Search This Blog

Friday, February 1, 2008

I made home- made seitan

I was finally able to find nutritional yeast at a health store so now I had all my ingredients for the home made seitan recipe I had. So, I went to work and made seitan!! I did not find it too time consuming. The actual mixing of the dough and broth are brief. It just takes time to cook but then you have a good amount of seitan to enjoy... I actually froze most of it because I only needed a bit for tonight’s meal. I looked online to see how to freeze it and most sites I found stated to freeze it in the broth and one site said you can freeze it for about three months. That was the messy part because I used plastic baggies and was filling them with some broth... But now, I have plenty of seitan to try with established recipes and my own. From what I have read you can also store it in the fridge in a tight closed container in the broth for about a week. I am sorry I can not share the recipe that I used to make the seitan. I am not sure if it is a personal recipe from the person who gave it to me. But, when I looked online at various sites it appears that the method is pretty much the same as well as the basic ingredients.. Broths vary according to ones taste and the dough may have a different ingredient or two... But the technique is the same. Here is a link for a website by Nava Atlas for seitan on how to make it and some recipes... This will give you an idea. If you google home made seitan you will find some good resources...
http://vegkitchen.com/recipes/seitan.htm.
Here is a site I found that shows you pictures of the seitan making process:
http://urbanvegan.blogspot.com/2006/08/donuts-coffee-seitan.html

In one of my previous posts I discussed if Vital wheat gluten was the same as vital wheat gluten flour and it appeared it was. The recipe I had called for vital wheat gluten flour and I bought vital wheat gluten. Well, I used the latter and it worked fine.. So now I know I can use either or... The dough did have that elastic type bounce the recipes say it will have... And when cooked will be sort of tough but spongy. It did indeed have a spongy look to it.. I have previously had store bought seitan which was fine... The difference I found is that the store bought is a bit more tougher then the homemade. This appears to be common from what I have read. The store bought one may already be cut thinner, so after you cook it at home you cut it to whatever size you need. For example , for cutlets you take the chunk and cut it into cutlet size pieces or small chunks if you are using it for a stir fry.. I am glad that I finally made the seitan because I now have a good amount for whenever I need. Maybe one day you may give it a try as well. It was a rainy day today so it was a perfect kitchen day. I turned on a nice CD and then the seitan adventure began...


Thank you for coming to my blog. I hope to see you again soon.

Happy Vegan cooking.

Gnewvegan

2 comments:

urban vegan said...

Praise seitan! Congrats on your success.

Gnewvegan said...

Thank you... I now have plenty to use for further exploration of seitan recipes..