Seitan - General Guidance
Well friends, I girded my loins and tried making my own seitan yesterday. I had trawled the Net for info and some of it was contradictory, others were confusing, but I did find out how to make it with gluten powder and when to freeze it--after the initial cooking.
I always follow the easiest recipe thru the way it says the first time and go from there. NOW I understand why they recommend you add seasonings, herbs, mushroom powder etc. to the gluten mix...it tastes of absolutely nothing, as is. I mean, imagine eating an eraser. OK as a chewing exercise...flavour, not so much! LOL I also understand why they suggest you work it very little (mine was almost as dense as me!) and if it weren't 100º out I might have tried baking instead of boiling it.
BUT...and it's a big but...after I had laughed at the way it swells up when you boil it and looks like something out of a biology lab, and tasted it and found it...well, completely tasteless...I sliced it up and marinaded it in an African barbecue sauce. And DH the carnivore tasted it and did NOT go "Gross!" or laugh at me about it. We agreed the recipe and method need "tweaking" and that I need to print out the instructions and follow them closely, but that we are definitely onto something, at less than a dollar a pound for pure food, no waste. No bones, no fat, no cholesterol...and cheap! He ate some and said maybe we should put it in a curry etc.
10 years ago or even 5 he would have laughed at me and made "cute" remarks all the time I was trying to eat it. Now he agrees we need to eat less meat and things like this will help that. From his point of view it is purely economic (he is facing disability retirement) but hey, any start is a good one. Now if I could just get him to eat things with leaves and roots... ::)
I boil mine in a very intense bouillon broth to impart flavor. I also bake it with sauce-- BBQ, especially. Yum!
I make my seitan by mixing the gluten with a blend of ginger, soy sauce and some water. You can
add other spices (like pepper). This way the flavor is more intense. I always thought that using
a broth wasted to much soy sauce (to get the flavor intense enough). Then, when I want to eat
it, I pan fry it with garlic, onions, mushrooms....and any thing else I can think of. Baypuppy is
correct about making this stuff is a great joy.
Also, with regarding to how much to work the gluten; this is one advantage to making your own. You
can make it as chewy as you like. I don't like it to fall apart, so I run it in a mixer with a
dough hook for about 5 mins. and have had good luck, but I do like it chewy. Experiement around and
you will be able to control the texture.
okay im sure this has already been asked many times, but im a new vegan and stuck in oklahoma- where i cant find anything but tofu.... we have a health food store over here but its small and its pickins are slim, so to speak,
i know absolutely nothing about seitan or tempeh, but the recipes look yummy and i want to try them (i have been trying every meat substitute i can find to see what i do and do not like) and i dont know where to find them...
-same thing with "nutritional yeast flakes"???
(in the dark here) sorry if i sound like a veggie-retard, but i used to be married to a strict carnivore......
If you can't find any seitan in the store, you can make some. It is easy. It can
be helpful to have a mixed, but you can do it by hand also. There are several recipes
on the web (and maybe at this site.) you need wheat gluton which can be gotten via
mail-order or the web. Home made seitan is very good and cheap to make. It can last
several days in the fridge. If you are interested, I can re-post me experience making
seitan, which I have been doing for several years.
BRAD, I just bought some "Preserved Bean Curd" which comes in a jar along with a few beans and some rice. The ingredients say "Soybean, rice, salt, sugar and alcohol." The Spanish girl in the shop said it smells quite strong (her Chinese boss says it's like cheese). What can I do to prepare this? Does it sound familiar?
I have a habit of buying stuff that looks interesting and then not knowing how to serve it...sheesh. ::)
Hi all. I've made seitan over the years, but last weekend I ate at Candle 79 in Manhattan and had one of their seitan dishes. The last two times I've eaten there I've noticed that their seitan has the most marvelous texture. It is soft yet firm and--most amazingly--it has threads running through it, very similar to the texture of chicken. I've never seen or made seitan with this kind of texture before. Anyone have any idea how to get it like this? All I can think of is that they must pull the gluten in a certain way.
I don't know how they do it, and though I think I might've said it before on some other topic on this site, I'm sayin' it again just for the hell of it...
Candle 79 is the best friggin vegan meal I've EVER had. That seitan piccata is absolutely divine. Kicks the hell out of Millennium, which is SF's shmancy-pants vegan joint (I now live in SF).
Viva 79!
Sorry I couldn't answer the question, though.
I completly concur - the best. Candle 79 has a less pricy restaurant (acutally was the first) called Candle Cafe on 3rd and 75th. Cajun seitan sandwiches are crazy good. I have their cookbook and have spent HOURS trying to recreate their seitan, but I can't get the texture down.
I live in Glasgow, Scotland and it's impossible to get seitan or vital wheat gluten here. You can get tempeh if you're prepared to pay through the nose for it. Considering Scotlands appalling diet of deep fried Mars bars and "Stonner kebabs" (look it up on the net, it's a frightening thing...) it's hardly suprising! If anyone can pass on a place in Scotland where I can order vital wheat gluten I'd be in your debt. ;D
You can make seitan yourself with a mixture of whole wheat flour and regular white flour. I'm sure there are recipes on this site as well as the web in general. This is sort of the "old fashioned" way since vital wheat gluten is also sold separately and is quick and handy to mix up. If you can't find a recipe for the old fashioned way, I will repost. The old fashioned way is definitely more time consuming than the mix because you have to knead and rinse the dough, which is time consuming. Making seitan is sort of an evening's worth of work. Unfortunately, it is also very tasty so it goes quickly and then you have to make more.
If you can't find a recipe for old-fashioned seitan on this site, repost and I will post one.
