Seitan or Gluten: The Other ‘Wheat’ Meat

D. came home from work soaked to the skin. We threw his things in the dryer (oh, the bliss of dryer ownership) and got started on a hot meal quickly.

We pulled seitan steaks out of the fridge, dredged them in wet mixture of light salad dressing and spicy mustard then rolled them in a dry mix that included cracker crumbs, oatflour, bread crumbs, savory spices and smoked yeast. We placed them in an oiled pan, spritzed the tops lightly with olive oil, and put them in the oven to broil. About ten minutes in, we flipped them so the tops could brown as well, and served the crispy, chewy, savory mouthfuls with fresh corn on the cob and sliced tomatoes. It made getting caught in a summer cloudburst kind of a treat. Almost.

I don’t know why we even first attempted to make seitan. It might have been the time we were in a Chinese restaurant in San Francisco and had a taro “fish” and chow mein with mock duck, and said, “We could make this, right?” We actually attempted the taro first — which turned out… er, interestingly (it might really help to have an immersible electric fryer for a dish where you need quick frying in very hot oil, otherwise the oiliness is just disgusting), and so we were pretty cautious when it came to trying out the second dish. We’d had sketchy instructions from various sources. “Just take some white flour… and wash it ’til all the starch goes out. Then cut it into pieces and boil it with a really rich salty broth.”

Um, o…kay.

And actually? That’s all it takes — to do it the way we’ll talk about in this post. This is a traditional but much longer route to meat wheatdom. But it works, and its beauty lies in its simplicity, as it requires no fancy anything; nothing but flour and water.

First, we purchased two 1 kilo bags (4.4 lbs.) of cheap, plain unbleached all-purpose flour from the corner store and, dumping it into a large bowl and adding plain cool water, kneaded it into a stiff dough. We poured cold water over that ball of dough, and let it soak, for about an hour.

(Please note: the round sink and bowl shown is indeed our kitchen sink, not a bathroom sink as it might appear!)

Next we proceeded to knead the dough ball, under water, until the water was thoroughly white and starchy, at which point we began the seemingly endless cycle of dumping starchy water and adding fresh water to the bowl, until all the starch had been washed out, and the water ran clear. With this amount of flour, it took about twenty rinses.

Some people save the first bowl of starchy water, because starch is useful for laundry or making glutinous noodles. Those are projects for another post! You can watch a gentleman make glutinous noodles, accompanied by a soothing musical soundtrack, here. But back to our tale —

When the starch is washed away from the protein, the ball takes on a rubbery and sticky feel. At that stage, when we tore our ball apart, it would stick back to itself with no effort at all. This was the indication that we were looking for that it was all protein! We sliced the ball into rough pieces and dropped it, stirring frequently, into a pot of boiling broth.

The ingredients for the broth vary from person to person, but we used about twelve cups of water, a cup of soy sauce, two large onions, chopped, a lot of fresh rosemary, a clove of garlic, a tablespoon of rubbed sage, and about two tablespoons of nutritional yeast. Kept at just a boil (nothing too energetic) for just thirty minutes, the boiling gluten slices will expand tremendously, and then contract, and be done.

If boiled for an additional fifteen to thirty minutes, the seitan will have the consistency of veal — and some people consider that to be overdone, while others prefer this softer texture. At any rate, the seitan will rise to the top of the water when it is ready to eat, so keep an eye on your pot.

The seitan can be deep fried “raw” (that is, prior to broth boiling) and it will puff up into a crunchy, golden-brown morsel. We’re not big on even shallow-frying things, so we dredge and bake. Either way you prepare it and flavor it, the gluten or seitan is tasty and full of protein. Served with a big salad, or sautéed with mushrooms to top noodles, this is a tasty meat alternative, as many cooks have known for years.

“Simple” is gluten in a nutshell. “Easy” — not so much. There are a lot of steps and lots of messy washings going on. Next time we discuss gluten, we’ll be making it a shorter, quicker way that might encourage you to actually attempt it!

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