And so it was that one day a few weeks ago I decided it was time to try making seitan, the legendary wheat meat. The first thing I did was head to the grocery store for some vital wheat gluten (wheat flour purified so only the protein/gluten remains). Supposedly, seitan was invented by vegetarian Buddhists in China thousands of years ago. So vital wheat gluten has to be a staple on every grocery store's shelves, right? I went to at least three different places, and no one knew what I was talking about. I looked up the translation for vital wheat gluten on every site I could find, and still got nothing that anyone recognized. Then I got a tip from another expat that I should try the vegetarian restaurant in one of the Buddhist monasteries. I had been there once before, and at the front of the store there was a vegetarian-oriented grocery section that I'd forgotten about. I biked there for dinner one night, and indeed, they were selling seitan and other fake meats in vacuum-sealed plastic bags and in a freezer. But these were already made. What about wheat gluten flour? I asked. Blank stares. Dejected, I sat down in a comfy chair to order my delicious vegan dinner.
Fake fish with mushrooms and spicy peppers, Sichuan style.
I was about ready to give up when I remembered that there was an alternative. When I looked up seitan recipes before, they sometimes mentioned an alternative recipe that involved more work to make the seitan from regular wheat flour. I had always ignored that part, but now I returned to it. Surprisingly, the recipe was easy and the first batch turned out reasonably well. But although wheat flour is not impossible to find like vital wheat gluten, it is also not a staple item in Chinese grocery stores, which meant I had to buy it from the much more expensive imported goods shop. Luckily, the second time, I tried the same recipe on white flour, and it worked!
An advantage of making seitan from regular flour is that it's cheap. One challenge with making seitan this way, however, is adding flavor. Using vital wheat gluten, you just mix soy sauce, garlic, nutritional yeast, or whatever else into the dough, and the seitan is automatically delicious. Making it from normal flour, however, requires washing the dough until all the starch comes out, which leaves a ball of raw gluten. It's hard to integrate new things into this ball, so the flavor has to come from cooking. This recipe is my first attempt to address that.
Simple DIY Seitan Soup - No Oil!
1. Make Seitan from regular or wheat flour.
2. Chop copious amounts of garlic and ginger, in a 2:1 ratio.
3. Boil some water--not too much.
4. Add the garlic and ginger, an onion, a tomato, a lot of soy sauce, and the seitan.
5. Simmer for at least an hour.
For all of the amounts, use your best judgment! When I made this I wasn't sure if it was going to end up being soup, or just flavoring stock for the seitan. I didn't chop the onion and tomato, but just cut them in half. As a result the broth stayed clear, and the onion and tomato pieces were more substantial.
While I was washing the seitan, I saved a couple bowls of the starchy water, which was so cloudy I would have thought it was milk. And I used it for another recipe:
Extremely Simple Vegan Cream of Mushroom Soup
0. Make seitan from flour and save some of the milky starch water.
1. Dice a lot of garlic and onions, and a lot a lot of mushrooms.
2. Sauté the garlic and onions in a pot with some vegetable oil for a minute or two.
3. Add the mushrooms, turn down the heat, and cover. Wait until the mushrooms cook down and the contents of the pot are substantially liquid.
4. Add the starch water and salt to taste. Cook for another couple minutes while the starch thickens.
Lately I've been pining for the fare at the Wayward Cafe, so I made a tofu scramble for lunch today.
Tofu Scramble v.1
(as usual, amounts are just approximate)
- one block of tofu, chopped into 32 cubes
- two tomatoes, chopped
- four large cloves of garlic, diced
- 2 teaspoons Herbes de Provence
- 2 teaspoons turmeric
- 1 teaspoon hot pepper
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- toast
1. Sauté the garlic in the vegetable oil for only about 30 seconds.
2. Add the tofu, hot pepper, and turmeric, stirring quickly at first so it doesn't stick.
3. Stop stirring and turn down the heat. Cook for several minutes, or until some of the moisture from the tofu has evaporated.
4. Add the soy sauce and stir again. The tofu cubes should start to break into chunks of various sizes, so that it looks slightly like scrambled eggs. Cook for another minute or so.
5. Add the tomatoes and Herbes de Provence, stir regularly and cook for another few minutes.
6. Eat with toast, or, if you're in Chengdu, put on top of one of those naan/pizza dough things from the Uighur restaurant down the street.
