seitan fiasco?

[br0ken_dolly]

okay, so i heart seitan like nobody's business. i make my own because i live with two boys who have big appetites, and because i love seitan. so i make it in big batches

Comments

[madir_eyes]

This used to happen to me all the time when I boiled it.

Then I switched to pressure cooking, and it's firm every time. In fact, there's oodles of control doing it that way. I haven't been eating seitan of late, but I think it's a much better method. And faster and less messy, too.

[br0ken_dolly]

you know, i may give this a shot... all the recipes i've seen say to keep the pot lid slightly off when cooking it, but our pans are designed to act like pressure cookers with the lids.

thanks!

[kingfissure]

I'm assuming you're boiling it, then?

You might try wringing it out a bit, and then popping it under a broiler/in the over for a while on 250*F. Mind, I'm not sure that will work, but barring other reasonable suggestions that would be my first stab. There's a good chance that the protein structures have quite set and the heat won't move them around quite enough to bring them more together--you might just end up with very fluffy seitan, albeit dry.

[br0ken_dolly]

yes boiling it... i didn't know there was another way actually.

thanks for the tip! i may give this a shot tonight.

[kingfissure]

Ahh, yes--it can be baked! I actually made some seitan last week, using the baking method, and it was extraordinarily easy and it came out very tasty.

The inspiration came from this post. I followed her directions in a general sense, but I used different seasonings (beyond the basic ingredients of wheat gluten and water) and made my "log" shorter and thicker (adjusting by baking for 90 minutes at 325*F). I used the same seasonings Grogan uses for her mock beef in Authentic Chinese Cuisine. It came out very well--I didn't turn it, and so I ended up with something that was like a loaf of meat. But not a meatloaf, mind you. I ate a lot of "cold cuts", and they were delicious. I think the part about wrapping it up in foil and twisting the ends made a big, positive difference in the final density.

If I hadn't made it myself, it would have been a little unnerving for me as I usually shy away from things that are too convincingly meat-like.

[br0ken_dolly]

oh WOW, i forgot all about this recipe!! i remember this now. i wouldn't have even thought of trying to make it bigger/thicker.

thanks for the tip! this is great.

ps: what types of seasoning do you mean for the mock beef? i don't have that cookbook, but i was just curious about a general idea for seasonings. i think i'd want it to be more mild than something resembling beef though-- i agree, i don't like things that are too "meaty" :)

[retrofire]

One time that happened to me so I chopped it into small bits and made seitan hash with chopped onions green pepper - throwing it all on the frying pan and frying it a good long time till the onions were carmelized and the seitan bits were nice a browned. It was a success :)

[br0ken_dolly]

oooo good save! i like this idea. thanks!

[retrofire]

Recently I tried this recipe and it was FANTASTIC.

[the_leh]

The outside gets soggy because of over boiling. Seitan cannot be boiled for very long. You have to watch it and then AS SOON AS IT BOILS, turn the heat down and keep it as low as it will go so that it's just barely simmering (you should see little bubbles coming up but it should NOT be boiling). If you boil it for even a little bit too long, or you don't turn the heat low enough as it's cooking, it turns into the soggy mess you've just described and can't even be saved by pan frying.

You can also try baking your seitan (this works best with cutlets or a small casserole dish of seitan you plan on making into rib-style pieces).

[br0ken_dolly]

it's interesting, seitan is...

i've actually let the pot boil by accident before (i totally lost track of time when heating the cold water with the seitan chunks in it), and it was the best seitan i've EVER had. it firmed up really well, it was very dense, and hardly soggy on the outside at ALL. I bet it had been boiling (a hard rolling boil) for a good 5 minutes before i caught it. i have no idea why i had this happen but everything i read says NO BOILING.

thanks tho. this stuff may be a loss.

[the_leh]

It can boil for like a minute or less, but after that it's not great. But I've had my seitan boil for a little but and had it be ok, too. It was just a little spongy on the outside.

I dunno, my seitan always got hard on the inside though.

[blake_fraina]

I've only made seitan twice and both times it came out exactly as you describe. Craptastic. I do't know what I'm doing wrong. One recipe I have says put it in cold water and bring it to a boil and another says put it in already boling water. Neither worked for me. I want to learn how to make it so badly. What's wrong with me??

[br0ken_dolly]

UGH! so irritating.

i WILL say that the longer i knead it, the better it is, and the more i think about it, i didn't knead it as long as i usually do.

maybe that's how i screwed it up.

[the_leh]

I always knead it for 5 or so minutes.

[br0ken_dolly]

i do too, but i have hand/wrist issues and it makes it really hard to knead dough sometimes, so sometimes a 5 minute kneading is equal to a 10 minute normal kneading... so i shoulda done it longer. i need to pay more attention to the consistency more than the time.