I enjoy putting together two dishes that originated in different parts of the world.

It doesn’t always work well, but when it does, it creates a unique fun dish.

I started with creamy polenta.

I like to mix V-butter into polenta, but I also like to put a small piece on top right before serving.

I make my vegan eggs with different ingredients and methods.

This particular vegan egg was made with soy milk, sugar, salt, Kanten-agar for the white* and mayo, ketchup, and cumin for the yolk.

*This time I only used soy milk for the white, but I like it better when I use soy milk and water instead of soy milk only, better taste, texture, and color.

This egg is so pretty.

And here is the magic salt.

Sprinkle this Kala Namak black salt, which makes it taste just like an egg.

Creamy polenta with rich beef and broccoli on top.

This unique combination turned out so good!

Today, I want to show you how I made my vegan “beef”.

I use this recipe ↓ as usual.

https://lovingitvegan.com/vegan-steak/

(You can see my other go-to recipes here ↓

https://sideb.culinarytribune.com/recipes-ive-tried-and-liked/)

Anyway, the main ingredient is vital wheat gluten.

People, who are not familiar with vegan-cooking, always ask me what vital wheat gluten looks like.

Well, it looks like this.

It’s fine powder.

This is where I just added the gluten to a mixture of wet ingredients.

You combine them well and form a piece like this.

Then you stretch it into this rectangular shape.

It’s crazy, but it really does look and feel like meat already.

I usually double the recipe and get eight pieces.

This is how they look after steamed.

The recipe says “steam for 20 minutes”, but I usually steam mine a lot longer (about 20-30 minutes longer) because mine don’t look fully cooked only after 20 minutes.

I stop at step 4 (at the completion of steaming) of the recipe.

I usually wrap each piece with plastic wrap when they are cool and freeze them.

When I’m ready to use, I microwave it unwrapped to thaw.

I slice it thin.

I hardly ever eat it as a large piece of steak.

I usually cook the pieces over medium-high heat without oil until very crispy, both sides.

And I add water and other flavoring ingredients (often soy sauce and sugar), just enough to let the meat absorb it.

Then, add oil and fry them, both sides.

The picture above is where I was frying them with oil.

It’s delicious just like this.

But you can use this to create a more complete dish, like the “beef and broccoli” I made for this post.

ーーーーーーーーーー

*I also have an Instagram account. ↓　There I post some pictures and videos that you don’t see here at the blog. If you followed me there as well, I would love that! When you stop by, say “hi! I would love to hear from you. Thank you.

https://www.instagram.com/culinarytribune/