There's a whole category on this site of recipes for "Tempeh, Tofu, Seitan and Textured Soy Protien" (and I quote.) Just click on the "Recipes" tab on the top of the screen and then click on "seitan" and you'll get a whole bunch of stuff. My "Mexicali Seitan with Mushrooms" has a simple recipe for baked Seitan, and I just printed out the Seitan Roast recipe that was on the home page today.
Do remember tho to put all your flavourings (mushrooms, herbs, spices etc) in the basic gluten/flour mixture; it doesn't seem to absorb much flavour from the broth.
Note: the tempeh I have seen here has visible soybeans in it. It's v. pricey at our health-food store so I still haven't bought any...someday I will tho.
Have fun experimenting!
My neighborhood supermarkets sell tempeh frozen in the meat-substitute section, but don't sell it anywhere else: don't be shy to ask your grocer if they have it somewhere strange or can get it. It's flavorful and has an interesting texture. I like tempeh it and put into a fake "chicken salad"-- it serves the role of chicken pretty well (nutritional yeast helps the flavor) with all the usual fixins, in sandwiches or stuffed into hollowed tomatoes.
Do please give homemade seitan a try! I like it SO much better homemade than store-bought. If you can find vital wheat gluten, you'll save yourself a lot of waste and clean-up, but yes, it's fun to make from flour, too.
I just mix the flour, seasonings, and liquid to form a dough, then put it into the crock pot to poach all day. While it takes all day, it doesn't take any human intervention that way. However, a super quick and fun way to try it is Dragonfly's Vegan Ribs (search the site for "Dragonfly" and you'll find it). It takes very little time, comparatively-- maybe an hour from start to finish, and most of that is hands-off oven time.
:) Enjoy!
Has anybody used a bread machine to make seitan from scratch? I used to make it by hand kneading it until the gluten was well developed and it took way too long. The bread machiine could do the kneading and be stopped before the baking cycle. What do y'all think?
HAve yu tried buying on line? There are so many veg web sites that offer it.
Hi,
I've had seitan from vegetarian restarants and I'd like to use it in my cooking sometime, but I can't find it in any stores nearby.
I also tried making it from scratch one time... terrible... what a waste of time, effort, and flour. Don't know if I did something wrong or if I had a bad brand of flour, but I never wanted to attempt it again.
Does anyone know if there is somewhere that I could order packaged seitan online?
Also is it much easier to make at home if you use the "quick" wheat gluten mixes? Are they any good?
Thanks.
Hey Vegwifeandmom, have you checked out your health food store? I tried to make it once and found that to be an experience that I don't want to revisit. LOL! I have never ordered it, but would like some info on that, too, cause my HFS doesn't carry it. Or tempeh, either, which really saddens me, cause I love that stuff.
edited b/c I wanted to clarify: In my old town the HFS did have seitan. That's why I figured you should try there if you hadn't already. Stupid new town's HFS doesn't carry it.
my friend's mom makes seitan. She uses high gluten flour stuff that she stocks up on whenever they go to Japan. I think you need to use high gluten flour to get it to work.....maybe. Anyways, that's all I know
It's very time intensive if you make it from scratch with whole wheat and white flour, but it is really not bad if you start with a box of gluten. Arrowhead Mills sells it in a blue box called "Vital Wheat Gluten" that is usually stocked in the store near the flours and other baking stuff. I think there is another product somewhere called "Seitan Quick Mix." There is a recipe for making seitan on the back of the box, there are recipes for making it in pretty much most veg cookbooks these days, there are a couple of recipes on this site and there is also a recipe on the ppk site. It really truly is not that hard and usually tastes better than the stuff you can buy.
I started making it after Lightlife discontinued my favorite seitan. It is available in Whole Foods and natural foods stores in the refrigerated section, usually near the tofu. I know white wave and a bunch of other companies make it.
Hi,
I am by no means a chef! I do however make my own seiten. SO....If I can make it ANYONE here can. I use the recipe from Farm Sanctuary's: Vegan Vittles recipe book.
Here it is (and trust me it's very easy):
Get some Vital Wheat Gluten (I buy a 6 1/2 oz. box). Almost any supermarket will have it in the section with all the flours, baking goods, etc. Even Wally World :D ( I mean Walmart) sells it for 99 cents in their baking section!
In a mixing bowl mix the wheat gluten with some spices (garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, etc....depending upon the flavor you are going for).
use 1 cup water OR 1/2 cup water-1/2 cup vege broth (1/2 cup water-1/2 cup tomato juice gives it a beefier flavor)
3 table spoons soy sauce, 1 tablespoon olive oil
Mix it all up until it's very spongy like. Knead it for about a minute or two until it's mixed up well.
i never pour all the liquid ingredients in at first....i put about 95% of the broth in then add...sometimes i need more...sometimes less)
Broth:
1/2 cup soy sauce with 10 cups of water or vege broth (sometimes i use fake chicken broth if I'm making fake chicken cutlets)
I also add fresh garlic & veges to the broth...bring it to a slow boil
Take your gluten and beat the hell out of it.....er I mean try to shape it into a loaf or patties etc.
Put it in the pot and boil slowly for an hour (make sure the water never gets rapidly boiling or the texture will be too hard)
That's it...you can bake it, fry it, just eat it like that.
Like I said, if I can make seiten ANYONE here can. Good luck ;)!
-dave
PS: I recommend the cook book Vegan Vittles from Farm Sanctuary, They sent it to me when I "adopted" (meaning sponsored) a pig.....I have his picture on my desk at home!
goto: www.farmsanctuary.org to order it (and join if you haven't yet)!
I make my own, usually. You can also buy it in Asian groceries as "mock duck" or "mock abalone"-- do read the can for ingredients, but it works fine and is tasty.
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