SEITAN. in the FACE
Jan. 29th, 2012 06:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
raxSo I am done with all of my homework for the week as well as optional reading and it is only Sunday. I thought about doing next week's homework but for a variety of annoying reasons it's not clear what that _is_ and so instead I am posting my seitan recipe. WITH PICTURES. I took most of the pictures in Indiana so you will be getting pictures from multiple kitchens. How cool is that? I argue: Pretty cool.
Okay so this recipe is based on the Seitan O' Greatness recipe and various versions that flew around the vegan internet in the mid to late oughts. If you can eat nightshades you might even prefer one of those --- they use chili powder and tomato paste and the consistency is a little different, and they work quite well. However, I can't eat those things, so this recipe doesn't include them. Also, while you probably already know this, be warned: While this can be tweaked to fit most sets of allergies or dietary restrictions, the main ingredient is gluten. If you can't eat gluten, DON'T EAT THIS. If you are a little gluten-sensitive but you can manage soy sauce on things just fine or whatever, DON'T EAT THIS. It is basically pure gluten. Uh, sorry. :)
First: Preheat your oven to 325F.
Then: get a giant bowl and then a merely large bowl.
Then: Tear off X large sheets of aluminum foil, where X is the number you are multiplying this recipe by to make that number of batches. I usually set X=3 but 1 is not crazy for a first time and if I am having guests at the house I will sometimes do X=4.
Then: Mix your dry ingredients in the giant bowl:
1.5X cups wheat gluten
.25X cups nutritional yeast
cinnamon (lots)
cumin (lots)
black pepper (lots)
garlic powder (some)
coriander (a little, unless you hate cilantro, in which case none)
powdered ginger (a little)
You can adjust your spice mixture depending on what flavor you are going for in the seitan; this is my favorite.
Now, mix your wet ingredients in the merely large bowl:
1X cups water
olive oil (like 2tbsp ish?)
balsamic (a little less)
soy sauce (about as much as the balsamic)
black vinegar (even less)
optional: a touch of maple or agave for sweetness
The default recipe calls for basically just tomato paste, water, and soy sauce, but the acidic and the sweet have to come from somewhere, especially the acidic. You can also tweak this --- the maple is awesome if you want breakfast sausagey sort of things going on, or in some curries, but is less generally applicable. Other weird things you can put in for specific situations include cloves (such a strange flavor but works well in some curries) and anise. ...okay I haven't actually made anise work yet, but dangit I want to, anise is awesome. And it should theoretically work in Italian stuff right? right? Someone find me a recipe that needs an anisey sausage vegan substitute...
ANYWAY.
You should have something like this:
(Laurel if you are reading this, yes, that's your mixing bowl. Apparently it always loved me more. Also these pictures are so old that that is my old laptop. I meant to post this a while ago, I swear.) Okay! So now you need to mix the wet and dry ingredients. Add, like, 2/3 of the liquid and mix until you have a bunch of blobby stretchy doughy stuff and then some powder. Add liquid slowly until you don't have powder anymore but don't have excess liquid either. You will use almost all of your liquid, but not all of it! (yes I hate exact measurements okay) Then take your blobby doughy thing and make it cylindricalish on top of aluminum foil, and roll it up. Here's how it should look rolled up:
SO APPETIZING, I KNOW. You do want that much extra foil; the foil keeps it tight and stops it from bubbling over. Which can happen! If you rip the foil, rewrap the seitan. Now... shove all those bundles in the oven for 80-90 minutes. (You can also make them much smaller and make more of them and bake for 45-60 minutes if you want, like, individual vegan sausages like the delicious Field Roast things I sadly cannot eat at all because of my allergies.) When they come out... seitan! Here you can see that I left a rip in the foil to show you what it would look like:
...My old kitchen had a really nice floor. Doesn't that look like real wood? It is even textured like wood! But it is not. It's some sort of wacky vinyl thing. The seitan doesn't look like real meat, but it is MORE DELICIOUS. I promise. (This promise is not based on my having eaten meat at all in like, what, eight years?) Here are some suggested ways to use the seitan:
Warning: If you set your oven too high, the seitan can come out like this:
This is less of a disaster than it seems, though; it's all still edible, and while somewhat harder to work with, because it has more space it will slurp up sauce like nobody's business!! If I could still eat marinara sauce, I would make it this way on purpose to put in marinara sometimes.
I hope you enjoy your seitan!
Okay so this recipe is based on the Seitan O' Greatness recipe and various versions that flew around the vegan internet in the mid to late oughts. If you can eat nightshades you might even prefer one of those --- they use chili powder and tomato paste and the consistency is a little different, and they work quite well. However, I can't eat those things, so this recipe doesn't include them. Also, while you probably already know this, be warned: While this can be tweaked to fit most sets of allergies or dietary restrictions, the main ingredient is gluten. If you can't eat gluten, DON'T EAT THIS. If you are a little gluten-sensitive but you can manage soy sauce on things just fine or whatever, DON'T EAT THIS. It is basically pure gluten. Uh, sorry. :)
First: Preheat your oven to 325F.
Then: get a giant bowl and then a merely large bowl.
