Seitan Asada Tostada!

There's something about the name "carne asada" that sounds so very enticing to me; it hints of richness and spices, of something slightly mysterious and definitely delicious. It sounds a heck of a lot more appealing than "roasted meat." I've never actually had any authentic carne asada, but surely that's no reason to miss out now.





I played with the new easy beefy seitan recipe, adding about a quarter cup of oats to the dough for texture and a tablespoon of vegetarian Worcestershire sauce for depth of flavor. The first batch was pretty damn good, but this was far better - plus, it slices very thinly.

That's my main beef (ahem) with all the baked SoG recipes out there; they always seem too tough to slice very thinly. I'm not looking for a meat substitute whose virtue lies in it, well, not being meat. I want something that's delectable on it's own. Oh, okay ... there's a time and place for all kinds of seitan, but there's only so much jerky one woman can take.

But I digress ... thin slices, thin slices. I figured this seitan would be great for seitan asada tostadas. The marinade was a mix of lime juice, meyer lemon juice (because our tree's been very productive this winter, relatively speaking), balsamic vinegar, garlic, olive oil, cumin, ground coriander, and oregano. I tossed the slices in a ziploc bag with the marinade and let it sit a couple hours, turning it occasionally, before pan-roasting it till slightly caramelized. Oven baked tostadas, refried beans, and the steak, then julienned romaine, chopped tomatoes, avocado and scallions and sour cream.

This dinner made me very pleased indeed - it was delicious and I felt like we should have some sort of frozen cocktails. Of course, the front yard is also still frozen, so maybe I'll wait ... but next time, I'm trying this on the barbecue grill outside!