I started working on this recipe after I got hooked on watching Hell’s Kitchen. It’s one of the signature dishes of the restaurant, and after every episode I’m craving a wellie! I’ve been trying lots of different variations and this version is my favorite. It seems like this recipe could be a bit daunting, but it’s actually pretty easy! You really only need to make the seitan and the mushroom pate, and then you can buy some Pepperidge Farm Puff Pastry.
If you want to make your own puff pastry, I highly recommend it. Just follow a recipe like this one but substitute the butter for sticks of Earth Balance (and leave out the egg). But the store bought puff pastry works just fine, just remember to take it out the fridge 40 minutes ahead of time to thaw. The recipe below only really needs about half the package of puff pastry so you will have some left over.
For the seitan, I like to use this Spicy Italian Sausage recipe from Everyday Dish.. I alter it just a little bit though, so please refer to the directions below:
Seitan Ingredients
- 1 1/8 cups vital wheat gluten
- 1/4 cup nutritional yeast flakes
- 1/4 cup chickpea flour
- 1 tbsp chicken seasoning
- 1 tbsp granulated onion
- 1 tbsp garlic powder or granules
- 1 tsp coarsely ground pepper, preferably freshly ground
- 1 tsp ground paprika
- 1/2 tsp ground smoked paprika
- 1/4 tsp dried oregano
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 1/8 cups cool water
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tbsp soy sauce
Directions
Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. In a smaller bowl, whisk together the cool water, olive oil and soy sauce. Then add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix together until it forms a dough. Separate the dough into two pieces and shape into balls. Roll each ball up in aluminum foil twisting the edges. Place in the steamer and steam for about 40 minutes.
While the seitan is steaming, you can start making the mushroom pate! If you don’t have a food processor, you can just chop everything very finely before you cook it and skip the food processor at the end.
Mushroom Pate Ingredients
- 2 Tbsp olive oil
- 5 large button mushrooms, sliced
- 1/2 large onion, sliced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1/2 – 1 tsp thyme
- salt (to taste)
- black pepper (to taste)
Directions
Add the olive oil to a large skillet over medium heat. Once the pan is hot, add the sliced onions and sautee for a few minutes or until translucent/slightly brown (which ever you prefer). Next, add the minced garlic and sautee for about a minute. Add the thyme, salt and black pepper while the onions and garlic are sauteing.
Before the garlic starts to brown, add the sliced mushrooms and sautee until they are soft, usually a couple minutes. After the mushrooms are thoroughly cooked, taste it and add any extra seasonings, if necessary.
Remove the pan from heat and set aside to cool a bit.
Put it all together!
Preheat the oven to 400°F
While the oven is preheating, open up the thawed puff pastry and unfold one piece of it. Cut it up into rectangles large enough to cover each seitan loaf (you can just eyeball it- the puff pastry stretches so it doesn’t have to be perfect). Place each piece of puff pastry on a lightly oiled cookie sheet or Silpat covered cookie sheet.
Once the pate has cooled a bit, scrape it into the food processor and process its chopped into small pieces, scraping the sides as necessary. Skip this step if you chopped everything finely to begin with.
Using a spatula, scrape the pate out of the food processor and spread it on middle of each piece of puff pastry, leaving about a half inch or so empty around the edges.
When the seitan is done, and cool enough to touch, unwrap it from the tin foil and place it on top of puff pastry you prepared with the pate spread. Taking the dough long ways, fold it up over the seitan and connect it using your fingers to push the dough together. Now the edges are still open so fold the edges in toward the seitan and connect the dough the same way as before. Do this again for the other side. Flip the whole thing over so the seam you made is on the bottom.
Place the wellie in the oven and bake for about 20 minutes or until the puff pastry is golden brown.
Once it’s done baking, take it out of the oven and let it cool for a few minutes. Slice it into 1″ size pieces and serve. It’s really good with mashed potatoes, gravy, and even cranberry jelly!
This recipe looks interesting. I’ll let you know how mine turn out 🙂