Many people are confused about the best way to cook tofu, but it is very simple - compared to how to cook seitan.
Seitan is a nutritious, high-calorie, protein-rich food that some call “wheat meat” or simply “gluten.” This is one of the best 100% vegan meat substitutes. From it you can prepare the most different dishes, similar in taste to beef, pork, or chicken, etc. Seitan “meat” can be made soft – as if baked in a pot, or tough – like a chop. If you've ever tried a vegan "chicken" or "beef" dish at a Chinese restaurant, then you've tried seitan.
In some specialized vegan stores, as well as in large supermarkets, you can find and buy ready-made seitan dishes, but preparing seitan at home is cheaper and much more interesting, and also - with some experience - noticeably tastier.
Some people “extract” seitan from wheat flour: it needs to be washed to remove the starch and leave pure gluten. But, of course, it’s much faster and easier to buy dried seitan (and somehow pouring flour into the water supply is not very ethical).
Cooking seitan from a semi-finished product (raw material - dried seitan) leaves you a lot of room for imagination - the preparation is not at all as “straightforward” as you might think - this is not rice for you! By playing with different flavors using spices, changing the texture of the seitan “dough” (“meat”), you can get a variety of dishes - this requires some skill. With a little experience, you can use seitan to prepare the most delicious “meat” vegan dishes that exist. Shall we get started?
1. Ingredients
Theoretically, you can eat seitan “naked” - by preparing it as is, i.e. simply taking it out of the packaging and cooking it. But who wants to get a plate of unattractive-looking, bland, gray “biomass”? Therefore, other products are often added to seitan, for example, pea or chickpea flour - they make it softer. Softness can be achieved by mixing a little nutritional yeast into the seitan - which, moreover, will enrich the dish with vitamins. Among the liquid products that are worth trying to add to seitan, it is worth highlighting (except water) vegetable broth, olive oil, tamari sauce, soy sauce or liquid amino acids. Solid foods are other flours and spices. By mixing together the crushed seitan, solid and liquid ingredients, we get a “dough” - now we are halfway to the perfect seitan on your plate! It is clear that if you want to cook something like vegan “lamb ribs”, then you need to knead the dough thicker. There are tons of recipes with seitan on the Internet, let’s try them!
2. Spices on the outside, spices on the inside
Like the meat that seitan imitates, it must be seasoned with spices. But seitan even wins in this sense; it is a more convenient product, because spices can be added to it both “outside” and “inside”!
For example, if you want to give your future “meat” a special taste “just like a chop,” try adding a little tomato paste at the “dough” kneading stage.
To get the “umami” taste (as if glutamate was poured in - so delicious, you'll just lick your fingers!), add Worcestershire (Worcestershire) sauce.
If you suddenly miss the taste of a real chop, you should add a little cumin, coriander, oregano and paprika to the seitan - they are traditionally used in cooking steak and will add credibility to your miracle dish.
And if you want seitan “chicken”, “pork” or something more neutral in taste, use ready-made vegan flavorings, sauces or broths. Or - even easier and more affordable - add thyme and sage.
After the seitan dough is ready (already in the process of preparing the dish), of course, you can also add spices to it. How to cook? The easiest way is to simmer in a small amount of oil - it will turn out with a crust. Pieces of seitan can be first fried in flour with spices, and then boiled in soup.
Seitan in small pieces is well seasoned with garlic powder, celery salt, black or cayenne pepper. Rub well into seitan “ribs” and “steaks” 15 minutes before frying. spice mixture: for example, take 2 tablespoons of dry mustard powder, 2 tbsp. garlic powder, 1 tbsp. ground black pepper, 2 tbsp. smoked paprika powder, 2 tbsp. salt, 1 tbsp. chopped dried thyme and 2 tbsp. cayenne pepper powder (makes 1/3 cup of spice mixture, use a little at a time - it will last a long time).
Do not skimp on spices if you are going to amaze your loved ones (and yourself at the same time!) with the illusion of a “meat” dish without any meat.
3. Learn to knead seitan dough
Seitan dough, like any dough, must first be mixed with water and kneaded. The more you knead the seitan dough, the more elastic, “chewy,” the final product will be! If you want soft seitan, knead smaller time. Most seitan recipes recommend mixing seitan flour with water and kneading for 3 minutes. Then you need to let the dough stand for 10 minutes, and then knead for another 3 minutes. As you knead the seitan, you will feel how its consistency changes, the liquid flour becomes more elastic - this is the formation of gluten. If the dough can be stretched, it immediately shrinks back - this is the desired elasticity, and the final product will look like meat.
4. Braising seitan
The most common way to prepare seitan (both “homemade”, from dough, and ready-made, slightly soaked beforehand) is to simmer over low heat. This produces soft, not too elastic seitan. But it’s not as easy to do as it is to say! There are often problems with stewing seitan - so we will analyze the process step by step.