Then: Tear off X large sheets of aluminum foil, where X is the number you are multiplying this recipe by to make that number of batches. I usually set X=3 but 1 is not crazy for a first time and if I am having guests at the house I will sometimes do X=4.
Then: Mix your dry ingredients in the giant bowl:
1.5X cups wheat gluten
.25X cups nutritional yeast
cinnamon (lots)
cumin (lots)
black pepper (lots)
garlic powder (some)
coriander (a little, unless you hate cilantro, in which case none)
powdered ginger (a little)
You can adjust your spice mixture depending on what flavor you are going for in the seitan; this is my favorite.
Now, mix your wet ingredients in the merely large bowl:
1X cups water
olive oil (like 2tbsp ish?)
balsamic (a little less)
soy sauce (about as much as the balsamic)
black vinegar (even less)
optional: a touch of maple or agave for sweetness
The default recipe calls for basically just tomato paste, water, and soy sauce, but the acidic and the sweet have to come from somewhere, especially the acidic. You can also tweak this --- the maple is awesome if you want breakfast sausagey sort of things going on, or in some curries, but is less generally applicable. Other weird things you can put in for specific situations include cloves (such a strange flavor but works well in some curries) and anise. ...okay I haven't actually made anise work yet, but dangit I want to, anise is awesome. And it should theoretically work in Italian stuff right? right? Someone find me a recipe that needs an anisey sausage vegan substitute...
ANYWAY.
You should have something like this:
(Laurel if you are reading this, yes, that's your mixing bowl. Apparently it always loved me more. Also these pictures are so old that that is my old laptop. I meant to post this a while ago, I swear.) Okay! So now you need to mix the wet and dry ingredients. Add, like, 2/3 of the liquid and mix until you have a bunch of blobby stretchy doughy stuff and then some powder. Add liquid slowly until you don't have powder anymore but don't have excess liquid either. You will use almost all of your liquid, but not all of it! (yes I hate exact measurements okay) Then take your blobby doughy thing and make it cylindricalish on top of aluminum foil, and roll it up. Here's how it should look rolled up:
SO APPETIZING, I KNOW. You do want that much extra foil; the foil keeps it tight and stops it from bubbling over. Which can happen! If you rip the foil, rewrap the seitan. Now... shove all those bundles in the oven for 80-90 minutes. (You can also make them much smaller and make more of them and bake for 45-60 minutes if you want, like, individual vegan sausages like the delicious Field Roast things I sadly cannot eat at all because of my allergies.) When they come out... seitan! Here you can see that I left a rip in the foil to show you what it would look like:
...My old kitchen had a really nice floor. Doesn't that look like real wood? It is even textured like wood! But it is not. It's some sort of wacky vinyl thing. The seitan doesn't look like real meat, but it is MORE DELICIOUS. I promise. (This promise is not based on my having eaten meat at all in like, what, eight years?) Here are some suggested ways to use the seitan:
- in place of tofu or tempeh in dishes like fried rice
- in pasta, particularly with sauce
- slice thinnish circles, fry them lightly in a mixture of olive oil, basil, and oregano, and put them onto pizza
- slice thinnish circles, bread and deep-fry them (this is amazing)
- mince into strips, marinade, put on sandwiches
- grind into bits, use in dumpling filler
- add chunks to curry
- simmer in fruit sauce with broccoli
Warning: If you set your oven too high, the seitan can come out like this:
This is less of a disaster than it seems, though; it's all still edible, and while somewhat harder to work with, because it has more space it will slurp up sauce like nobody's business!! If I could still eat marinara sauce, I would make it this way on purpose to put in marinara sometimes.
I hope you enjoy your seitan!
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(no subject)
Date: 2012-01-30 12:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-01-31 02:25 am (UTC)We've been using the recipe from http://www.theppk.com/2012/01/vegan_sausage/, but I'm intrigued about the idea of adding some vinegar or maple syrup to it.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-01-30 01:45 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-01-30 01:50 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-01-30 07:16 pm (UTC)I... can't eat anything from the store except the totally bland ones, and I don't much care for those, so it's always making my own for me if I want it spiced at all. Otherwise I would do that too, although this recipe really is very easy. I do it on conference calls and things.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-01-30 02:05 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-01-30 03:06 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-01-30 03:43 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-01-30 07:16 pm (UTC)also I bet you are not on AIM ever anymore because of day job, but we should talk sometime!
(no subject)
Date: 2012-01-30 04:25 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-01-30 06:02 pm (UTC)The second batch I made was Italian-style and had whole fennel seeds, which are kind of anisey; you could probably just add whole or partially crushed anise seeds to a batch with some Italian herbs and have it turn out well.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-01-30 07:17 pm (UTC)And hmmmmmmmm fennel seeds hmmmmmmmm. Will have to try!
(no subject)
Date: 2012-01-30 07:29 pm (UTC)I tend to cook my beans so they have a good bit of structure to them, but next time I make some specifically for this recipe I'll let them get softer. This last batch has some largish bean pieces in it, which isn't terrible, but I'd rather not have them in the future I think.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-01-30 07:08 pm (UTC)#confused
but also this sounds delightful/delicious and i should try it.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-01-30 07:14 pm (UTC)