I love going out for breakfast. Sitting someplace with the Sunday paper and a cup of coffee. Having somebody else do the dishes. Today, I was going to write about some of my favorite breakfast spots in Los Angeles, but for various boring reasons (like abject poverty) we decided not to go out this morning. And what a fortuitous decision that was. We managed to bring the diner into our very own kitchen with Vegan Chicken Fried Steak and Gravy and Scrambled Tofu. So freakin' good. Shockingly good. MMMmmm good. Yes, we will now eat fruit and vege for the rest of the day as we don't usually fry our entire breakfast, but for a special weekend meal I think it was worth it.
We started with Beefy Seitan Cutlets from My Nonna's recipe. Then we dredged them in seasoned flour, dipped in a tofu-creamer-beer mixture and coated again with flour. Then, into the frying pan. We poured cracked pepper gravy over the top and served it with some basic scrambled tofu and sourdough toast. Diner delicious.
Vegan Chicken-Fried Steak (serves 2)
(based on this recipe from the Recipezaar website)
Seasoned Flour:
3/4 c flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1/2 tsp.cayenne
Wet Stuff:
1/4 cup firm silken tofu
1/4 cup soy creamer
1/4 cup beer
Seitan Cutlets
Whisk together flour mixture in a shallow dish or on a plate. Combine liquid mixture in blender or food processor. Dip each seitan cutlet in flour, then in the liquid mixture, and again in the flour. Fry in hot oil for about 5 minutes, flip and cook for another 5 on the other side. Serve with gravy and scrambled tofu.
Gravy
2 Tbsp. marge
1 1/2 Tbsp. flour
1 c. soy milk
salt and pepper
Melt margarine in a saucepan over medium-low heat, add flour and stir unitl it begins to brown. Slowly whisk in cold soy milk. Add salt and pepper to taste. Let simmer a few minutes until the gravy has thickened up to your liking.
Basic Scrambled Tofu
2 Tbsp. marge
1 very small onion
1 block firm tofu
1/4 c. nutritional yeast
salt and pepper to taste
Melt butter. Saute onion. Drain and rinse the tofu. Crumble it into the pan. Sprinkle nutritional yeast, salt and pepper over the top and stir to combine. Let it sizzle until you want to eat it. (A couple minutes for me, Paul likes it browner.)
Happy Sunday. Pass the coffee.
