General thoughts on Seitan

[Guest guest]

I've tried more recipes than I can count over the past several years in learning

how to make Seitan. My general take is that it's like making bread, in that it

might take a few tries to master the technique, recognize when the texture is

right, and so on. Boiling, baking, frying... there are a lot of possibilities.

My recent tests involve using a bread machine, but that's somewhat not as

surefire successful for me as is doing it by hand. Sometimes recipes call for

adding a little flour, sometimes nutritional yeast.

 

The broth, though (I usually prefer to simmer the raw gluten), is fun to play

with. Sometimes adding ginger or ground cumin, sometimes just cutting up some

peppers (hot), onions, tomatoes and throwing them in. I usually save water from

steaming vegetables in the 'frig and that gets thrown in. I do save the Seitan

broth, though, to either use again for making Seitan, or in soup, making a gravy

(just thicken it).

 

My current two favorite recipes come from Joanne Stepaniak's " Vegan Vittles "

(the first that really really worked well for me), and " Good Time Eatin' in

Cajun Country " by Donna Simon (yup, vegan). One of my other first recipes was

Pickarski's using kombu under the gluten when baking with bbq sauce (he put out

that Seitan Mix) in " Friendly Foods " or " Eco-Cusine. " Might as well use bulk

gluten flour, though, significantly cheaper with more options in cooking.

 

Although I've a couple of books on just Seitan (and ol' Abbot Burke does many in

" Simply Heavenly " ), I think that the current " master of seitan " is Bryanna Clark

Grogan. I've been watching her recipes evolve from " Almost (Fat Free) " up

through several books to current work. She's been refining them and is planning

to publish an " e-book " on Seitan. Can't wait!

 

Finally, one of my favorite recipes for using seitan is putting thick slices in

a small (2 qt. or less) crockpot, cover with some chopped green peppers and

onions, then smother it all with bbq sauce. Cook on low for several hours...

yawwwsa....

 

Best, Mark (extra points for people changing subject line headers and deleting

unnecessary text from previous post you're responding to)