Chickpea & veggie cutlets - ideas

[elaine amj]

Last night, I made chickpea & veggie cutlets (pureed chickpeas, chopped mushrooms & shredded carrots), breaded it with wheat germ and pan fried it in coconut oil. It turned out pretty tasty.

Normally, we enjoy our breaded cutlets with plain white rice/quinoa. This is the first time I made it completely meatless though (the original plan had been to mix it with a small amount of ground pork - but I had put the pork on my back porch to finish defrosting....and completely forgot where I put it. I was turning the house upside down to hunt for my raw pork last night ROFL! Sadly, didn't find it until this morning so it went into the garbage *sigh*). Anyway, I did find I had a bit of a struggle eating it meatless - the flavour was good but I only enjoyed nibbling on it. Having it as a main entree was a bit much - especially since I had trouble getting it bind (since it was missing the pork I planned haha!) and the cutlets have fallen apart a fair bit.

Anyway, I still have a whole serving for DH and I that we plan to eat on Wednesday. I'd like to use this as a base/topping for something else. Or modify it in some way. But cannot think of anything off the top of my head.

[marielle]

Add some vital wheat gluten to kick it up a notch. It helps give a more dense, chewy texture and not a crumbly mess that falls apart.

I like this recipe from one of my cookbooks:
http://www.geniuskitchen.com/recipe/chickpea-cutlets-283551

[elaine amj]

Cool! I will have to try some vital wheat gluten (now will have to find out where I can buy it locally) the next time I attempt to make cutlets.

For the leftovers...I wonder if topping them with a caramelized onion and mushroom sauce might help? I'm so at a loss for ideas not to waste what I've already cooked lol! And I'm still mourning my half package of delicious ground pork that's currently in my garbage bin (so not thinking straight haha!).

[marielle]

Vital wheat gluten is a /fairly/ common ingredient for baking bread so it shouldn't be too difficult. I've found it at Food Lion which is a standard grocery store that doesn't typically have too many weird things. But you can definitely find it at Whole Foods and Earthfare if you have those in Canada. It will almost certainly be in the baking section next to other flours.

It is VERY high in protein so that's a bonus too!

[GuitarStv]

We do something similar and make chickpea 'meatballs'.  Toss them into your pasta sauce of choice, add some carrots/onions/fried mushrooms and eat with noodles.

[Catbert]

Yes, I think some sort of sauce (any sort of sauce) would help.  Mushrooms and carmelized onions, green curry, pesto, chutney, mustard cream, etc.  Also would serving as a sandwich help with the crumbly issue?  Bread, cutlet, lettuce, tomato and a sauce.

[MBot]

Cutlet "parmigiana" -- pasta, sauce, cheese if you have it. You can even bread the cutlet in panko or new breadcrumbs  and re-pan-fry the cutlet in a little bit of oil for extra crispy deliciousness.