The finished product...wheat gluten mixed with water, cooked in broth
In the first episode of Top Chef Las Vegas, contestant Jen cooked a seitan dish. I was so excited to see someone competing with seitan, putting it up against expensive cuts of meat and fish.
But the dish got her sent home. The judges said that they didn’t object to her cooking seitan; they just didn’t like her dish.
I love seitan used straight out of the package in stir-frys. But this got me thinking, what would be a good way to use seitan, something that could compete with meat, poultry, and fish in a Top Chef competition?
But first, what is seitan? I know it’s a wheat gluten but if last week you asked me to elaborate, I couldn’t do it. So I turned to Google and got this explanation from Jolinda Jacket, About.com’s Vegetarian Food Guide:
“Seitan can be prepared by hand using either whole wheat flour or vital wheat gluten and is made by rinsing away the starch in the wheat, leaving a high protein gluten behind.”
Today, people are all about knowing where they’re food comes from. I’m one of these people so I decided to learn how seitan is made by making some of my own. But where do you find wheat gluten? My best guess was the flour section at a natural foods store. I headed to Whole Foods to search.
Score! Finding wheat gluten was easier than I thought. Arrowhead Mills makes a brand that is indeed shelved with the flours. I looks just like wheat flour to me, even without the starch:
Wheat gluten, found in the flour section at Whole Foods
The Arrowhead Mills box also provides a basic recipe for seitan (to make 28 ounces of seitan, mix one full box of wheat gluten (10 ounces) with 2 cups of water; for 14 ounces, use 1 1/3 cups of seitan mixed with one cup of water):
1) Add the water to the seitan and stir with a fork. It will come together immediately into a sticky, porous, moist mass, kind of like wet newspaper if it were printed on Post-it notes.
2) Once it comes together, knead for 5 minutes until the dough is thoroughly mixed and elastic. Form into a 2 ½ inch roll and let rest for 5 minutes while you prepare the cooking liquid.
(left to right): Water is added to the seitan, then comes together into a ball immediately; the seitan after kneading for five minutes
3) Heat broth or stock on a medium flame (I used a mixture of stock and water, enough to cover the seitan). Cut the seitan into pieces ½” thick. Place the seitan in the liquid, bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Cover and cook for 1 hour.
After the seitan rests for 5 minutes, cut it into slices.
4) Remove and serve the seitan immediately or leave in the brother to cool. Place in containers and refrigerate.
The result is a heavier, more chewy seitan than the packaged version, but that could be because I didn’t cook it long enough. Still, homemade seitan is an economical
choice, especially during this recession. A box costs about $3.50 and makes at least the equivalent of 2 boxes of pre-packed seitan, which costs between $9 and $10. I”m all for the savings.
But if I were to make seitan again, I would add some more flavor to the wheat gluten mixture. With only broth and/or water, the final product is tasteless on its own. Try this recipe from Epicurious – it includes soy sauce, garlic, sesame oil, and ginger.
