Recipe of the Month: Seitan Burgers

A new month, a new Recipe of the Month. And this one's something we haven't tried before: a veggie burger. You might think that doesn't really fit the criteria for a Recipe of the Month, which is supposed to be a veggie- or fruit-centered dish, but this one features a secret veggie ingredient: beet. (Actually, it turned out to be not so secret, but more about that later.)

One of the difficulties of being a vegetarian in summertime is grilling. Don't get me wrong, grilled vegetables are fantastic, but they're just not that substantial. (We love our grilled eggplant and pepper sandwiches, but we have to supplement them with smoked herring to add protein to the meal.) We've tried all the brands of veggie dogs and sausages without finding one that we both like. (Brian quite enjoyed the Impossible Brat, saying it tasted just like a real bratwurst; I concluded that I must not like bratwurst.) We've also attempted multiple recipes for homemade vegan sausage, and none of them really ticked all the boxes for taste and texture. And when we tried taking some veggie patties from Trader Joe's and tossing those on the grill, it was a complete failure. (Maybe that was partly because they'd been in the freezer too long, but I don't think it would work much better with fresh ones.)

After that failed attempt, I decided to check the It Doesn't Taste Like Chicken blog for a vegan burger that would work on the grill. Not only did the author have one, she confidently billed it as "The Best Vegan Seitan Burger." This, she maintained, was due to its weird-sounding combination of ingredients, including vital wheat gluten, cooked lentils, soy sauce, liquid smoke, peanut butter, and raw beets. I was skeptical about that last one, since I have never been a fan of beets, but the post insisted that this ingredient would "add a deep earthiness that really makes these burgers taste authentic." Even her beet-hating husband, she assured me, loved these burgers. So I decided to swallow my objections and give it a try. Even if it was another failure, I reasoned, it would at least give me a Recipe of the Month for July.

This recipe has multiple steps, so Brian spread it out over a couple of evenings. First, he cooked up a batch of lentils in the pressure cooker. (The blogger said she'd used canned lentils, but we've never seen those in any store. Maybe it's a Canadian thing.) The second step was supposed to be mixing those up in the food processor with the other ingredients, but Brian quickly realized that even the half-batch he was making would be too much for our little Magic Bullet. So, instead, he mixed up the dough in stages. First he pulsed the beet in the Bullet; then he added the lentils and mixed those in; then he dumped the contents into a bowl and stirred in all the seasonings; and finally he blended in the wheat gluten by hand. 

Once that was done, he shaped the dough into patties and steamed them. The full recipe was supposed to make six patties, but he found that his half-recipe was enough for four reasonable-size patties, just enough to fill our steamer basket. At this stage, the burgers looked very much like actual ground beef patties. They then went into the fridge to be chilled until grill time. 

The next night, the burgers went onto the grill, along with some zucchini spears and sliced potatoes. With a coating of oil to keep them from sticking, they held up quite well on the grill, coming out firm and nicely browned. Nor did their texture disappoint when they were served up on buns. The burgers had a satisfying, meaty chew, and they weren't dry or tough like so many other meat substitutes. If I were judging them strictly based on texture, I'd say they were by far the best homemade plant-based meat we've ever tried. 

But their flavor was a disappointment. Despite the blogger's assurance that I wouldn't be able to taste the beets, to me that distinctive bitterness was the dominant note. Brian, who is not a huge fan of beets either, said he couldn't detect them at all, and other commenters on the recipe post have said the same (including one who loves beets and was quite disappointed that she couldn't taste them). But for me, it was clearly present, and neither ketchup nor mustard could entirely disguise it.

Still, all hope is not lost for this recipe. I left a comment on the post asking if there was any way to make these burgers without the beet, and I got a response suggesting I could "try substituting with sweet potato for a milder flavor." So my idea is to give this one more go, using that substitution, and see how it comes out. If we both find that version palatable, it could be the perfect protein for summer grilling. The wheat gluten is a somewhat pricey ingredient, but it's still only a little over a buck for four patties' worth. That makes these much cheaper than Impossible Burgers, with a lot less packaging to boot. And, assuming we can eliminate the beet flavor, just as satisfying.