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I was feeling a bit lucky this week, so I decided to try and vegan-ize the classic Irish-American St. Patrick’s Day dish, Corned Beef and Cabbage.
This plant-based twist on a classic Irish dish is the perfect drunk food after a late night of revelry!
The natural first question that I asked myself was “how exactly does one ‘corn’ a beef?” I turned to this tutorial from YouTuber, thescottreaproject for the basics.
After that primer, I immediately thought of Mary’s Test Kitchen’s Spicy Beet Seitan recipe as a jumping off point for a spiced meat. I added some ideas from Everyday Dish’s Vegan Seitan Corned Beef recipe, and then I was off to the races!
This recipe will make a BOATLOAD of stew and boiled “beef.” After making this dish, I recommend removing the “meat,” slicing it as thin as possible, and dividing it up into sandwich-size freezer bags. Then, you can then freeze the individual baggies, and defrost them one at at time when you feel like having a side of beef or lunchmeat. The stew will also freeze, although it’s such a warm and comforting treat in the early spring that I always finish off the leftovers within a few days.
For more great ideas for what you shove in your cake-hole this St. Patrick’s day, check out my Shamrock Vegan Shepherd’s Pie!
Lucky Vegan Corned Beef Cabbage for St. Patrick’s Day!
Ingredients
Seitan
- 2 cups veg broth or broth with boullion
- 1 tsp juniper berries
- 1 tsp cloves
- 1 tsp peppercorns
- 3 bay leaves
- 1 large beet
- 1 tbsp brown sugar
- 1.5 tbsp onion powder
- 1 tbps paprika
- 1 tsp smoked paprika
- 2 tsp ginger powder
- 3 tbsp caraway seeds
- 3 tbsp fennel seeds
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- 1/2 tsp white pepper
- 1 tsp course salt
- 2 tsp thyme
- 1/2 of a 15oz can of cooked white beans I used chickpeas
- 2 tbsp molasses
- 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
- 1/2 tsp liquid smoke
Stew
- 2 carrots
- 6-10 small red potatoes
- 2 stalks celery
- 2 onions
- 1 tsp salt
- 4 quarts water
- 4 tbsp boullion 1 large cabbage
Instructions
Start the Broth:
- Simmer veg broth for 30 minutes with cracked bay leaves, juniper berries, peppercorns, and cloves in a large stock pot. While the size may seem unnecessary now, you will reuse the pot later.
- Coarsely chop the Carrots, celery, onions and potatoes can be cut into halves or quarters, and the cabbage into 1/8ths. Do not add them to the broth yet.
- When the broth is infused, pour the broth through a strainer (filtering out the seeds and bay leaf) into the blender. Add those spices from the strainer back into the pot (you can put them into a tea ball if you have one).
- Add carrots, onions and celery along with a teaspoon of salt to the pot and cover with 4 quarts of water and bullion (or broth). Bring to a boil and reduce heat. Cover and simmer for about 10 minutes, or until you are done with the remaining steps.
Corn your Beef:
- Peel and coarsely chop one whole beet and add it to the broth in the blender and puree.
- Grind the fennel and caraway seeds if you can in a spice mill (optional), and add them to the blender along with the other dry spices (sugar, salt, onion powder, ginger powder and caraway and fennel seeds)
- Add white beans, molasses, vinegar, and liquid smoke to the blender and pulse to combine.
- Add the cashews to the blender and pulse to break them up into bits, but don’t fully pulverize. You want them to stay in tact as little fatty deposits in the corned beet-meat.
- In a large bowl, place about 1.5 cups of the wheat gluten, reserving about 1/2 cup.
- Add the blender puree to the wheat gluten and combine. Add the reserved wheat gluten at the end to firm up the dough, if needed, and to flour your hands for kneading.
- Knead in the bowl for 2 minutes or so. Punch the dough out and fold it over. The goal is to create long gluten strands, which will be similar to the fibers in beef when cooked.
- Pat out the seitan into a square-ish shape and then add to the pot with the veg-boil. You may wrap in cheese cloth to help maintain the shape, or you can just drop it in. The seitan will be carved later so the shape isn’t critical. Cover and simmer for about 1 hour.
Add the Cabbage, Simmer and Serve:
- Add the cabbage wedges to the top and cover and simmer for the last 15 minutes. Don’t worry about submerging them, because as they cook they will sink down into the broth.
- When done, remove the seitan from the broth and slice it on a cutting board.
- Serve slices alongside some strained veggies with a pint of a vegan Irish stout to wash it down!