the elusive vegan reuben sandwich

The best fucking sandwich I ever ate was the vegan reuben at the Chicago Diner, circa November 2004. It is the only time I can recall in my entire 26 years when I thought I might honestly truly vomit from eating too much. I couldn’t stop. It was that good.

It’s a tough thing to replicate in vegan form, since really most of the ingredients are not vegan. This calls for some hardcore imposter ingredients, though, of course, rye bread and sauerkraut can be their regular real-deal selves.

Since there’s no place in Pittsburgh to get a vegan reuben, a personal mission began. The Quiet Storm here in town has a vegetarian reuben on the menu, which some would declare a thorough success and why not just stop there? But a) it’s got dairy cheese, which I can’t/won’t eat, and b) it’s based on tempeh, which I just can’t get down with in this case. Totally wrong texture for me. But good on ya, QS, for doing the vegetarians a solid!

So, a mission to make a reuben… and make a reuben I did. In fact, if I were the competitive type, I might challenge you all to make a better one than I can. Here is what I do:

1. Make your own fucking fake cheese the day before you plan to make the sandwiches* or just buy yourself some delicious, albeit petro-chemically based Tofutti brand mozzarella slices.
2. Get yourself some really good marble rye, and slather each slice with some Earth Balance margarine.
3. Thinly (and I mean THINLY — we are replicating corned beef, remember?) slice one package of seitan. As a sidenote here, I haven’t yet experimented in making my own seitan, which I plan to do this winter. I’ll report back. I have done some research about spicing seitan with corned beef spices, which may kick my previous reuben’s ass.) Fry it up in a bit of oil in a skillet till it’s hot through and a bit crispy here and there.
4. Meanwhile, get the dressing ready. This is a slapdash version: one part ketchup, two parts vegannaise, one part sweet pickle relish. A true Russian dressing would have a bit of horseradish in it too, which I don’t generally have around.
5. Heat up a good forkload or so of sauerkraut — unless you have some homemade kraut, I generally find kraut to be pretty much the same, brand to brand. Not worth being too choosy about.
6. Slather the non-buttered sides of each slice of bread with the dressing. Layer on a good helping of fried up seitan, then a layer of cheese, then a load of kraut, and close up your sandwich. Fry it up gently in a skillet, taking care as you flip it over that you don’t spill out all your delicious sandwich innards.
7. Eat the fuck out of that fucking sandwich and declare your life to be complete. Especially if you’ve got some good beer, and you’ve already roasted some potatoes that just happen to be piping hot and covered in salt and pepper and on your plate.

Fig. 1: Reuben with mashed garlic potatoes and wilted swiss chard.

Fig. 2: Reuben with red parsley potatoes and no effing vegetables.

* future post about making your own fake cheese to come. It’s totally worth it. No crazy chemicals, tastes like food, melts, awesome.