It is important to simmer the seitan over the slowest heat, otherwise - if the water boils and seethes - you may end up with a “rubber sponge” that you don’t want to eat - a kind of “meat jelly”! It will be a complete failure. An approximate calculation of water (“broth”) as a guide is to take 1/4 cups of soy sauce and add 7.3/4 cups of water. Please note that some of the water will certainly be absorbed into the seitan, so you can immediately add some spices to it.
Bring this mixture (without seitan for now) to a boil, and then switch to the lowest heat. Now add the seitan and close the lid, but not all the way - the steam should escape unhindered. Simmer the seitan for about 45 minutes, stirring frequently. Turn off the heat, close the lid and let stand for another 15 minutes.
Remove the seitan from the “broth” with a ladle or discard in a colander and place the colander on the pan so that the liquid drains completely. The seitan should cool to room temperature. Then you can quickly brown it in a frying pan or stir it into a vegetable dish - in fact, the perfect seitan is already ready!
But it’s even much tastier - first put the stewed and cooled seitan in the refrigerator and heat it up to eat the very next day - it will become even tastier overnight or throughout the whole day! If you are going to leave seitan in the refrigerator for tomorrow, do not pour out the broth, put the product in a saucepan in the refrigerator directly in the broth - naturally, also already cooled. You can store prepared seitan in this way for up to 10 days. If you still drain the water and freeze the seitan, it will last for 3 months! Seitan liquid, “broth,” should not be thrown away hastily - it contains a lot of useful substances (although it may not be very appetizing in appearance), and will serve as a good basis for a thick soup or sauce.
5. Cookingseitanona couple
Steaming seitan is another great method. This way you can cook a seitan “cutlet” or “sausage”, or even “steak”! This seitan will have a lot of chew to it, and you won't need a big pot of broth like the previous recipe.
Place the pre-kneaded dough on cutting board and cut into the pieces you want. You can, for example, make 5-6 cutlets, or 4 thick steaks, or a large seitan “brick”, which will then need to be cut and cooked further (for example, browned with vegetables). Either way, wrap the seitan pieces in aluminum foil - not too tightly because the steam needs to escape or the bags will start to "explode"! If you disdain aluminum foil, you can use parchment paper or special thermal film for baking. But keep in mind that then there is no guarantee that the shape you set will be preserved: if you are determined to cook seitan “sausages” and not pieces of an incomprehensible shape, then foil is still better.
Place your “parcels” in a double boiler (or in a colander and a pan of boiling water of suitable size and depth), but keep in mind: the seitan “cutlets” will expand, and they should not be too crowded! Steam for about 30 minutes. Then remove the bags and let cool to room temperature before preparing the final dish the way you want, either refrigerating or freezing in the refrigerator. Again, it's best to let the seitan sit until tomorrow. The next day, before cooking the seitan you just took out of the refrigerator, let it come to room temperature.
6. Bakedseitan
Many people love to bake seitan - and it can really be very tasty! This is, in fact, also simplest method - no foil, no steamer, no pan of broth needed! In addition, this seitan does not need to sit until tomorrow; it is delicious to eat right away. This cooking method is especially suitable if you decide to make “ribs” or something stronger than seitan stew, which usually turns out soft.
Grease a baking pan with margarine (or butter, as you are used to), and place the dough on it, kneaded and rested as indicated above. You can stretch or squish the seitan “cutlets” in the frying pan the way you want, and if necessary, cut them into smaller pieces. Then spoon the spice mixture on top (you can use tip #5 – “steam”) and bake for an hour or so – the seitan should be baked until firm. Remove the pan to the stove; When sticking, cut the “sausages” again and place the finished product on a dish. Then you can add the sauce to the seitan and eat! Or bring it to perfection within the framework of another, additional recipe.
The good news is that while preparing seitan takes some time and skill, the end result can be much better than store-bought pre-made! In addition, there is nothing to limit your creative culinary imagination.
Today I will show you how to cook vegetarian “meat”, which is called seitan. It is prepared from flour, but in a very unusual way. Seitan contains a huge amount of protein, looks and tastes like meat and is therefore known throughout the world as a plant-based substitute.
The principle of preparing seitan is as follows: all the starch is washed out of the dough, as a result of which only the protein (gluten) remains, which is then boiled in broth and used in cooking. In fact, there is nothing complicated. The only thing that is important is to use the right flour. It must contain a large number of gluten free, otherwise in the process of washing out the starch you will have nothing left. How to determine the right flour? Very simple. Surely, you already have a proven brand of flour that makes excellent baked goods, so use it in making seitan.
There is another way, a simpler one, but it will require gluten, which is not always available for sale. It should be mixed with water and spices (to form a soft dough), let stand for 10 minutes, and then follow the recipe, starting from point 6.
