Seitan Shawarma with Persian Green Rice and Tzatziki

Make no mistake--it's the crunchy, golden top layer of fried rice, known as the tahdig, that sends this dish over the top and will have you begging for another serving.

Seitan Shawarma with Persian Green Rice and Tzatziki

Serves 4

This recipe is dedicated to Kommie Shafa, a gracious and good natured man who is also my best friend’s dad. Kommie introduced me to his family’s Persian green rice recipe about a decade ago, and I’ve been in love with it ever since. This was back when I got involved with my local chapter of Food Not Bombs during my high school years: it was my second or third date with the girl who is now my wife; we had cooked and packed up some chana masala and were on our way to meet up with my best friend, Kaleb, at his house before driving out together to Stranahan Park in downtown Fort Lauderdale. As we entered Kommie’s kitchen, we caught sight of him packing a large tray of fragrant green rice for us to take to the sharing. “The secret is to fry the bottom of the rice until it’s golden and crunchy,” he told us. Taking a bite was simply revelatory; I don’t think I had ever eaten dill in my life up until that point. Buttery, herbaceous and sweet, thanks to those blessed green peas…and that perfect layer of crunchy rice crust!—known as tahdig—I had never seen or tasted anything like it, and felt like a king. Later that night after the sharing, we all sat around and chatted, rubbing our full bellies. I remember I had felt proud that so many people that night enjoyed green rice for the first time, just like I did.

My family knows me well—a good cookbook makes for a perfect gift. Among the many wonderful cookbooks I’ve received as gifts over the past couple of years, there is one that stands out among the others—Isa Does It: Amazingly Easy, Wildly Delicious Vegan Recipes for Every Day of the Week by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. This book is filled to the brim with fun, creative comfort food takes on vegan breakfasts, lunches and dinners. Since starting my new job as sous chef and assistant manager at Cowpie Cafe, a student-run vegan kitchen located in Warren Wilson College (unfortunately COVID-19 has cut the fun short and I will not be back until the school re-opens for the fall semester), I’ve had time and time again to put the recipes in this book to work. It’s been an adventure accommodating adjustments based on what ingredients we may or may not have in the kitchen at the time, not to mention scaling up the serving size twenty-five to thirty times. All-in-all, I’ve garnered a lot of interesting techniques and recipes from this book, including the basic simmered seitan used in this recipe. 

The school vegan kitchen was the perfect place to test my idea for a shawarma-fied version of Isa’s seitan. At first, I simmered the seitan in only salty vegetable stock with garlic, as is called for in her recipe, and then proceeded to sautée that in oil tempered with shawarma spices. I wasn’t happy with tasting shawarma on the outside, but not on the inside. That’s when I realized I can add the shawarma seasoning to the stock. That way, the seitan will absorb the aromatics like a sponge. 

I’d like to think my Seitan Shawarma with Persian Dill Rice recipe isn’t complicated, but it does have a handful of timely steps. Here is a basic outline that will help you conceptualize the sequence to have everything finish at the same time. The first order of business is knocking out the seitan. That means your seasoned stock is heating while you knead the seitan. Once you’ve dropped your seitan into your simmering stock, you have a 45 minute window to make the tzatziki and par-cook/season the rice. Easy. Once the 45 minutes are up, remove the seitan. While you wait for the seitan to cool enough to tear into bite-size pieces with your hands, you may fry the rice. Once you have the rice frying, finish the seitan. The two will come up together. Plate and garnish with healthy dollops of tzatziki.

Go for the gold--even more so than me. Let that rice fry!

For the seitan shawarma:

• 2 quart vegetable broth
• 6 cloves garlic, smashed
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 2 teaspoon ground coriander
• 2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 2 cups vital wheat gluten
• 5 tablespoon nutritional yeast flakes
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 1 cup cold water
• 2 tablespoon tomato paste
• 1/2 tablespoon lemon juice

For the Persian green rice:

• 1 cup of basmati rice, rinsed and drained
• 3 cup water
• 1/2 cup dried dill
• 1/3 cup green peas, fresh or frozen
• 1 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
• A generous glug of neutral oil (canola, peanut, etc.); enough to cover the bottom of a rice pot.

