Day 15 - Chickpea Cutlets and Mustard Sauce

Chickpea Cutlets

This is one of those Veganomicon recipes that gets a ton of airplay. Seems like it's made its way into the top five list of everyone who has this book, so I thought it was a good choice with which to renew my palate in the wake of the Great Beanball Debacle of 2012-13. I know, it's a lot of pressure to put on this poor recipe.

But it came through!! This cutlet was chewy and gluten-y and flavor-y and delicious! And really easy to make! I can see why everyone is crowing about it. 

Unlike many of the recipes I've tried so far, this one is very confident in the salt department, which you know I love. And let's talk about the gluten:beans ratio here, which I've already posited is the reason the beanballs don't work. In these cutlets, it's 2 parts beans, 2 parts floury stuff (gluten and breadcrumbs), and 1 part wet stuff (oil and soy sauce). In the beanballs, there's 6 parts beans, 1.5 parts floury stuff, and less than 1 part wet stuff. Very different, right? Maybe it should have read 1 1/4 cups instead of 1/4 cup gluten. Hmm....

In any case, I think the beanballs could learn a thing or two from the chickpea cutlets. They're toothy and meaty and savory and all-around yummy, not to mention pan-fry-able. This will be a fun dish to serve to skeptics.

The only things I may jiggle with next time around are: a) baking instead of pan-frying just to check out a different texture, and b) mashing the chickpeas a little better. I definitely didn't leave any whole beans, but I think I'll prefer the texture of these with fewer or no bean chunks in there.

SFO: 8

(This rating is but a guess in a vacuum. I may have to revisit this when there's some hard data.)


Mustard Sauce

It's only appropriate that I try I&T's recommended topping for the cutlets. They are right when they say that this is "for mustard lovers only!" Luckily, I am one!

This thick, thick mustard sauce is thick. Did I mention the thickness of this sauce? And it's thick with bold flavors: sherry, capers (with brine!), soy sauce, garlic, lemon juice, and a whopping 1/4 cup of whole grain mustard, all bound together with a vegetable broth/cornstarch slurry. 

It totally works, it tastes great, and like most of these recipes, it's really easy to make. Well done, gals! 

SFO: 8

(Safe for all, but how many people out there are this into mustard?)