Not original by me.  I picked this recipe up from a vegan blog, where it was already second-hand.  It seems that this recipe has been blazing through circles of seitan enthusiasts online.  I’m not vegan, but I love seitan.  The stuff is a little bit like tofu  – gluten, the proteinaceous part of wheat, molded and formed into chewy deliciousness.  It’s also hideously expensive.

Vital wheat gluten is not so cheap either ($2.50 for the 1 and a half cup it took to make this recipe), but it was still worth trying.  So, without further ado,

THE SEITAN RECIPE O GREATNESS

• 1.5 c. vital wheat gluten
• 1/4 c. nutritional yeast (Not sure what nutritional yeast is, actually.  I used 1/8 c. of baker’s yeast instead.)
• 1 tsp. salt
• 2 tsp. paprika
• 1/4 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. cumin
• 1/2 tsp. pepper
• 1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper
• 1/8 tsp. allspice
• 3/4 c. cold water
• 4 tbsp. tomato paste
• 1 tbsp. ketchup
• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• 2 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce or soy sauce
• 1-3 cloves garlic, crushed (Naturally, I opted to use 3.)

Assembly could not be simpler.  Preheat oven to 325º.  Mix together all the dry ingredients in one bowl and all the wet ingredients in another.  Then add the wet ingredients to the dry, stir it, then knead the heck out of the dough.  Form it into a log, wrap it in foil, then bake it for 90 minutes.  Let it cool down completely before you do anything with it.

Chewy, salty, savory, and great.  My seitan popped its foil wrapper, though, so it ended up looking like a turd in the oven.  Wrap it up in extra foil?  Or is it because I used baker’s yeast?

Wheat gluten, the hard-to-find main ingredient.

O Greatness?

The final product. Check out that texture!