Seitan Roast “Beef” Joint
My Seitan Roast “Beef” Joint is a fantastic vegan alternative to a Sunday roast. It has an amazingly meaty texture and a peppercorn crust. Get the recipe below.
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Vegan Roast Beef
Just because you’re vegan doesn’t mean you should have to miss out on the cornerstone of British cooking – the Sunday roast. Whether you eat meat or not, everyone loves a roast dinner.
Roast potatoes, Yorkshire puddings, stuffing, gravy and lots of vegetables are all important components. But the main star of the show is always the succulent joint.
Roast beef is a classic choice in the UK. It’s enjoyed all year round from Christmas Day to Easter and everything in between. But for vegetarians and vegans there are no decent plant based alternatives. Until now…
My vegan roast beef joint is made from seitan. Its succulent and juicy and has tonnes of umami flavour. It’s also got a peppercorn crust for extra flavour!
What is seitan?
You might be wondering what seitan is and what it’s got to do with vegan roast beef.
Seitan is a magical plant based ingredient that has both the taste and texture of meat. It was originally made in Asia but has since travelled around the world to find it’s way on to dinner plates here in the UK. If you’ve ever eaten “mock meat” from a Chinese restaurant or even bought vegan meat substitutes in the supermarket, you’ve probably already tried seitan!
I’ve been making my own seitan for a long time now. Once you learn the key principles you can turn it into pretty much any meat you want. In the past I’ve made shredded chicken, roast turkey and even “turkey” dinosaurs!
To make seitan at home you need vital wheat gluten. You can buy vital wheat gluten in powder form. It looks like pale yellow flour.
To find out more about vital wheat gluten and other essential ingredients for vegan cooking, check out my A-Z of vegan cooking.
How do you make seitan from scratch
The basic method of making seitan at home is actually quite simple.
First, mix powdered vital wheat gluten with herbs, spices, tofu and water to form a dough. Next, kneading the dough, before twisting and shaping it into something that resembled a joint of beer (or whatever other meat you’re trying to copy).
Once you’ve shaped it you then steam, bake, boil, fry or otherwise cook the dough until it resembles a juicy piece of meat! In this recipes we “sear” it in a pan before cooking it in the oven in a pan full of vegetable stock.
Hhow to make seitan roast beef joint
To make my vegan beef joint I start by mixing up my liquids. This is made from silken tofu, bouillon, lemon juice, vinegar, onion powder, white miso paste, garlic, salt, celery salt, mixed herbs and pepper. This ecclectic selection of ingredients gets blended until you have a smooth, thick liquid. It’s what hydrates the vital wheat gluten but also gives it all of its flavour.
In a large bowl I whisk together the dry ingredients before adding the dry ingredients and mixing. The dry ingredients are what helps to create the meaty texture when it’s kneaded and twisted.
When you’ve made your dough you have two choices. You can either knead it in a stand mixer that has been fitted with a dough hook or you can do it by hand. When I’m cooking a big roast dinner I like to take the easy option and knead it using my stand mixer.
Once it has finished kneading you can shape it into your roast beef joint – also known as a fat log!
To cook the joint we do two things. The first is to sear it in a pan that is on a medium high heat. This creates a nice caramelised crust on the outside.
In the meantime, fill a large casserole dish with stock, veggies, garlic and herbs. This acts like a water bath packed full of flavour. This soaks into the seitan as it cooks making it juicy and tender and full of flavour.
Although not essential, I wrap the joint in cheesecloth and tie it with twine for the first half of cooking. This shapes it so that it looks even more like a piece of meat. Just be mindful that you don’t need to tie the twine too tightly as the seitan will expand while it cooks.
Towards the end of cooking I remove the cheesecloth and create the peppercorn crust.
Once cooked, remove the seitan vegan roast beef and serve sliced with roast potatoes, Yorkshire puddings, horseradish sauce and gravy!
The recipe
Seitan Roast “Beef” Joint
Equipment
- large frying pan
- cheesecloth
- kitchen twine
- cassrole dish with lid
Ingredients
For the seitan roast “beef”
- 300 grams silken tofu
- 10 grams dried porcini mushrooms soaked in 225ml of boiling water
- 4 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tbsp red wine vinegar
- 3 tbsp miso red or brown
- 2 tsp onion powder
- 2 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp cocoa powder
- 1 tsp dried rosemary
- 1 tsp dried thyme
- 0.25 tsp ground black pepper
- 250 grams vital wheat gluten
- 25 grams chickpea flour
- 2 tbsp nutritional yeast
- 2 tsp rice flour or potato starch or tapioca flour
- 1 tsp agar agar dissolved in 4 tsp water
- 2 tbsp wholegrain mustard
- 1 tbsp crushed peppercorns
Cooking stock
- 750 ml vegetable stock
- 3 shallots halved
- 1 carrot peeled and roughly chopped
- 2 turnips quartered
- 4 cloves garlic peeled
- 1 sprig fresh rosemary
Instructions
- Pre-heat your oven to 150 C / 300 F / gas mark 2.
- Place the silken tofu, mushrooms (including the water used to soak them), red wine vinegar, miso paste, onion powder, garlic powder, cocoa powder, herbs and pepper into a blender and blitz on high until smooth.
- In a large bowl, mix together the vital wheat gluten, chickpea flour, nutritional yeast and rice flour.
- Pour the wet ingredients (including the dissolved agar agar) into the dry ingredients in the bowl and mix well until it has formed a dough.
- Next, knead the dough (either by hand or using a stand mixer) until it is stretchy and elastic and all of the ingredients are well combined.
- Roll the dough out into a fat sausage shape.
- Heat a little oil in a large heavy bottomed frying pan, add the sausage to the pan and cook for 5 minutes until it has formed a crust. Roll the sausage around and cook until you have an even crust all over.
- In the meantime, add the ingredients for the cooking stock to a large casserole dish.
- Lay a cheesecloth out on your counter, place the cooked sausage in the middle and wrap it up, using kitchen twine to seal.
- Place the wrapped sausage into the stock (it should be at least half covered by the stock), add the lid to the casserole dish and cook for 1.5 hours, flipping it over halfway.
- Unwrap the roast beef joint and place back in the pot of stock.
- Mix together the wholegrain mustard and crushed peppercorns then spread over the top of the beef roast. Cook for a further half an hour.
- Once cooked, remove from the oven, unwrap and serve sliced while still hot.
Nutrition
Make ahead
If you want to get ahead then you can make the Seitan Roast Beef a day or two before.
Follow all of the steps right up until cooking. Rather than adding it to the pan, wrap it all in cling film and place in the fridge. It will keep like this in the fridge for up to 3 days.
Serving suggestions
The ultimate vegan roast dinner
For the full range of recipes that help you have the best plant based roast dinner ever, check out my post on the Ultimate Vegan Christmas Dinner. We’ve got everything from starters to desserts, cheese course and cocktails!
Just click the image above!