Seitan can be used to replace meat in any recipe (for example, to make minced meat for dumplings), and can also be used instead of soy if you don’t eat it. It will also be very relevant.
Compound:
Dough:- 3.5 cups flour
- 1.5 glasses of water
Bouillon:
- 1 l. water
- spices of your choice: Bay leaf, pepper, curry (or other mixture of spices), coriander, cumin, etc.
- 3 tbsp. l. soy sauce (optional)
And:
- 1-2 bay leaves
- vegetable or ghee butter
- 1/2 tsp. asafoetida (optional)
Preparation of seitan:
- Knead the flour and water into an elastic dough.
- Cover it with something and leave for at least 30 minutes.
- Place a saucepan in the sink and fill it with warm or cool water. Take out the dough and wash it in this water, squeezing it with your hands on all sides. When the water turns white, add more and continue rinsing the dough.
- The dough will gradually turn yellow or grayish in color. Don't forget to change the water when it turns white.
Cooking wheat “meat”
- Continue until the water becomes clear after washing and there are no white specks left in the dough, that is, all the starch is washed out and only wheat protein remains. This lump will look like chewing gum and will be 4 times smaller than the original dough ball. You need to take it out of the water and squeeze it out with your hands.
- Make broth. To do this, boil water, add salt, bay leaf, soy sauce and various spices that you have. It should be quite concentrated, since the taste of seitan depends on the taste of the broth.
- Boil the resulting semi-finished product (wheat protein) in this broth for 30-60 minutes (depending on size). It will increase approximately 2 times. You can pre-cut the seitan into several pieces, especially if you are preparing a large quantity at once.
Advice: To make seitan dense, non-porous, and more aromatic, you can do this: after washing out the starch, mix the resulting semi-finished product in a bowl with spices and salt. Then put it in a tight bag, which must be tightly and securely tied or zipped. Wrap it all in cotton cloth, tie it well and cook the seitan in this form for 1.5 hours. In this case, you don’t have to add spices to the water, just add some salt.
- The finished wheat “meat” can be stored in the same broth in the refrigerator for several days, or you can immediately cook something from it. For example, stew in . To do this, you need to remove the seitan from the broth.
- Cut into cubes.
Seitan cubes
- Make the sauce according to.
- Heat a little oil in a frying pan, add chopped seitan (you can fry it for a few minutes) and pour in the sauce, adding a couple more bay leaves.
- Simmer for 10 minutes. Season at the end of cooking.
Seitan or wheat “meat” in tomato sauce
Seitan can be used to cook very delicious dishes, for example, and others that I will share with you, so you don’t miss them.
Bon appetit!
P.S. And if suddenly something remains unclear, watch the video. Although it is on English language, the process itself will be clear.
Although seitan is called meat, it actually has nothing in common with it. This dish is pure wheat gluten, but well seasoned and baked or fried so it's truly delicious. Due to its high protein content, seitan should be eaten primarily by adherents of a vegetarian diet, especially since its preparation, although time-consuming, is quite simple and very cheap.
Seitan has its origins in Asian cuisine. In China it is called Buddha meat, or kofu. It is one of the main dishes in a macrobiotic diet, rich in fiber and characterized by low fat content. Seitan contains the most gluten, which comes from wheat, rye and barley, among others. Gluten in its pure form can be isolated from flour by washing it out of the resulting dough (this process is the main thing in preparing seitan).
The basis of seitan is a large amount of wheat flour, from which the dough is kneaded. Seitan should be cooked (preferably baked) before consumption to create a food similar to fried food. Seitan is especially recommended for people looking for a meat alternative and can be consumed in place of popular meat substitutes such as tofu.
How to make your own seitan
Ingredients for seitan. You will need 2 kg of flour, about 1 liter of water. The amount of flour used to prepare seitan can be changed depending on how large a portion we want to get.Cooking seitan
STEP 1. Knead the GLUTEN. You need to pour the flour into a large bowl and, adding water, knead the dough (like dumplings).
Form into a ball and let it rest for about 20 minutes.
Then place the bowl of dough under running water and knead it all this time. The jet should not be too intense. At this time, the dough must be constantly kneaded and compressed, remembering to replace the water after some time (pouring out white and pouring in clean). This process is designed to wash out the starch from the flour and leave only the gluten there.
All this is done until the water is only slightly white. The process may take about 40 minutes, the ball will acquire yellow. This is a sign that you only have gluten left in your hands.
STEP 2. COOKING SEITAN. Now this ball needs to be boiled. It is best to throw it into the broth (you can add seasonings and dried vegetables), cook for 20-30 minutes, then discard on a sieve.
