better seitan

Oh, snap! Doesn't our library look like a rocket ship about to take off? I think so, which is why I never spent any time there in case I get launched into space and it's like Rocket Man.



It's been too long, dear blog. My camera died again, but I managed to resuscitate it for a few shots from previous posts... I feel like text-only posts are kind of lame, but maybe they are less lame than watching videos of baby pandas having a physical exam at the zoo. Notice how I said videos plural. Yes.



Anyway, yeah, I made some food in the last month. No kidding, eh? My roommate baked 100 potatoes (literally!) for a BBQ and brought most of them home along with a good half-gallon of sour cream, so there were many hash browns and baked potatoes and borscht! Borscht that I ate for so many meals that I started to feel kind of like a Ukranian peasant... it was grim. Then I went to the bulk food store and bought all kinds of marvelous, dirt cheap grains with the intention of making all my food from the bulk aisles... before I realized that I was already all malrourished from 3 days of borscht consumption and eating nothing but bread was probably not a good call.

Anyway, I did buy vital wheat gluten and let me tell you, that stuff is so cheap. Most importantly, it taught me a way better way to make seitan than the previous seitan recipe on this site, for reals. But still with all the healthy-good-vibration feelings and ease-of-having-something-meaty-on-hand feelings.

Better seitan
Based on the recipe from the Post-Punk Kitchen

2 cups vital wheat gluten
a little less than 1/2 cup soy sauce
1 cup veggie broth (or cold water)
2 cloves minced garlic
1 tbs tomato paste or ketchup

+ the rest of the box/can of veggie broth.

Mix all those that stuff into a dough, then knead it for a few minutes. When you are bored, let it hang out for a sec while you fill a pot with COLD veggie broth + COLD water. If it is mostly water, throw in a little soy sauce. If it's mostly broth, you're all good.

Now plump your blob of fake meat dough (!) into a log shape and cut it into slices... put those in the broth and turn up the heat. After the broth boils, turn the heat down to a simmer and let it get all delicious for about an hour. Take it off the heat and let it cool.

To store: keep it in some of that brothy water in a tupperware in the fridge. I just had some that was fully two weeks old and it was delicious and I'm still here.
To use: take it out of the brothy water and wring it a little bit, then fry in olive oil until browned. Like, you know, meat. Seitan is delicious in sandwiches, tacos, stir-frys, etc. The stroganoff I made was nasty but I blame using a vegan recipe but not having any of the weird vegan stuff (yeast, arrowroot, wtf?) and just basically making some winey mushrooms with sour cream. Where was I? Oh yeah, seitan is mad versatile.