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Sorry about the long essay. It's important.
One of the things I've always been kind of sad about is the fact that because barbecue usually involves cooking large slabs of meat, the techniques for doing it correctly and authentically don't really cross over into the vegan community. This is why when you go to a vegan restaurant and they advertise something like a "vegan pulled pork sandwich" or whatever, it's usually just seitan or tofu or jackfruit slathered in a typical smoky, sweet, syrupy barbecue sauce and served on a bun.
The problem is that it's incorrect. Those thick dark molasses-based sauces are Kansas City sauces, and in Texas and Memphis and the Carolinas you really won't find that kind of "barbecue sauce." Texas sauces are usually not much more than glorified ketchup with meat drippings, and Memphis/Carolina sauces are primarily vinegar-based and thin. Barbecue in America is all about regional differences.
With that in mind, I sought to make vegan BBQ the right way - not just by substituting meat with some other protein and then using whatever sauce I had, but by replicating the actual techniques and regional sauces used all the time. I've been thinking about this a lot - how there's a whole world of really flavorful and interesting techniques that a lot of vegan cookbooks tend to ignore because they're so closely associated with meat. Since I was a barbecue nut in a past life, I sought to integrate vegan eating with the time-honored techniques of the American smokehouse.
My first attempt - this Memorial Day weekend, I took a big chunk of Real Food Daily's "chicken-style" seitan, and went out back to my Alton Brown-inspired homemade flower pot smoker, threw down some applewood chips, and smoked the seitan for 2 hours. For rub, I used some applewood-smoked salt I bought in Austin at Central Market and freshly ground black pepper.
2 hours later, I took the smoked seitan block out (it had developed a crust and turned an orangey mustard color), shredded it with some forks, and poured in my authentic Lexington vinegar sauce (a combination of cider vinegar, sugar, ketchup, salt, and red pepper flakes), letting it marinate for a while in a slow cooker set to "warm."
The result?
Here it's served with potatoes instead of slaw, but there you have it. Real smoked pulled seitan, Lexington style! The seitan absorbed the smoke BEAUTIFULLY and the sauce worked really well to counterbalance that.
So, all you would-be vegan barbecuers, don't be afraid of learning and utilizing the actual barbecue methods of the great pit masters of old. My next project in my ongoing effort to make real barbecue vegan-friendly? authentic Kansas City-style vegan ribz! Stay tuned!
Last edited by Hannah's boyfriend (Mon 5/26/08 1:43 am)
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Wow! That sounds awesome. Nice job!
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I may eat my laptop, and I take comfort in knowing that you guys live so close. Food-stealing: commence!
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So. Good. We were too lazy to go buy bread which is why it was served next to potatoes. We thought that the seitan would dry out during the smoke, but it stayed really moist. So forking good.
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this is all kinds of awesome
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Wow. One of the things I actually miss is BBQ. I absolutly love Lexington style sauce. That looks great.
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Yum!! I'm looking forward to the next installment!
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Sounds like your efforts paid off! And I love your av. I wish they'd make another season of Life (if they haven't already).
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That looks so awesome! Nice job.
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that looks great! I miss BBQ sometimes, and a slab of tofu covered with sauce just isn't the same.
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That looks great, but I can't wait for the ribs. My mom was watching the BBQ competition on Food Network last night and all I could think of was making a vegan one.
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I'd love to have a smoker but it ain't gonna happen.
What's really weird is that in our last house, our nextdoor neighbor was a man named Steven who had a portable smoker that he used to cater parties, etc. We just moved to a new state and the neighbor across the street is also named Steven and he also runs a meat-smoking business with a portable smoker!
I bet he would smoke some seitan for me but it would have to go into the meat smoker. Ack!
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This is brilliant! Looks amazing.
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Kitteh wrote:
Sounds like your efforts paid off! And I love your av. I wish they'd make another season of Life (if they haven't already).
Life will be back in the fall.
Thank you everyone for your comments! Ribs sometime next week, maybe? I have to figure out the process first.
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Excellent! Do you have any pictures of the in-between stages? I've never had pulled pork so I don't know what it should look like before going in the sauce!
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amazing.
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codejill wrote:
Excellent! Do you have any pictures of the in-between stages? I've never had pulled pork so I don't know what it should look like before going in the sauce!
No I don't. I should have, and I will when I make ribs. But smoking isn't a hard situation. In my flowerpot smoker it took two hours for a small amount of seitan (about an 8 ounce solid block). If you're using a regular grill, what you want to do is put all the heat on one side (with charcoal or with strategic gas burner lighting), put the seitan on the other side to cook it indirectly, add wood chips to the fire, close the lid and then smoke for maybe an hour. Because a grill works at a higher temp than a bona fide smoker it'll take less time.
When it came out it was kinda yellowish orange and dry on the outside, but it was moist inside. I also used a spray bottle filled with water to moisten it at the very end (if you want you can sub water with apple juice or something else that adds flavor). I cut it up and and it looked like basic seitan all cut up, like you get in the package. Since the sauce is thin it doesn't really do much to change the look of it. If you want to make it look more authentic, tear it to pieces using your hands instead of cutting, so it's all crumbly and stuff.
The recipe for the sauce was -
1 cup water
1 cup cider vinegar
1/2 cup ketchup
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1 teaspoon salt
Whisk together til the salt, sugar, and ketchup are dissolved. Makes more than enough. The sauce is meant to coat the protein, and should not be served on the side. It's too thin for dipping and stuff. This specific recipe is from Cook's Illustrated. I have another recipe for the same sauce from Steven Raichlen that changes this ratio a little bit and adds a few more spices, but it's still the same basic idea. You can also do an eastern North Carolina pulled seitan by subbing this sauce instead:
2 1/2 cups distilled white vinegar
1 1/2 tablespoons salt
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons freshly ground pepper
1 tablespoon red pepper flakes
1 1/2 tablespoons hot sauce
The basic difference between Eastern North Carolina and Western North Carolina (ie Lexington) is the use of ketchup in the vinegar sauce.
If you want to make it REALLY authentic serve it on the cheapest vegan bun you can get, top the sandwich with a dollop of vegan cole slaw and some pickle discs. I hate slaw and pickles so I just eat mine in the bun without anything else.
Last edited by Hannah's boyfriend (Mon 5/26/08 6:26 pm)
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Awesome!!
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This is amazing. I'm inspired to make a smoker (don't know if I will, but glad to know it is possible). I anxiously await your ribs!
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that is very cool.
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I tried making my own BBQ seitan today, and it turned out really good! I smoked part of a seitan roast using a stovetop smoker and cherry wood chips. I let the seitan smoke about 40 minutes, which I think was a little too long. Next time I'll check it after 25-30 minutes.
I made the first sauce posted in this thread, shredded the seitan, and let it slow cook in the sauce for about 30 minutes. I loved the texture of the smoked seitan, it is a nice change from the usual chewy/rubberiness, and perfect with barbecue sauce.
No pics because I was super hungry.
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So impressed!!!
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I'm totally throwing on a hunk of seitan next time we light up the smoker. Very cool!
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