Vegetarian Meats  
  Vegetarian Hotdogs
INGREDIENTS:
Dry - - 2 cups vital wheat gluten
- 1/2 cup All Purpose flour
- 3 TBS smoked Torula powder (stores.wholesome-essential.com/bakon-yeast/)
- 1 TBS sweet rice flour

Wet -
- 2.5 cups water
- 1/2 cup cooked Navy beans, rinsed and drained (or 1/2 cup [4 oz.] firm tofu drained)
- 2 TBS Butter Crisco (OR 1/4 cup vegetable oil)
- 1 1/2 TBS sweet Paprika powder (for color)
- 1 TBS smoke flavor (optional, adjust to taste)
- 1/2 TBS sugar
- 1/2 TBS salt
- 2 tsp ground coriander
- 2 tsp celery seeds
- 2 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp jalapeno powder (optional replacement for black pepper)
- 1/2 tsp Mustard powder
- 1/2 tsp Fruit Fresh (keep color from darkening)

METHOD:
Blend water, beans(or tofu), oil and spices in a blender on low until smooth. Mix in a bowl with the flour and gluten. Knead the mix until smooth and the dough comes free of the bowl. (About 5 minutes) (Note: Mixing at a cold temperature results in a smoother softer hot dog.) Total weight was 2lb 8oz. Divide into 16 parts at 2 3/8 oz each. Roll form to hot dog size about 5 inches long. Wrap using one of the wrapping options below. (Your weight may vary, simply divide total weight in ounces by 16 to get individual weight.)
Cooking: Cook in a large kettle with a steaming rack in it and steam cook them for 45 minutes at just enough temperature to keep the water at boiling. Be sure when stacking in the cooker to cross hatch stack them so the steam has free circulation between them for even cooking. When done cooking, place on a cooling rack until cool enough to handle.
Alternate Cooking Option: Cook them for 30 minutes in a pressure cooker at 10 pounds pressure. Stack in the same as for steam cooking. (I later made a rack to hang them vertically in the pressure canner so they did not have "Lincoln log" indentations. lol)

QUANTITY: 16 hot dogs about 5" long and 7/8" diameter.

Wrapping options:
  • Heavy Aluminum Foil:
    This works for a few small production runs but tends to consume a lot of foil. The length of the foil roll I used was 12 inches long. This provides cut sections with enough wraps to hold the pressure while cooking. Cut 12 foil sheets each 9 inches wide. Twist the tube ends up to prevent bursting.
    After cooking and cooling, peel off the aluminum wrapper and let dry long enough to have a dry surface.
  • Muslin Cloth:
    9 x 3 5/8 inches with 1/4" seam. Makes a 7/8" diameter tube. Make 16 tubes. Layout dimensions to best fit the cloth. Edge bind along the ends of the tube edges first. Cut out the tube strips. Sew tubes and edge bind the sewn edge.
    When using these tubes, roll up the hot dogs in food plastic wrap first and pull into the tube. (Needle nose pliers works great for this!) The food grade plastic wrap I used was in a roll 12 inches long. I cut their width to an inch longer than the cloth tubes. Make sure the plastic wrap ends extend out past the cotton tube ends. Then squeeze the dough to the proper length and tie with wire tie wraps to seal the ends of the tube. Wire tie wraps are much faster to put on and take off than string.
    After cooking and cooling, undo the tie wraps and slide out of the cloth sleeves. Cut the plastic wrap with scissors on one end and slide off. Let dry a bit longer until cool.
NOTES: What happens in the cooking process – the hot dogs will try to expand when they get heated. This can create a significant amount of pressure which if not wrapped well will burst out of the wrappers causing the hot dogs to make funny shapes and have open spaces in them.
Excellent set of hot dogs! I had used the spices from a "how to make your own meat hot dogs" using the ratio of meat to the amount of spices to determine the amount of spices used here. Smoke flavor may be added in small amounts to get a smoked hot dog. No more commercial hot dogs for me now!

The hotdogs may be kept frozen until you want to use them. They may be prepared in any way you like; Fried, grilled, boiled or microwaved.

The use of All Purpose flour and the beans gives the hot dogs a meatier texture and less rubbery gluten.

Credits: All I needed was a clue to figure this out. Thanks to Vegan Dad vegandad.blogspot.com/2008/03/homemade-sausages.html and Felicity for the cloth wrapper idea. thriftyliving.net/soy-free-seitan-sausages/

Bob Curtice – Last updated: 2/5/2023

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