Steamed seitan

January 4, 2009 at 3:42 pm (B_minus (2.5 stars), Seitan, Website / blog)

My friend Katrina, a kind hearted soul, sent me a care package containing Trader Joe’s thai lime and chili cashews, and a package of vital wheat gluten.  I searched around for a while before deciding how to use the much-pined-after flour, and ended up choosing a recipe for steamed seitan from Kittee’s blog Cake Maker to the Stars, a recipe based on a steaming technique developed by Julie Hasson.  The recipe calls for 3 cups of gluten, but I had just under 2 cups, so I cut the recipe by one third, even though Kittee explicitly says not to.  Also, I added in a spoonful of peanut butter because I was trying to finish off a jar and peanut butter makes everything better. Kittee says the recipe should yield a 3 pound loaf, but I only ended up with 1 pound 12 ounces of seitan, slightly less than the 2 pounds I was expecting.  I didn’t have any creole seasoning, so I read recipes for creole seasoning and created my own blend:

• 1 tsp. paprika
• 1/2 tsp. onion powder
• 1/2 tsp. garlic powder
• 1/4 tsp. white pepper
• 1/4 tsp. black pepper
• 1/4 tsp. cayenne (more if you want the seitan to be spicy)
• 1/4 tsp. oregano
• 1/4 tsp. thyme
• 1/4 tsp. basil

The spice blend makes just over the 1 Tbs. of creole seasoning that the recipe calls for.

The recipe was a bit more work than I expected, because caramelizing the onions took forever, and I only have a mini food processor so I had to process the onions in batches.  On the other hand, it did make a lot of seitan, and Kittee says it can be frozen.  The other difficulty I had with this recipe is that I used a folding steamer basket in my largest pot, but the basket’s legs are only about 1 inch tall, so I couldn’t add that much water without boiling the seitan.  I added water after 20 minutes but still ended up running out of water towards the end and burning my pan before I noticed that all the water was gone.  Next time I’ll make sure there’s a good 3 inches of water in my pan at the beginning, even if I have to construct a make-shift steamer.

The flavor of this seitan was okay, but a bit too strong for me.   I would prefer a more neutral seitan that could be used in many different types of dishes.   The texture was better than the flavor.  It wasn’t anything like boiled seitan–it was not spongy at all but denser and fattier tasting.  The texture actually reminded me a lot of the White Mountain Foods “wheat roast” we used to buy in Austin when I was a kid, which was made with only gluten, peanut butter, and nutritional yeast, but had a perfect texture and rich, nutty flavor.   I tried my seitan by itself, and it was okay but not exciting.  I also tried it on a sandwich, but I didn’t care for the flavoring that much.

Derek liked this seitan more than me.  He was so inspired that he even invented the “Seitanosaurus rex,” a dinosaur that resembles the velociraptor in Jurassic Park, but only eats (as Derek calls it) wheat meat.  Every morning he would transform himself into the Seitanosaurus rex, and rove excitedly around the kitchen searching for “wheat meat”.  Once he found it he would cut himself 4 slices (about 4 ounces) of seitan and sit down to a plate of “wheat meat and ketchup.”  I thought it looked pretty gross, but Derek obviously liked it, as he singlehandedly finished almost the entire pound and a half of seitan.  I asked Derek if the seitan tasted like meat, or tasted like creole anything, and he said no, not at all.  Then he ate another slice of seitan.

Rating: B-

Derek: A-

July 27, 2009, 2nd try:

This time I got my hands on enough gluten flour to make the full recipe.  I still made my own creole seasoning, but I didn’t add any peanut butter.  The log was huge, and didn’t really fit into the steaming pot I was planning on cooking it in, but I kind of folded it in to make it fit.  It grew as it steamed, however, and by the end had pushed the lid of the pot off.  Nonetheless, the texture seemed fine and the seitan seemed well cooked.  The texture is actually quite similar to the White Mountain wheat roast, and the flavor isn’t that different either.  It’s a little less fatty tasting, and it doesn’t have the darker crust since it’s steamed not baked, but it has that same string-cheese like texture without being spongy like seitan often is.  Derek said it wasn’t quite as good as the last time, because the flavor is more mild, but still he likes it a lot.

May 2010, 3rd try:

I made the full recipe and added a little peanut butter for flavoring.  This time I forgot to mix the onion/tomato/seasoning mixture with the water before mixing in the gluten flour.  I had the seasoning mixture in the bottom of a big bowl, I poured the dry ingredients on top, then poured on the water.  I totally forgot that as soon as you add the water the gluten flour goes from flour to long, tight strands of gluten.  It’s very difficult to work the seasoning into the gluten mass.  I tried kneading it together and got the seasoning paste distributed somewhat, but there were still lots of spots without any seasoning.  I shaped the dough into a fatter, squatter shape so it would fit in my steaming basket, and I steamed it for the full time.  The seitan around the edges was a little hard and dry.  Perhaps I should have steamed it for a slightly shorter time?  The result of my fiasco was actually pretty interesting.  The seitan was “marbled”.  The places where the seasoning paste were worked in were dark and a little fatty, and the places that hadn’t gotten any seasoning paste were paler and less fatty.  It gave the seitan a bit of a meaty look too it.  Derek said “Ah, you made me a pot roast!”  I don’t know about the meatiness, but I quite enjoyed it.  The flavors are more mild than the first time I made it, and more to my taste.

Rating: B