Metaxa Vegan Holiday Roast

This vegan roast is an update of my smaller version, found here: How to Make the Philly Whiskey Gritty Glaze Holiday (vegan!) Seitan Roast

(Here are other vegan holiday recipe favorites.)

This was our first holiday season in Greece. I was not sure if I’d find any of my usual ingredients — especially wheat gluten — so was pleasantly surprised to find what was needed. Since I could not locate cheesecloth and chick pea flour (or Gritty) I made this Greek Metaxa version and, as a bonus, liked it a lot better.

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C.
2. Make the original Gritty Glaze roast dough EXCEPT use butter instead of olive oil (slightly richer) and blend real garbanzo beans in the wet mix instead of flour in the dry.
3. Pull off 1/3 of the dough and roll out flat as seen in this video. Wrap around the OG beast. (I’m not entirely sure if this does anything, but it came out delicious, so why not?)
4. No Cheesecloth? No problem. Wrap the beast in a sheet of parchment paper and twist the ends (not too tight) and cover this with foil and wrap (this video from the Seitan Society has a great demo).
5. Bake for 30 minutes, turn, then bake another 30 minutes. If still a bit tender (and not browned on each side) may need another 30 minutes. Remove the roast and let it cool for about 30 minutes.
6. Make the Simmer sauce: I used my base marinade plus adds from the Seitan Society recipe. Add the following to a saucepan big enough for the Beast, then slowly bring the following to a boil then cover with a lid and reduce to a simmer:

• 8 cups of water
• 1 large onion, peeled and quartered
• 4 ribs chopped celery
• 2 carrots, chopped
• 1 T soy sauce
• 1 T sugar
• 1 “beef” bouillon
• 1 T tomato paste
• 1/2 T olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1 t paprika
• 1 t poultry seasoning
• 1 t sage
• 1 bay leaf

7. Unwrap the roast and with a fork, pierce the roast 4 times on the top and 4 times on the bottom.

8. Simmer 30 minutes on one side, 30 on the other, sometimes flipping. Careful not to let the water boil, just gentle bubbling and simmering.

9. After the roast has rested a few hours covered in the pan, glaze and bake per steps 5 and 6 of the Gritty Glaze recipe, except here I used Metaxa instead of Philly Whiskey or Jack Daniels).

Use the remainder of simmer sauce for gravy — blend the carrots and celery together to make a creamy, rich gravy. I also sizzled up Beyond Meat sausage then added it to the gravy which infused the entire mixture with delicious flavor.

• Bonus: Grill Greek mushrooms for “wings”

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