STEP 3. MARINATED AND OTHER WAYS OF GIVING “CHINESE MEAT” TASTE. Before further cooking, “Chinese meat” can be rubbed with any spices (pepper, garlic, salt, etc.), best mixed with olive oil. This is a very important stage, because the ball itself is tasteless, and only additives can give it a particular flavor. Good idea– keep seitan in any meat marinade. Ideally, it should include soy sauce, garlic, olive oil, sweet or hot pepper, salt, black pepper (you can take cayenne), Provencal herbs, a pinch of sugar, etc. We need to rub the cooked and cooled dough with this mixture, and if we want to make the flavors more intense, we need to keep the seitan in the marinade for about an hour.
STEP 4. COOKING THE DISH. The seitan prepared in this way can be placed in a large heat-resistant bowl, greased with oil. It is worth putting any vegetables in there (onions, carrots, potatoes, leeks, etc.), and bake under the lid for about 45 minutes at a temperature of 200 degrees. Baked seitan looks like a roast and is easy to cut into slices. Chinese meat can be eaten as a lunch dish (hot) or as an addition to bread (cold). Seitan can also be served as pan-fried patties or as goulash. It is suitable for rice, pasta, cereals and potatoes, and goes well with mushrooms and seaweed.
Who is contraindicated for seitan and other nuances
Seitan cannot be consumed. Seitan is rich in fiber and can boast very high content protein – more than tofu. The amount of fat in it is about 2%. There are approximately the same amount of carbohydrates in Chinese meat. But there is no cholesterol in it. 100 g of pure seitan contains approximately 120 kcal. It can be frozen.
We'll make things easier for ourselves if we don't make our own seitan and instead buy wheat gluten from the health food store. Some supermarkets and organic stores sell jars of prepared foods like seitan.
Seitan contains a large amount of protein, and around the world it is called vegetable substitute meat. Seitan is prepared from wheat flour with a high content of gluten and water. Wash the kneaded dough thoroughly in water to remove all starch. The result is a mass in which only protein remains. The taste of seitan depends on the richness of the spices in the broth in which it was cooked. You can adjust the set of spices at your discretion. So let's cook.
Take these products.
Sift into a deep bowl wheat flour. Surely you have a favorite brand of flour that makes excellent homemade baked goods. This is the kind of flour you can use to make seitan. Pour water at room temperature.
Knead soft elastic dough. Cover with a towel and leave at room temperature for 30 minutes.
Fill a convenient deep container with water at room temperature. Lower the dough and begin to wash out the starch. As soon as the water becomes cloudy, immediately drain and add new water. Continue rinsing until the water runs clear.
Over time, the water becomes clearer, the dough decreases in size and becomes like chewing gum. Squeeze the excess water out of the dough with your hands and remove it from the aqueous solution.
Now let's prepare the broth. Boil the water. Add curry, coriander, soy sauce, salt, bay leaf, cumin, fennel seeds, star anise and seitan. Cook for 30-60 minutes. If the piece is large, cook longer. In this case, 30 minutes was enough.
Seitan is ready. Remove from the broth, cool and enjoy cooking. Seitan can be used as a filling for pies, pasties, and dumplings. Can be stewed in tomato sauce.
This is what seitan looks like stewed in tomato. Bon appetit!
Followers healthy image life and healthy eating often adjust their diet to reduce the consumption of meat products. Increasingly, modern consumers are turning their attention to various alternative meat substitutes. These include soybean substitutes, legumes, and mushrooms. But the wheat product seitan is recognized as the closest in taste.
Wheat meat
A product made from wheat gluten most closely resembles natural meat in taste and texture. It is obtained by washing out starch from wheat flour by pouring water up to several times. The remaining gluten is seitan, or meat for vegetarians. This meat tastes like regular chicken and is actively used by adherents of a vegetarian diet for preparing various dishes.
Useful properties of seitan
Vegetarian meat has recently become not only a product for vegetarians, it has also become popular among health-conscious meat eaters. Seitan is useful product, rich in a number of amino acids, nutrients and microelements. Vegetarian plant product, or seitan, common calorie content about 350 kcal per 100 grams of weight, while remaining a fairly healthy and low-fat product: for 75 grams of protein there are only about two grams of fat. This low-fat product is also preferred by those who are watching their weight; many nutritionists include seitan in the approved foods for their patients who want to adjust their weight. One serving of seitan will fill one quarter of the body’s daily need for sodium and restore the body’s electrolyte balance.
Harmful properties of seitan
Almost everyone can eat vegetarian meat, however, there is one strict contraindication. Those people who suffer from the rare disease celiac disease, or the inability of the intestines to process gluten from cereal plants, are strictly prohibited from consuming seitan. Violators of the ban risk getting sick oncological diseases digestive tract, ulcerative erosive lesions of the digestive organ, osteoporosis and a number of other diseases. Seitan should also be consumed with caution by people with a history of allergic reactions, since gluten can act on the body as a strong allergen.