Meatless “Sausage” From Scratch

This was a fun project I did last evening. It may seem rather involved but it didn’t require a lot of active time.

This may resemble sausage a little in appearance but, while it is delicious, it doesn’t exactly taste like sausage (Faye will attest to that). I was just playing around with food, finding a way to make healthy proteins (wheat gluten and soy) fun and flavorful.

This is one of those rare times I actually documented the amounts of the ingredients used.

Dry ingredients:

• 6 1/2 oz. vital wheat gluten
• 3 Tablespoons dehydrated okara (soy bean fiber, byproduct of making soy milk)
• 2 teaspoons Kikkoman soy sauce powder
• 1 Tablespoon tomato powder
• 1 teaspoon fennel seeds (ground)
• 1 teaspoon cumin seed (ground)
• 3 small bay leaves (ground)
• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon chipotle powder
• 1 teaspoon mushroom powder
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon savory
• 1/2 teaspoon thyme
• 1/2 teaspoon rosemary

Wet ingredients:

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 Tablespoons Angostura Worcestershire sauce
• 1/4 cup finely chopped or ground black olives
• couple shakes of liquid smoke
• splash or two of soy sauce
• 2 Tablespoons flax meal mixed with water
• water

Using the stand mixer I added the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, adding water slowly until it was the consistency of ground meat or a wet dough. I let it mix for a few minutes, let it rest a couple minutes then gave it another stir.

Next I formed the dough into logs and rolled them up in cheese cloth, twisting the ends and tying them with twine.

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I places the “sausages” in a pot and covered them with vegetable broth. I’m not sure that it was necessary but I let them soak in the broth for 2 hours before turning on the heat and cooking them under a lid at a slow boil for 1 hour. At one point I added more boiling water to keep them covered.

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I thought they looked great. I didn’t taste them until morning.

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I fried the sliced “sausages” in a little olive oil and enjoyed them with Grey Poupon mustard and ketchup. They taste every bit as good as they look.

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