Seitan Piccata With Olives and Green Beans - Veganomicon (174)

Ingredients:
1 pound seitan
about 1/3 c. all-purpose flour
olive oil (enough to coat the bottom of the pan)
1 scant cup thinly sliced shallots (about 3 to 5 shallots, depending on size)
4 cloves chopped garlic
1/3 c. dry white wine
2. c. veggie broth
1/4 tsp. salt
several pinched of freshly ground black pepper
small pinch of dried thyme (I subbed dried rosemary since there was no time to run to the store to buy thyme)
1/4 c. capers with a little brine
1/2 c. pitted kalamata or black olives, cut in half
juice of one lemon (omitted as I didn't have one)
2 TBL. fresh parsley
1/2 lb. green beans, ends trimmed
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What to do:
1) Preheat a large, heavy bottomed skillet over medium high heat.
2) Cut the seitan into long, thin pieces.  The seitan I purchased was pre-cut into slices (they were more like small, think chunks)
3) Coat the bottom of the skillet with oil and let it get hot.  Dredge the seitan in the flour, add to the pan and cook until lightly browned, about 2 minutes on each side.
4) After cooking all of the seitan, saute the shallots and garlic, adding more olive oil if necessary.  Saute for about 5 minutes, taking care not to let burn.
5) Add the white wine, raise the heat to bring to a rolling boil.  Add vegetable broth, salt, black pepper, and thyme (or rosemary).  Again, bring the sauce to a boil, let reduce by half.  The author suggests the reduction should take about 7 to 10 minutes...I found the sauce took much longer to reduce.
6) Add the capers and olives to heat through (about 3 minutes).  Add parsley and lemon (if you have one!) to the sauce. 
7) Boil the green beans for about 2 minutes, then strain.
8) Mix the green beans and seitan together (over mashed potatoes, if you are so inclined as the author suggests - I used white rice) then douse everything in plenty of sauce.

This dish was interesting.  It is very good for the olive lover.  I think the best thing about this dish was learning how to prepare the seitan.  Dredging the flour in the seitan then pan frying it tasted delicious.  Breaded (/bread-crumbed) seitan cooked in the same manner would also probably be delicious.  Cooking with seitan is not as scary as it used to be, though the seitan still looks not very appealing...  Next up is actually making my own seitan from scratch, using vital wheat gluten!