Bloomington, Indiana Restaurant and Food Guide

Recommendations for dining and (and food in general) in Bloomingon, Indiana

3.12.2009

Funny Comment and Recipe

Since (as I noted in a follow-up comment), 11 of 13 of my restaurant posts have been positive, this comment is just silly really.

Your negativity and criticisms are at once appalling and hilariously self-important. Why would you say such awful things about every single eatery you dine at? I always thought that the point of writing about food was to share the pleasures of the table with others, not to undermine any sort of enjoyment you've taken from the meal with scathing remarks. Shame on you.

At the risk of humoring stupidity amplified by laziness, I guess I can explain that the point of this blog was to recommend restaurants or food I liked and report bad dining experiences so others might be spared the waste of time and money. I'm sorry someone hasn't learned to benefit from the concept of a "review"; you must be confounded at the random odds of seeing terrible movies.

For the recipe. Tuesday night I made my own fake lamb gyros with homemade seitan. It's not vegetarian exactly, but that wasn't the point. Meat's full of fat and generally not great for you, and I thought it might be a nice option to making lamb paste meatloaf. It's kind of an amalgamation of recipes I found on the web, so I won't cite them here. It turned out freaking awesome and actually looked ALOT like real gyros meat. I've adjusted it slightly here, since it was a little heavy on the Rosemary (I reduced by half) and I originally omitted the Oregano and Cumin which would have improved it. Here goes:

Seitan

Dry ingredients
2 cups Vital Wheat Gluten Flour
2TBSP Nutritional Yeast
1/2 tsp. ground Rosemary
1/2 tsp. ground Marjoram
1/2 tsp. ground Cumin
1/2 tsp. ground Oregano
1 tsp. Onion Powder
1 tsp. Garlic Powder
1 TBSP Chicken Boullion Powder
1 TBSP Beef Boullion Powder

Wet Ingredients
1 1/2 cups Water (more or less as needed).
1 TBSP Soy Sauce

Broth
7 cups Water
2 TBSP Soy sauce
1 onion sliced
3-4 cloves garlic smashed
1 sprig each Rosemary, Oregano

Directions

Start heating the broth (I used a 6 qt enamel Dutch oven).

Mix dry ingredients well with a whisk.

Add wet ingredients (just enough wet to bring together and make a dough) and begin mixing with a wooden spoon or similar implement. It will form a rubbery dough easily and quickly and look like brains. They say to try and not make it too wet. Mine took slightly more than 1 1/2 cups.

When it forms a stiff dough knead it 10 to 15 times.

Let the dough rest 2 to 5 minutes, then knead it a few more times. Let it rest another 15 minutes before proceeding, pressing into a flat (2-3 inches tall), oval loaf as you finish.

Finish forming/pressing into loaf shape, wrap in cheesecloth and tie off both ends.

Once broth has come to a boil, drop in Seitan loaf, reduce heat to a slow simmer and cook (partially covered) for about 1 1/2 hours. Check broth periodically and reduce/raise heat as needed to maintain simmer.

Remove from broth, drain and cool slightly.

Cut into thin strips (I then cut strips in half lengthwise).

Brown lightly for a few minutes in about 1-2 tsp. olive oil.

Serve in Falafels Pita (they sell it at Bloomingfoods) with Tzaziki, lettuce, tomatoes and thinly sliced onions.

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