Seitan is a meat substitute made from wheat gluten. I don’t post a lot of recipes here, but I’ve been working on a modified version of this recipe, and I needed a place to put it where I knew I could find it when I wanted it, so I thought I would share it with all of you. This recipe is a bulk recipe, intended for going into the freezer which is well suited for seitan. If you’re new to cooking or eating seitan, you might want to try the original recipe first, then move on to this recipe when you’re ready to make it in bulk.
Besides scaling up the recipe, I’ve substituted vegetable bouillon for the soy sauce and metric-ized it. I’ve also split the simmering into 2 batches, which results in less leftover broth. For this recipe I use vegetable bouillon powder which makes 1L bouillon with 3 tablespoons powder, which is pretty standard at least here. If you use bouillon cubes or powder of another concentration, you will need to adjust the recipe.
Makes 18 servings, about 3 kg; I put each serving into a 2 cup freezer container.
Cooking time is about 2.5 hours.
Dry Ingredients:
6 cups vital wheat gluten flour
1 cup + 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast flakes
4 tablespoons bouillon powder
Wet Ingredients:
4-12 cloves of pressed garlic, depending on your taste and the size of cloves
juice of 3 medium to large sized lemons
4.5 cups of water
Oil:
1/3 cup of olive oil
Simmering Broth:
5L water
1 cup bouillon powder
Mix the wet and dry ingredients in separate bowls. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry, then add the oil. First stir with a fork, then knead with your hands until the dough is stiff and rubbery, about 5 minutes. You will know when it’s been kneaded enough, because it will suddenly become very stiff.
Divide the dough into 18 roughly equal sized portions, about 130-150g each, and knead each one into a flat disk. Let sit for at least 5 minutes. You are going to simmer them in two batches, and the second batch can sit while the first one cooks.
Bring the simmering broth to a boil in a large pot. I use a 20L pot. Place the first 9 pieces in the pot and return to boil over a high flame. Then simmer for 45 minutes at the lowest possible simmer. Too high of a flame will result in a looser texture, that the original recipe compares to brains.
After cooking let sit in the covered pot with the flame off for another 15 minutes.
Before doing the second batch add 1L of water to make up for the lost volume.
Place the cooked seitan disks into freezer containers covered with broth. They can just freeze in the liquid.
Slicing and frying the seitan in a little olive oil before eating gives it a nice flavor.
