The third ingredient that I received from Smruti was the “Vital Wheat Gluten,” an ingredient that I have never used before. I know that we use wheat gluten for baking purposes especially bread. Initially, I thought of baking some bread with the gluten flour. But as I started to read about it, I realized its other culinary uses apart from baking purposes. Wheat gluten is an alternative to soybean-based foods such as tofu. The Vegetarian Resource Group, mentions that “According to Barbara and Leonard Jacobs in their excellent book Cooking with Seitan, The Complete Vegetarian “Wheat-Meat” Cookbook, “seitan has been a staple food among vegetarian monks of China”. It also referred to as mock duck meat. After reading all about seitan, I was in a dilemma, whether to bake bread using the wheat gluten or to try the seitan with wheat gluten. But the amount of protein content in this made me try seitan. I rely on dairy products, lentils, and soy-based products for our protein. Now I can include Seitan too. :-) I need to agree that, its an acquired taste. It is more chewy and spongy than tofu. But it opened up a whole new world for me in the vegetarian cooking. Now I can’t wait to try them in Asian-style stir fries, Kung pao (I suggest to try seitan in kung pao to get acquired to the taste easily), noodles and of course in baking. Once again, I would like to thank Smruti for sharing these excellent ingredients.
I noticed that there is no set recipe for seitan. All we need to do is flavor the wheat gluten and prepare a dough using water or veggie broth, knead them (the more you knead, the chewier the seitan is) and chop them into small pieces and simmer them in the vegetable broth. The cooked seitan can then be used in soups, stir-fries, noodles as a meat replacement. What I did was, along with seitan I simmered vegetables along with curry powder and prepared a very simple protein rich soup. As you can see from the preparation pictures how elastic and stretchy the gluten is. It is comparatively hard to knead this but we need to accept the fact that we are working with gluten. ;-) I used one 32 oz can of vegetable broth. Used ¾ cup while preparing the dough and used the remaining for the broth. Without any further ado, here is the recipe. Ingredients: For Seitan:
Vital Wheat Gluten – 1 cup Salt – ½ tsp Curry powder – ½ tsp Vegetable broth – ¾ cup
For the Broth:
Broth – 4.25 cups Peanut Oil – 2 tsps Ginger – 1-inch piece Garlic Clove -1 Baby Carrots – 10 Broccoli florets – 1 cup Cauliflower Florets – 1 cups Soy Sauce – 1 tsp Curry powder – ½ tsp Salt – ¼ tsp Pepper Powder – ½ tsp Prepared seitan
Prep – Work:
Chop the garlic and ginger into small julienne. Cut the cauliflower and broccoli into small florets.
Steps:
In a wide bowl, add the vital wheat gluten, salt, and curry powder and mix well. Now add the ¾ cup of broth in one shot and slowly start mixing it with the flour and prepare a dough. It might be little watery, but as you knead the dough will thicken. Knead for three minutes and let it rest for 15 minutes. (During the resting time, you can start preparing the broth)
Again knead for 3 more minutes and stretch the gluten and chop them into small pieces using a knife.
While the dough is resting, in a wide pan or wok, add the peanut oil and once the oil is hot add the chopped ginger and garlic. Let the garlic brown for a minute and then add the vegetables (Broccoli, Cauliflower and Baby Carrots) and mix well. Let it cook for two minutes and now add the approx 4 cups of vegetable broth. Add the salt, curry powder and soy sauce and let it simmer until the veggies are al dente. At the stage add the chopped wheat gluten to the veggie broth mix and lower the heat. Cover and cook for 7 to 8 minutes on low heat.
After 7 to 8 minutes, the seitan should have enlarged in size. Adjust salt and spice at this stage and let it cook for five more minutes. Total cook time is around 10 to 12 minutes.
That’s it Seitan soup is ready.
Notes:
Peanut oil is preferred for this recipe. But other oil can be used too. Add more or fewer veggies of your choice. Veggies can be altogether skipped, and you can drain the cooked seitan and use it in noodles and stir fries. As I used low sodium store bought vegetable broth and soy sauce, I used minimal salt. But adjust the salt and curry powder as per your preference. Instead of curry powder, you can use garam masala and chilly powder too. The more you knead, chewier the seitan. So knead as per your texture preference and as I mentioned it an acquired taste.
Sending this to the BM 72. Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing this BM
📖 Recipe
