To Boil or To Bake?

When we were less experimental with our cooking adventures, we still played around with making seitan (although we just called it gluten, which … is what it is). We then discovered the Gluten of Greatness recipe, and kinda went crazy with the whole thing, because we could bake it, instead of boiling it. We experimented around a bit right away, and have continued to make this as a simpler staple than many of the purchased meat substitutes.

Well, the thing is, that baked gluten gets … well, a bit old, after a while. We got to wondering: could we boil it? Funny, how it’s all come full circle. We’re not going to go back to the days of hand-washing flour any time soon (although it does make for some mighty tender gluten – sort of like smooth veal, really). But we’re also not going to be revisiting the baked variety any time soon, because boiled is really so much more tender!

Follow your recipe as if you’re going to bake the stuff, but stop rather than forming into a log. Chop it into chunks, dump it in some boiling broth for about 45 minutes, and you’re there. You now have something which can be sliced into thin strips and used in stir-fry, breaded and baked to be cutlets … whatever you’d do with a meat substitute, really.

It’s not as concentrated of a flavor as some of the baked ones (particularly the one we did with all the garlic in it), but it’s a much preferable texture, at least to us, who grew up with it like this. I was going to say it’s like mama made … except that, more often than not, it was me doing the dough washing.

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