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You'll rarely see an ultra-processed faux meat in my recipes. As much as possible, I try to stick to using 'wholefood' options, and I find it fun experimenting with "veganising" food. This guy completely abides by that. Made using veggies/legumes and grains. This way, you still get all the goodness that comes with eating these foods!
This dish was created after I saw a seitan recipe for chicken and I've adapted that base to create a gluten-free alternative (unsure where I first saw the seitan recipe). The texture, unlike seitan isn't like meat, but it still provides a nice, flavourful alternative.
It's perfect pub-style with sauce or gravy, steamed veg and a side of air-fryer chips, on a sandwich or topped like a chicken parmigiana.
Enjoy and don't forget to tag me if you re-create it. I'd love to see your creations!
Ingredients
Chick’n
1 can chickpeas, drained.
½C polenta/coarse cornmeal
¼C besan/chickpea flour
1 small onion or 1 tbs onion powder
2-3 garlic cloves, minced or ¼- ½ tsp garlic powder.
2 tbsp milk of choice
1 tbsp nutritional yeast
1 tbsp ground flaxseeds/flax meal
1 tbsp lemon juice
Salt and pepper, to taste.
Flour Mix
¼C chickpea flour or all-purpose flour of choice
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp black pepper
Buttermilk mix
½ C soy milk (or almond, I find soy works best)
1 tbs lemon juice or apple cider vinegar
½ tsp mustard powder
1 tbsp nutritional yeast
Crumb Mix
½C panko breadcrumbs/ crushed cornflakes/ rice breadcrumbs OR a mixture of crumb and flour equal to ½ C e.g. ¼ C almond meal + ¼ C polenta, ¼ C breadcrumbs + ¼ C flour. I've used ¼C almond meal + ¼ polenta here.
1 tbs paprika
½ tsp celery seed powder or celery salt (may reduce total added salt around this if salt sensitive)
1 tsp garlic powder
½ tsp ginger powder
½ tsp white pepper, ground
1 tsp Italian herbs
¼ -½ tsp salt
Other
~¼C extra virgin olive oil, as oil or extra virgin olive oil spray, Can substitute oil of choice e.g. avocado.
Method
Shallow fry option
1. Place all chick’n ingredients in a food processor, or blender and pulse until well mixed, but before chickpeas are completely mashed.
2. Transfer mix to a container and leave in fridge for 30-60 minutes.
3. When time to refrigerate is up, start to prepare other mixes.
4. Add milk, lemon juice and mustard powder in a bowl together and mix until combined. Leave to sit.
5. Add all flour ingredients in another bowl and stir together.
6. Add all crumb ingredients in another bowl and stir together.
7. Place all 3 bowls in order of crumb, milk and flour (from left to right) on a bench.
8. Add ~1/4C extra virgin olive oil avocado oil, canola oil etc into a frying pan and heat on medium-high heat.
9. Remove the chick’n mixture from the fridge and shape ¼ mixture into a thin “fillet”. They will be soft, so try to support them as much as you can when moving them, so they don’t break.
10. Using your right hand, dredge the “fillet” in the flour mix. Then using the same hand and keeping it dry, place the “fillet” into the buttermilk mix.
11. Now, use your left hand to remove the “fillet” from the buttermilk and place into the crumb mixture. Use your right hand again (and/or maybe a spoon) to dredge and coat the “fillet” in the crumb.
12. The oil in the pan should be hot, to transfer (carefully) the “fillet” into the fry pan to gently cook for about 5 minutes either side.
13. While that is cooking, repeat steps 9-12 with remaining 3 “fillets”.
Air-fryer option
If using an air fryer, it is easier to make “strips” rather than a schnitzel-shape due to space and chances of it breaking when flipping.
Follow steps above, however, instead of frying each piece as you go, set aside on a plate/tray until all are coated.
Preheat air-fryer at 200C.
Spray base of air-fryer with some extra virgin olive oil and spray the strips quickly too.
Fry in air fryer for 10 minutes before flipping and frying for another 5-10 (check at 5 minutes mark).
You can spray the other side of the strips quickly with the extra virgin olive oil after flipping too.
You're done. Enjoy!
Baked option
Follow steps above, however, preheat oven to 200C before mixing flour/crumb/milk ingredients and instead of frying each piece as you go, set aside on a plate/tray until all are coated.
Once all schnitzels/strips have been coated, spray lightly with extra virgin olive oil spray.
Bake in oven for 10 minutes before flipping and lightly spray other side with extra virgin olive oil spray again.
Bake for further 10 minutes.
You're done. Enjoy!
Notes:
Optional, but I prefer to brown the onion and garlic quickly before mixing in with other chick’n ingredients.
If making for a sandwich or burger, make them smaller in size to just fit the bun/bread. If too large, as this isn't bound with gluten or egg, it may fall apart.
Nutritional Information (When serves 4, using above ingredients and air-fried. Note this is an estimate given approximate flour/crumb/milk used via dredging.)
319 Cal | 1333 kJ | 12.3g Protein | 10.2g Fat | 1.5g Sat. Fat | 39.7g Carbs | 2.5g Sugar | 8.3g Fibre | 373mg Sodium