Post Punk Kitchen Forum

Does anyone have any idea how to go about this? Googling just leads to seitan recipes and people debating the merits of meat subs. I'm interested in making something with the macronutrient profile (ie high in quality protein, lowish in carbs, moderate fat is fine), texture and flavor of something like gardein only using pea/rice protein isolate so that I'm eating less soy. I know this is possible because some British fake meats use pea protein. They seem to use wheat gluten as a binder which isn't ideal but I'm okay with if necessary.

My first instinct would be just mixing up the protein isolate with gluten, herbs, spices, liquid etc and baking it like seitan o' greatness. I'm not sure if this will yield a good texture though unless I use a shitload of wheat gluten, in which case, I'm basically making seitan and that's not really the purpose of the experiment. Do you absolutely need some kind of crazy centrifuge or commercial extruder to get a good meaty texture or can it be faked on a small scale using something else?

gardein is soy-based. i've never seen a mock meat that wasn't primarily soy or seitan.

http://www.redwoodfoods.co.uk/index.php ... &Itemid=29

This could be just really heavy on wheat gluten and basically seitan though.

There are also lupin protein based fake meats available in Europe.

I think your best bet would be to start with a really basic pea/rice "seitan" and see what happens to it when you cook it using a variety of methods (simmer, bake, steam, pan fry...) Then once you know how it reacts, you might need to add some gluten to improve the texture.

Madeline Bistro makes a really good in-house seitan that doesn't have the solid, dense texture of anything I've tried to make. There was a discussion on the old PPK about a small producer on the East Coast (perhaps related to Candle 79?) who used the traditional rinsing method and also made a seitan that was more like the commercial stuff.

I'm intrigued by your kitchen experiments!

ingredients are usually listed in order by quantity--those first in the list make up the largest percentage of the product--so i'd say that, yeah, this is probably a seitan product. i don't know anything about european meat substitutes, but all the good vegan cheese comes from europe, so it wouldn't surprise me if they were hoarding the best mock meats, too. *shakes fist*

Maybe you can sub pea protein for flour (not gluten flour) in a seitan recipe. And then remake the seitan over and over subbing some pea protein for gluten flour until you find the minimum amount of gluten needed to make it stay together or have good texture.

Not a bad idea. I will be sad if it's still like 60% gluten or something though.

Yeah there's really not going to be any substitute for just tinkering. I'll work on that and post here any exciting developments!

Have you tried magic spells?

I haven't tried a damn thing yet but magic spells will be part of my arsenal.

I believe it's called Ray's? It might be based in Philly. (I'm helpful.)

Just a thought, but you might also want to try something with low fat high protein peanut flour. Of course, you don't want to use to much or it will taste like peanuts, but that would be a good way to up the protein level. And I bet you could add chickpea flour to change the texture of it as well.

vegimator did you get anywhere with the mock meat made with pea protein isolate? I just got sent some in a package swap & I'm trying to find something to do with it!

Europe is a continenttttt! We don't get the same products. you can't really get anything crazy here, we have tofutti slices and that's about it for the vegan cheese.. (But daaamn, i'm hoarding the cheezly when i'm traveling!).
what you really should be jealous of is the chocolate. it is NOT like any american chocolate i've ever tried. (but it sucks for chocolate chip cookies, they need the high fat/sugar content to work out well imo).

also, vegimator, i'm thinking that there is a LOT of processing going on when making commercially made vegan meat substitutes. but i would look into adding different proteins to old school style seitan and boiling it - it is bound to be tasty because seitan is, and if you can find a way to add the pea protein (maybe by mixing the gluten and pea protein in a blender, then kneading to get some gluten string action going on? another thing i'm thinking is; don't skip on the fat. if you somehow manage to make a mix og gluten, pea protein, maybe some blended cashews or something to add a lightness to the texture (i'm thinking a few tbs or so), then you could try steaming the mixture?

I've used pea protein in place of soya flour in wheat meat recipes. It's okay - not as good a texture as soy flour, better texture than gram flour. When I make sausages, they are usually only 20-25% gluten powder (1 part by weight each of gluten, bean, lentils, soy flour; not counting nooch or flavourings or liquid), so you can go pretty low really.

I think the fat content is enormously important in making mockmeats. I know I tend to make things lower fat than I really should, but when I put a big old dollop of vitalite in with the mix, it really comes out much better. I find a little sugar adds depth of flavour, as well. Kneading for a really long time helps the gluten bind, and leaving it to sit helps a lot.