For the tzatziki:

• 1/3 cup unsweetened greek yogurt, or 1 block silken tofu as a vegan alternative
• 1/4 cucumber, coarsely grated
• 1 preserved lemon peel, diced, with flesh discarded, or 1 tablespoon lemon zest
• Pinches of cumin, sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 1/4 cup water, for thinning (optional)

Prepare the seitan: smash the garlic and add the cloves to a large pot of broth set to high heat. Stir in the freshly ground black pepper, coriander, cumin, paprika, cinnamon, turmeric and cayenne. Make sure your broth is seasoned with enough salt; the seitan gets the bulk of its flavor by soaking up the broth seasonings. Allow the broth to come up to a simmer while you make the seitan.

This tzatziki recipe makes just enough for 4 servings. Why not double the recipe and enjoy tzatziki another day?

In a large bowl, combine the wheat gluten, nutritional yeast flakes, soy sauce, cold water, tomato paste and lemon zest by stirring with a fork for 30 seconds. Use your hands to knead the seitan, making sure that all of the wheat gluten is incorporated. Divide the dough in half and roll into two equal sized logs.

Add the two seitan logs to the broth as soon as it reaches a nice, even simmer. Partially cover the pot with a lid and allow the logs to simmer in the broth for a full 45 minutes. It’s important that the simmer doesn’t reach a boil; otherwise it will make your seitan “brainy.” Keep a close eye on it and adjust accordingly. Don’t forget to set a timer.

Prepare the tzatziki: combine the yogurt, spices, and diced preserved lemon peel in a bowl. (If you are substituting silken tofu for yogurt, simply blitz the tofu in a blender with 1 or more tablespoons of lemon juice.) Over the bowl, grate the cucumber against the second-to-smallest holes on a box-grater. The peel will stay behind and you will be left with delicious cucumber essence water. Stir to combine. Taste and adjust for seasonings. If you prefer a thinner, more pourable tzatziki, simply stir in 1/4 cup of water and taste again for seasoning. Refrigerate until you are ready to serve. 

Prepare the rice: rinse the rice in a colander to remove the starch until it runs clear. Combine with two cups of water in a pot set to boil. When it boils, turn the heat down low and allow the rice to simmer. After ten minutes of simmering, remove the pot from the heat and drain the excess water. Transfer the rice to a mixing bowl. Stir in the dill, peas, and salt.  Wash and rinse out the rice pot, making sure that it’s clean and completely dry. You will be using it again to make the tahdig.

After 45 minutes of simmering, remove the seitan from the broth with a pair of tongs and place the logs on a plate to cool. Once cooled, tear the seitan into small bite-sized pieces, or cut into strips if you prefer. 

Prepare the tahdig: preheat a generous glug of neutral oil in the clean, dry rice pot over medium-high heat for 10 minutes. When the oil is shimmering, pour the green rice slowly into the pot, pressing down as you go. Drizzle a couple tablespoons of water over the rice. Lay a clean towel over the pot and place the lid of the pot over the cloth to seal. Allow to cook undisturbed for at least ten minutes.

My babushka pot of rice. 

Finish the seitan: meanwhile, preheat 3 tablespoons of neutral oil in a skillet over medium high heat. When the oil is shimmering, temper it by adding additional pinches of the shawarma seasoning (i.e. ground black pepper, coriander, cumin, smoked paprika, turmeric, and cayenne), stirring to combine. Add the torn seitan to the hot tempered oil and stir to coat evenly. Allow the seitan to sear undisturbed for 2 minutes until it starts to brown. Stir the pan again and continue to sear the seitan undisturbed to achieve more browning, about 5 minutes. Remove from the pan and set aside.

Finish the tahdig: remove the rice pot from the heat. Remove the lid and cloth and place a clean plate over the mouth of the pot. Keeping one hand on the plate and the other on the pot handle, flip the pot and plate together to turn the rice out, crispy side up, trying to keep it in one piece. Viola, you should be left with a beautiful green rice cake with a crispy, crunchy top crust. 

Searing seitan in oil tempered with more shawarma spices.

Serve the shawarma alongside the rice with generous dollops of tzatziki.