Skip to main content

Meatless Most Days (Seitan Stir-fry)


First entry after five (!!!) years - I've been busy with...stuff (i.e., "accidental" government work!). I'd even forgotten I had this blog. But anyway.

It's been meatless most days in our omnivorous household recently, mainly for health reasons. But it's really no biggie, as I secretly enjoy the texture and versatility of tofu, seitan, and "Magic Meat," and I'm up to the challenge of cooking up as many dishes as I can sans meat.

Good thing that Manila is beginning to embrace the vegetarian/vegan lifestyle, so it's relatively easy to find places that sell cooked vegetarian meals and meat substitutes. I found seitan (gluten) in the frozen section of Assad Indian Mini Mart (branches in Timog, Quezon City; Jupiter in Makati; and U.N. Avenue in Paco, Manila); they also sell frozen and canned Ve-G-Meat. Here's my first experiment cooking seitan, and it turned out pretty good. It probably would have turned out better with snow peas, but I couldn't find any in the supermarket today, except for an organic pack of malnourished snow peas that cost more than I was willing to pay:

Seitan Stir-Fry

250 g seitan, cut into strips
1 tbsp. corn or potato starch
4 tbsp. light soy sauce
1 medium onion, sliced
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 medium carrot, sliced
200 g. squid balls, cut in halves
1/4 c. water chestnuts, sliced
200 g. young corn, sliced
3 tbsp. oyster sauce
1/4 c. water
pepper to taste
1 tbsp. canola oil

Marinate the seitan strips in cornstarch and 2 tbsp. of soy sauce; set aside for a few minutes. In a separate bowl, mix the remaining soy sauce, oyster sauce, sugar, and pepper. Heat the oil and saute the onion and garlic; add in the carrot, young corn, water chestnuts, squid balls, and oyster sauce mixture. Let cook at high heat for a few minutes (vegetables should still be firm, not mushy), then add in the seitan mixture. Cook for a couple more minutes, and serve hot.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Abra Home Cooking: Dinaldalem and Kinamatisan

Monday, a Firm "eating" with my partners, Japanese-til-you're-stuffed. Tuesday, Burgoo appetizers with clients, a Japanese-Filipino fusion late lunch/early dinner, loads of pizza and pansit palabok by the poolside near midnight. Wednesday, Chinese take-out for lunch, and a Chinese home-cooked dinner with the Board. Thursday, modern Filipino at Mesa. Today, Friday, yet another Firm lunch at Zong. There really can be too much of a good thing. It's times like these when I long for my grandmother's home cooking; for the fond and familiar comforts of my childhood - the real simple stuff that only my Lola can seem to whip up. Unfortunately, my grandmother's kitchen is almost 500 kilometers away at the moment, and I have to rely on memory and trial-and-error to approximate her cooking. After an unsuccessful call for assistance to my cousin (grandma was probably still asleep) and a little research on the net, I made a quick trip to Farmer's for some liver ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Heaven on a Stick

I stepped outside a climbing gym's party last night for a few minutes, and espied a fond and familiar sight: a fishball vendor! I have loved those little deep-fried pieces of piscine-flavored batter (cornstarch and flaked fish according to a recipe) since I was knee-high and strictly forbidden to buy the stuff off the streets. Then again, I've never been one to listen to the "You can't" command, which I guess explains my predilection for fried fishballs and reckless stunts. At any rate, the parental injunction was not without sound basis: it wasn't the fishballs per se that were the problem, it was the sauce. Those three magical and mysterious jars of sweet, sour, and spicy condiments of varying degrees of heat were potential breeding grounds of nasty transmittable diseases, such as hepatitis or cholera. In fact, a friend of mine from law school came down with a bad case of hepatitis A just as the Bar exams were underway - fishball sauce being the culprit....
Post a Comment
Read more

Fish Be With You 3 - Cream Dory in Garlic Tomato Salsa

Cream dory ( Pangasius ) has quickly become a favorite ingredient of mine - I first discovered it a few years ago in the now-defunct Makro, and it has since lent itself well to a variety of recipes, from fish and chips to Hap Chan-style steamed fish in garlic sauce. I whip this quick dish up when I have a hankering for something kinamatisan : season cream dory fillets with salt and pepper; steam until cooked (10 minutes or less). In a frying pan, saute garlic, onions, and lots of tomatoes. Season well, and spoon over the steamed fillets.
Post a Comment
Read more