 fresh beet (110 g)
• 2 tbsp Dijon mustard
• 1 tbsp molasses
• 2 tbsp liquid smoke
• 2.5 tbsp olive oil 
• 1 tbsp vegan Worcestershire sauce

Seasoning mixture:

• 1.5 tbsp consommé (vegan chicken flavor) 
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tbsp onion powder
• 1 tbsp cocoa powder
• 2 tbsp nutritional yeast
• 1 tsp himalayan salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper

Frying:

• Ground sage
• Dried parsley
• Olive oil

Roasting:

• 5 Garlic cloves
• 1 whole red onion
• 3 cups water (or more, depending on your pan's size)
• 1/2 cup of BBQ sauce
• 1 cup of sundried tomatoes
• 1 tbsp liquid smoke
• ½ cup BBQ sauce for brushing

  Instructions:

1. Wash the flour: There are many instruction manuals you can find online, most of them are very similar because the method is very simple. The process takes time but it is very simple.
2. Place the flour in the bowls (1-3 bowls *see notes), 7.5 cups in each bowl. Add 3 cups of water and knead it into a dough. The dough should be stable and resemble a bowl, if too wet, add a little flour, if too dry, add a little water.
3. Leave the dough ball in the bowl, and cover with water (make sure the ball is totally submerged in water at this point.
4. Repeat the process for the second bowl and leave them both to rest for 1.5 hours.
5. After the dough has rested, start washing the flour – Replace the water in the bowl, and start massaging the dough with your hands and kneading it underwater.
6. The water will become very white, that is all the starch washing away from the flour. When the water is very white, remove them from the bowl (some people save the starchy water to prepare other foods like fake bacon).
7. Replace the water and repeat the process (massaging and kneading underwater).
8. You will have to repeat this step 6-7 times from my experience.
9. The water will become slightly less white, each time you wash. The dough itself will start to loosen and become separated into small pieces, don’t worry it will reconnect soon enough. Be careful not to lose little pieces of dough while emptying the bowl from water each time you do.
10. At the end of this process, you will get a very stretchy dough (the dough should reconnect and become one ball again at this point).
11. The dough should hold together pretty firmly and the water should be almost clear by the last step.
12. Repeat this whole process for your second and third bowls of prepared dough (if you have them).
13. Press the dough for any excess water. Leave it in the bowl to rest for another hour. At this point, you can combine all of your stretchy balls into one bowl.
14. After a good rest, remove a small part of the dough, no need to measure it exactly, roughly 100 g (this will be the white stretchy part that looks like skin).
15. Prepare the Beet mixture: Place all the ingredients in a blender and blend until very smooth. Add the dough (without the small piece we set on the side) to the blender with the beets and blend again (You might not be able to put the whole dough in your blender, it depends on the size and strength of your appliance, in that case separate the dough into two).
16. Remove the dough and beet mix into a bowl, add the rest of the seasoning and knead with your hands, until everything is blended well.
17. The dough was probably torn in the blender and looks more like ground meat at this point, leave it to rest for 30 minutes.
18. 
19. After the seitan has rested, it will feel more connected, knead it again with your hands to create a round ball. Knead for 3-4 minutes.
20. 
21. Allow the dough to rest for another 15-30 minutes, before starting to pull it a little to create a longer shape.
22. When the seitan dough is long enough, knot it with itself to create more fibers in the end result, (I apologize I forgot to take a picture of this part, I will upload a picture the next time I make it). It is just a simple knot; the end shape should be like in the next picture.
23.  
24. Take the piece without beets we set aside and stretch it as thin as you can. Wrap it around the knotted seitan, no worries if it rips a little bit.
25. Sprinkle with a little bit of sage and dried parsley.
26. Allow the seitan to rest for 45 more minutes.
27. Heat a saucepan (I used a non-stick), sprinkle a little bit of oil.
28. Place the Seitan on the heated pan and fry for a couple of minutes before turning it upside down. Fry both sides until golden. Remove the seitan and place it aside.
29. 
30. Heat the oven to 360 F.
31. Prepare a roasting deep pan with the seared seitan, chopped onion, garlic cloves, water, liquid smoke, BBQ sauce and sundried tomatoes. (the liquid should reach up to ¾ of the seitan’s height.
32. Roast The seitan for 1 hour, flipping the seitan after 30 minutes.
33. 
34. Remove from the oven.
35. Before serving:
36. Heat the oven to 400 F.
37. Brush the roast with BBQ sauce and roast for 20 additional minutes.
38. Enjoy!

 Notes:

* I suggest separating the dough balls into different bowls because it is easier in my opinion to work with smaller amounts. Make sure to divide the water accordingly.

** The whole first part of the recipe (steps 1-13) is just "Wash the flour" method for basic seitan. You can use it as a base for many types of fake meat, the differences with the end result will depend on the cooking method and the spices you flavor it with.

*** My husband wouldn't allow me to use the phrase WTF (for obvious reasons :) while writing this manual, but I feel it is important for any seitanist out there to know. WTF is a very common way to refer to the Wash The Flour method.