Soy "Steak" Style Strips

This is another review on something called "Steak Style Strips". In the package, they remind me of cooked liver, which my mum used to make with peppers (and it used to taste pretty good. Actually, animal livers are a great source of vitamin A, iron [yes!!], vitamin D, vitamin B12, and protein. Oh, and cholesterol, but I think that the other nutrients outweigh the cholesterol content). I'm not sure why I'm advertising the consumption of livers since I don't eat them myself, but these soy strips neither taste like liver nor have the nutrients that liver has.

I cooked them two ways.

1. In the pan with some spices and some ketchup. This tasted rather bland and had a seriously gluteny texture. It was a bit peppery, but it definitely did not taste like steak. The only reasons I was thinking "Hmmm, rather steaky" were that these pieces of soy actually looked like sliced steak, and they were labelled as "steak" flavoured. In other words, appearance is vital in tricking the mind into assuming things...especially when these strips are a small component of a larger meal. In my case, they weren't, but I'd imagine if they were chopped up and used in instant noodles, you couldn't tell the difference! My food tech teacher told me in year 8 that a lot of TVP is actually used in instant noodles instead of using actual chunks of cow or pig; instead, they just add a ton of flavouring to the TVP so that it tastes like animal flesh, but lasts much longer (won't expire that soon!)! Anyway, the pan version was a bit bland.

2. Microwave, with the same spices and some ketchup. These definitely tasted more salty, and since I put them in the microwave for 2:00 mins, some of the strips were pretty crispy/crunchy in that inside-out way that the microwave likes to irradiate food. In this aspect, the microwave provided more textured and flavoured [primarily salty] soy strips. The best part about the microwaved version is that the texture, although still a bit gluteny, resembles animal flesh pretty well [way better than the Smart Cutlets did].

When they say "seasoned", I believe they mean "mixed with a ton of salt and a bit of pepper".

Also, the bread was from Costco and it was the multigrain bread that comes in one loaf rather than two when you buy them. The bread is dry, rather sweet, and kind of stale. I do not have a favourable impression of it. For sliced bread, I seriously prefer the organic whole wheat bread that comes in a two-pack from Costco.