Pressure Cooked Tangerine Seitan, Greek Potato Salad, Jade Pearl Rice (No Added Fat)

I have recently been thinking of preparing seitan in the pressure cooker, perhaps resulting in more strongly infused marinade flavors. Yesterday, I was a guest chef at the local Whole Foods Market and did a demonstration on seitan (I should post the 5-page handout that I created). There was chopped seitan leftover that they sent me home with, and I used it as a base for tonight's dinner. I was going to make brown rice noodles, but my daughter wanted the same Jade pearl rice that I prepared at my demo.

Ingredients

• 3 cups seitan, chopped to about 1/2" cubes
• 2T fennel root, chopped to 1/4" cubes
• 2 cloves finely chopped garlic
• 1/8 medium red onion cut into 1/4" half moons
• Juice of one tangerine
• 1/4 cup water
• Half dozen basil leaves

Process

1. In the Instant Pot pot, mix the seitan, fennel, garlic, onion, and juice and let it marinate for at least an hour and preferably overnight.
2. Uncovered but with the pot in the electric pressure cooker, turn the Instant Pot on in sauté mode and select "High" heat. The pot will come up to heat within 2 minutes or so.
3. Saute on high for 4 minutes, stirring occasionally (start timing once steam escapes).
4. Turn off the Instant Pot program.
5. Add the water and basil, then program the Instant Pot for 3m at high pressure.
6. When done, let the steam release naturally (allow about 10-15m), stir, and serve.

This recipe can, of course, be duplicated in other pressure cookers. If no built-in sautéing is possible, then just sauté in a separate pan before pressure cooking.

I would have liked to have added some jerk seasoning and ginger, but for my daughter's sake, just sprinkled jerk seasoning on top as I served. I also made Jade pearl rice (1 part rice to 1 1/2 parts water and a vegan bouillon cube, brought to a boil then simmered for 20m over low heat). I served a prepared salad that I purchased from Whole Foods, Greek potato salad (containing potato, sweet potato, cucumber, onion, kalamata olive, parsley, garlic, yeast, tahini (sesame seed and no additional oil), lemon juice, liquid aminos, vinegar, and oregano).

Results

My wife really enjoyed dinner, as did my daughter. I thought that it was good, but should have tried to get the seitan more crisp. Perhaps I should have marinated the seitan in a separate bowl and reserved the marinade when I did the saute, adding it back in slowly as the seitan may stick to the pan. Also, a bit of crunch would have been welcome, such as chopped bell pepper added to the finished main dish before serving. The pressure cooking softened the seitan; I should experiment with how the seitan would do with a longer (say, 4 or 5m) pressure cooking time.

Ideas for the future

I would like to continue to experiment with pressure cooking seitan. It was a success today!