Date: Sat, 13 Sep 1997 05:54:57 -0700
From: richjulia@nations.net (Richard and Julia Padget)
Making Homemade Seitan
Combine 18 cups whole wheat flour
and about 11 cups water in a large
(8 quart) bowl or a round plastic
dishpan. (This makes a lot. This
amount works well for my family of
two adults and one small boy - we
love seitan, and this amount makes
a week's worth for us to eat in a
variety of dishes. You can halve
this recipe or increase it. If you do
change the amount, remember to
adjust the quanity of cooking broth
accordingly.)
Knead the dough, which should be
quite sticky, for 5-10 minutes. The
easiest way to do this is to set the
bowl on a dining table (a counter top
is too high) so you can use your
weight effectively rather than just
using your arm muscles. When flour
and water are mixed, vigorously
punch the dough with one closed fist,
then the other, 300-350 times. Cover
dough with cold water and let sit for at
least 3/4 hour. Knead the dough slowly
and carefully in the water until the water
becomes thick with white starch. Pour
off the creamy liquid. (This milky,
somewhat thick "starch water" from the
first few rinses can be saved - it is
excellent in bread recipes and as a
thickener for stews, sauces, etc.)
Gently cover dough with water and
knead again. Alternate between warm
and cold water rinses, kneading each
time to extract the cream-colored starch.
A large colander will help in draining off
the water from the first several kneadings.
At first the dough will seem to be falling
apart, and the colander will catch all the
little pieces so you don't lose them down
the drain. Sometimes a batch of flour
disintegrates in the washing, instead of
separating into strach, bran, and gluten.
In this case you will have to try again with
a different type of whole wheat flour.
After about six rinses, the dough should
become rubbery gluten. Remaining
specks of bran or starch can be rinsed
away under the tap by pulling the gluten
apart and exposing the inside.
Pull off balls, or form gluten into patties,
and drop them into boiling water. When
they rinse, like dumplings, remove and
drop them into cold water.
Prepare seitan seasoning stock: In a
large pot combine 14 cups cold water,
two 6-inch strips of kombu, 1 1/4 cups
shoyu or tamari, 1/4 cup grated fresh
ginger and, if desired, herbs. For
example, try 1 tablespoon each
rosemary and sweet basil and 2
teaspoons thyme, or use a combination
of bay leaf, garlic, and celery seed.
Drop gluten balls into stock, bring to a
boil, and cook 2-3 hours over medium
heat with lid ajar. (This may seem like a
lot of stock at first, but the gluten absorbs
most of it. Also, the length of cooking time
depends on the size of your pieces of
gluten. I divide the gluten into only four
equal pieces and cook them for 3 hours.
Smaller pieces take less time.) The seitan
is now ready to be used in any of the
following recipes.
Seitan will keep for at least one week
refrigerated in its cooking broth. For
longer storage, add more shoyu or tamari to
the broth.
kwvegan vegan