Homemade Seitan (aka wheat meat)

As omnivores and chefs, playing with our food comes naturally to us. We've been experimenting a lot in the kitchen with meat alternatives as a way to decrease our meat consumption and increase our plant intake. Not to mention that meat products tend to be more expensive, have short shelf lives and tend to be high in fat. While tofu and tempeh are fun, we've been on the hunt for something that can stand in for sliced or shaved meat. Ta-da! We bring you SEITAN! I can't believe it's not meat! This stuff is amazing!! Our first try at making seitan ended up a bit ... chewy. Then we found a good recipe from Native Foods and it worked perfectly. 

What is seitan!? It's a meat substitute that can be sliced, shaved, cubed, sliced into steaks, marinated, baked, stir-fried, broiled and more! It's made from wheat flour, all purpose flour, vital wheat gluten and a richly flavored broth. Since I try to remove as much processed foods from our diet, deli meat is one of the things that is reserved as a special treat. It's easy to assume that the ham, chicken, and turkey you buy at the local deli is just that - ham, chicken and turkey, right!? It's just sliced, right?! WRONG. Even those packages of deli meat labelled "All Natural" are still heavily processed. The average deli meat is packed full of fat, filler, grain, water, chemicals and then pressed into the over-sized turkey breast shape you see in your deli counter. Hardly a healthy source of protein!!

So, here we are with a really unique wheat based meat that is supremely versatile, high in protein (due to the vital wheat gluten), extremely cheap to make, and lasts up to 3 weeks in the fridge or indefinitely in the freezer with NO funky ingredients, preservatives or chemicals. In your face Boar's Head!!! I personally recommend a second cooking (stir-fry, bake, broil, pan-crisp) before eating as it's pretty plain straight out of the pot. Next batch we will incorporate some spices into the dough to pump up the flavor a bit as well!

We used our meat slicer to shave the loaf into nice even slices for a week's worth of dinners and lunches! We are getting about 12 servings out of this loaf and each serving gives you about 195 calories, 8g protein and 4g fiber with no fat which means you've got plenty of room for healthy fats (avocado anyone?!).

Recipe from the highly recommended Native Foods Restaurant Cookbook

Makes 12 servings (We turn this into 3 meals for four!)

INGREDIENTS:

• 4 cups all purpose flour
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 cup vital wheat gluten
• 2-2.5 cups water
• 1/2 tsp ea spices - cracked pepper, salt, oregano, garlic powder

Setian Broth:

• 10 cups water
• 2 cups soy sauce (or 1/2 cup soy sauce and 1-2 vegan bouillon cubes)
• 8 peeled cloves garlic
• 4 bay leaves
• 3 2" slices fresh ginger

• 1 12"x12" square cheesecloth and some kitchen twine 

DIRECTIONS:

1. Bring broth ingredients to a boil and keep covered, simmering while you do everything else.
2. In large bowl, whisk flours and gluten to combine. Form a well in the middle and slowly add water in the center of the well, whisking to combine flours and water. Continue adding water until you have to switch to kneading.
3. Knead, adding more water or flour as necessary. It will be a sticky dough.
4. Turn it out onto a floured counter and continue to knead until the dough (about 70 times) until you have a smooth ball. Place the dough in a bowl and allow to rise for 20 minutes.
5. Place the bowl with the dough in it in the sink and gently rinse the dough ball with water, kneading gently to "rinse" the milky starch away. It will take awhile of kneading and rinsing to get the water somewhat clear.
6. Form a rough oval with your dough ball and place it on the cheesecloth. Wrap the dough up in the cheesecloth forming a loaf and tie ends closed and maybe a few loops around the midsection.
7. Place the dough into the simmering broth, bring to a boil, then cover and reduce heat back to a simmer. Cook for 1 1/2 hours.
8. Remove from pot, allow to cool and slice for cooking or refrigerate for keeping!
9. SAVE the broth!! We freeze it in zip lock bags and use it as stock and deglaze for recipes (coming soon)

Per serving (1/12th of loaf)