Vegetarian Seitan Chicken and Dumplings - Oh Comfort Food!

One of my good friends that I'm stoked to work with again was sick last week and kept whining about wanting her mom's dumplings. She had kept saying how comforting it was and just needed dumplings and soup to feel better. There, it was planted in my head, her obsession became mine.


I used a recipe that I found with a Google search, ended up on a site called "My Vegetarian Recipe of the Day" original recipe can be found here . I subbed out white flour for wheat, most of the butter with coconut oil and definitely did not use the fake meat (blah). Don't get me wrong, I do like some fake meat products but not the chicken starters. Instead, I used a seitan recipe (listed below) and it worked perfectly, try it- you will not be disappointed! There are many very important rules to making seitan, which I learned the hard way. If you don't follow the directions you'll end up with a spongy gross mess. 


Important seitan rules:

• Do not over mix. 
  
• Do not let seitan boil 
• Let seitan cook slowly in the soup or stew that you are making
• Make sure that when adding liquid to dry ingredients the liquid is cooled off
  
• Put pieces in one by one
• Stir often

Ok, onto the recipe. Thank you Caitlin for your love of good food, complaining and inspiring our great cooking feast this weekend!

For the Soup:
1/2 stick (4 Tbsp.) margarine or butter or a mix of butter and coconut oil
1/2 cup onion, chopped
1/2 cup celery, chopped
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 tsp. celery salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
8 cups vegetarian chicken broth
2 medium carrots, diced
1 bay leaf

Seitan:
1 cup vital wheat gluten
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
1 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3/4 cup Imagine No-Chicken Broth, cold (or other veg. broth)
1 tablespoon tahini or other nut butter

For the dumplings:
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 t. salt
1 1/2 t. baking powder
1/2 c. soy milk (or rice)
2 T. oil or melted butter or margarine ( or mix of coconut oil and butter)
1 T. chopped fresh parsley


Soup:
Place the margarine, onion, and celery for the soup in a large saucepan and sauté until the vegetables are soft.
Add the flour, salt, and pepper to make a thick paste. Slowly mix in the broth and bring to a boil. Lower heat and add the carrots, seitan, and bay leaf.


Seitan:
Mix the dry ingredients in a medium-sized bowl. Combine the broth and nut butter. Stir the broth mixture into the dry ingredients until well blended. Knead gently 10 times. Turn out onto a cutting board and press it as flat as possible. Let it rest for about 5 minutes. Then using a sharp knife (or kitchen scissors), cut it into 1/2-inch cubes. Add the seitan cubes to the simmering soup, taking care to separate them before they go into the pot. Stir well and simmer  for at least 45 minutes.


Dumplings:
Combine 1 cup flour, baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a medium bowl. Combine milk and oil. Add to the dry ingredients, along with the chopped fresh parsley. Stir just to moisten dry ingredients and drop by tablespoon directly into the boiling broth. Cover tightly. Return to a boil. Reduce heat without lifting cover and simmer about 15 minutes.


If mixture is too thin you can always add nutritional yeast, I also think the second time that I make this I'm going to add peas and sweet potatoes. I'm also going to make my dumplings a bit smaller, more like a little bouncy ball size. Having made too much Quinoa for a mushroom burger recipe, I threw a bunch into the soup - it's excellent and a super protein.


ENJOY!