Seitan

[cdh]

Am not a veg of any variety, but have been to buddhist restaurants that specialize in mock meat dishes made of seitan, and have been quite pleased. Know nothing about making the stuff, but would gladly eat it in a moo shu or a kung pao, or any other dish with lots of supporting actors surrounding the meaty-textured star. Have never tried it straight, but then again have never tried "krab" straight either, and don't mind it in California rolls either. Seitan does not exhibit any of the traits of spectacularly superior meat, but does not suffer from any of the insufficiencies of industrial grade meat either.

[phaelon56]

I can attest to the fact that the pepperoni variety tastes nothing like the real thing although there is a slight visual resemblance if you squint and keep the lights turned down low.

[QuinaQuen]

I've had imitation squid made out of this particular product. It didn't taste like squid, but it did reinforce every negative stereotype of this particular marginal protein.

No bueno.

[Pickles]

I personally wouldn't allow my first impression of seitan to take the form of a substitute for...squid. I see this more as a beef substitute. I dont think I would even bother judgeing it, were it to end up on my plate as "Linguini with "Clam" sauce, or even "Fish Sticks." I'll try a meaty dish with it first.

[Pan]

I think seitan is good as...seitan! As a squid substitute, I'm sure it would suck.

[alacarte]

At a crunchy-granola camp I once attended, they used to serve seitan burgers. Not bad. The vegetarians used to eat them every chance they got, grilled and served like the carnivore burgs.

[Katherine]

Seitan fakesteak for your edification.

First I made a batch of brown dough, colored with cocoa, red wine, and beet liquid, and flavored with worcestershire and black pepper. I divided this into 8 blobs. Then I made a smaller batch colored quite red with wine and beet liquid. This I divided into 4 blobs. Finally, I made a batch of uncolored dough.

I stretched and flattened each of the eight brown blobs into a cutlet, and sandwiched a flattened red blob between, using a dusting of gluten flour as an adhesive. I trimmed the steaks to even up the edges.

I cut the uncolored seitan into strips, which I overlapped and wrapped around the outside of the steaks.

Here you can see one sauteeing in EVOO.

After the "steak" was brown on both sides, I briefly removed it from the pan and added two cloves of crushed garlic and lots of freshly ground black pepper. After a minute, I put the steak back, added some water and salt, and covered it. For an hour I continued adding water as it was absorbed, then finally, I cooked the liquid down and poured it over the plated "steak".

Here it is sliced. The red layer sort of got lost in the middle.

Mmm...garlic in oil. As filling as a real steak, too.

[Mudpuppie]

Katherine, that looks great.

A couple questions:

The recipe I have calls for kneading. Did you just mix and shape, no kneading? Also, after kneading, my recipe simmers the cutlets in broth (mostly soy and onions). You went straight to the saute, right, and then basically braised them afterwards? How much water did you add to the pan? Did it cover the steak?

As for proportions, did you add just enough water to make a sticky, glutinous dough, or was there a specific ratio?

Thanks a lot. This looks really good.

[Toasted]

Very yummy looking and very creative Katherine. BTW, you can buy vegetarian

worcestershire sauce in most health food stores.

[Pickles]

I am getting quite the edumacation here! See...I thought the stuff was dark colored to begin with. Now I see...thanks for posting the steak pics. That was clever--you should be a food stylist! Sliced up it looks like the real deal.

[Katherine]

A couple questions:

As for proportions, did you add just enough water to make a sticky, glutinous dough, or was there a specific ratio?

The recipe I have calls for kneading. Did you just mix and shape, no kneading? Also, after kneading, my recipe simmers the cutlets in broth (mostly soy and onions). You went straight to the saute, right, and then basically braised them afterwards? How much water did you add to the pan? Did it cover the steak?

I find it easier to work with the other way around: I put the water in my KitchenAid stand mixer bowl, and add the dry ingredients. If it's still weeping, I can add more gluten flour. It's harder to incorporate more liquid into a lump of hard rubber. I start with 1 cup of water, and add 1¼ cups of gluten flour for very soft seitan, to 1½ cups for seitan which is firmer than I like.

Doing it this way, the dough is never sticky. It goes from soupy, to mushy, to soft wet spongy, to soft rubbery without ever getting sticky, as bread dough gets. YMMV

While I use a mixer to mix the ingredients, the consistency is generally moist, rather than dough which needs kneading. In at least one reference I read that your finished product will be tenderer if you don't knead, but I'm nowhere near testing that supposition.

Actually, I needed to let it rest in order to make the handling easier. The more you work it, the more strong-willed it will be.

The braising liquid you talk about, soy and onions, is what I'm trying to get away from. It's what most people think of when they think of seitan, and I'm trying to break out of the box, or at least make the box lots bigger.

I did sauté them and braise them immediately. I may try boiling first, also deep-frying, but my feeling was that I just wanted to set the surface. At no time did I have more than ¼" of water in the pan. I just kept an eye on it, flipping the "steak" and adding more water as needed.

[Toasted]

I found the book with the interesting seitan recipes. It's called "366 Healthful ways to Cook Tofu and other meat alternatives" by Robin Robertson. Horrible title for a really good book. Some of the more interesting recipes include "Seitan Marsala" "Quinoa-Seitan Pilaf", and "Ground Seitan Patties with Mustard- Wine Sauce". This book also has some great recipes for tofu and tempeh.

[Pickles]

Wooot! I got me some!! Seitan..that is. The brand is "White Wave." I can't say when I will be taking it for the test drive, but it's in the fridge!

[Pickles]

Test drive completed. I cooked the seitan in my crockpot with some tomatoes and garlic for a couple hours. It's not horrible, but I certainly wouldn't go out of my way for it again. Reminds me of ground veal, sorta. I am sure there are millions of ways to experiment with it and it comes out well in stir fries. The brand I bought has strips just for the purpose, as well as "chicken style meat of wheat" (http://www.whitewave.com/index.php?id=93) but I don't think I will be trying it for myself. If I have a vegan or strict veg client, I wouldn't hesitate to cook it for them if they like it and are used to it. I think the problem I have is once again, the texture of the stuff. Anyway, it was an experiment I enjoyed, and I learned quite a lot. Thanks to all who added comments here.

[redfox]

Successful adventures in homemade gluten today!

Here's what I did: I mixed together a quarter cup of water, a dash of soy sauce, a drizzle of sesame oil, a splash of rice wine, a little salt, and a little cocoa for color. Then I added a quarter cup of gluten, and mixed quickly with a fork. I kneaded it quite lightly and let it rest a few minutes. Then I dumped it out on the counter and dimpled it all over with my fingertips until it was about half an inch thick.

Then, into the frying pan it went. (That's the stage in the picture.) After both sides were browned, I added some water, a clove of garlic, another splash of rice wine, and covered it up for about half an hour or forty minutes of braising. I checked on the water level every ten minutes or so, topping it up when necessary. It absorbed quite a bit of liquid at first, and then settled down. At the end of the braising, I took off the lid and cooked down the liquid to a nice pan sauce. I sliced this into thin little strips and it was very much in the fatty pork genre of substance. We had it in an okonomiyaki, and it was lovely, though the strips I pinched and ate on their own were tastier yet, unobscured by all the other stuff. I think this preparation would really shine in a dish like mu shu.

Here's what it looked like near the end of the braising. You can see that it has softened and expanded somewhat.

And here are the strips, the final product:

(edited to add the photos from later in the process)

Edited February 25, 2004 by redfox (log)