Family Favorite night. French Dip. I worked in restaurants most of my life, and French Dip was something that many featured on their menu. This has to be one of the most difficult sandwiches to recreate vegan since the sandwich itself has nothing but sliced meat on it and the dipping sauce, au jus, is made of meat drippings.
Difficult, but not impossible. It is a Sunday Fave because we managed to do just that: take something wholly meat-laden and recreated it delicious and added nothing to it and took nothing away (except the meat). The seitan is inspired by Bryanna Clark Grogan's 'beefy' seitan. The au jus uses vegetable broth, portabella mushrooms (do not be deterred by this even if you hate 'shrooms) and onions. It is divine!
Difficult, but not impossible. It is a Sunday Fave because we managed to do just that: take something wholly meat-laden and recreated it delicious and added nothing to it and took nothing away (except the meat). The seitan is inspired by Bryanna Clark Grogan's 'beefy' seitan. The au jus uses vegetable broth, portabella mushrooms (do not be deterred by this even if you hate 'shrooms) and onions. It is divine!
Cost Breakdown:
seitan: $2
mushrooms, onions: $2
vegetable stock: $1
bread: $3
Total for 5 sandwiches:
$8.00
I hope you can figure out how to do this without OD'ing on salt, like with a traditional french dip.
ReplyDeleteGigabiting, a lot of the flavor comes from the onion and muchroom in the 'au jus,' but there is veg stock buillon in here as well as tamari. I use low-sodium tamari and you can control which broth mix you use (in fact, you can use a reduced homemade vegetable broth without adding any salt) to ensure you get the sodium content you are shooting for. I find that it is not salting it extremely that makes this taste good.
ReplyDeleteLet me know if I've answered your question or not. Thank you for your comment.
Beautiful looking sandwich. One of the problems I had with a sandwich like this at restaurants is the salt content. Making it yourself and making the necessary adjustments is so much better.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Tender Branson. You are correct, the salt content can shoot right through the roof!
ReplyDeleteWhen everyone in the family agrees that a meal is outstaning, then you can be sure it is a killer. Those, btw, are the only meals that get 5 star ratings, unless I mention a separate rating for the kids.