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Dry
1½ cups vital wheat gluten
2 Tb nutritional yeast flakes
½ tsp garlic powder
¼ tsp onion powder
Wet
½ cup vegetable broth or water
½ cup tomato juice or sauce
2 Tb lite soy sauce
1 Tb olive oil (optional)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mist a baking sheet with nonstick spray and set aside.
Combine the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl, stirring with a dry whisk. In a separate bowl, combine wet ingredients and mix well. Pour the wet mixture into the dry ingredients, and gently combine with hands until you have a large, firm, spongy mass of gluten in the bowl. Knead this a couple times, but not very much, as too much kneading will make the gluten fluffy and breadlike instead of dense, chewy, and meatlike. Let the gluten rest for 5 minutes.
Gently stretch the gluten into a slab about ½ inch thick. Place on baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes. Remove and prick gluten all over with a fork, then return it to oven and bake another 10-15 minutes.
Take gluten from oven (after it’s cooked it’s called seitan), and place under a large bowl to rest and steam for about 30 minutes. The bowl keeps the seitan from drying out. After 30 minutes, tear the seitan into chunks and pulse in a food processor until it is the consistency of ground beef. The recipe makes about 4 cups of ground seitan. Let it cool completely, then store it in 2-cup containers.
Ground seitan will keep in the refrigerator about 1 week, and about 4 months in the freezer. Thaw in the refrigerator before using. You can use it in recipes calling for ground beef, Griller recipe crumbles, etc. It makes a nice, inexpensive alternative to meat and soy products.
Variations
● Sausage-style— Add 2 tsp dried sage, 1 tsp ground fennel, 1 tsp dried marjoram, 1 tsp ground cumin, ½ tsp dry mustard, ¼ tsp ground black pepper, and ¼ tsp cayenne (optional) to the dry ingredients. Increase broth or water to 1 cup and omit the tomato juice.
● Italian-style—Increase garlic powder to 2 tsp, and add 2 tsp dried basil, 1 tsp dried oregano, ½ tsp dried marjoram, ½ tsp ground fennel, and ¼ tsp ground black pepper to the dry ingredients.
● Mexican-style—Increase garlic powder to 1 tsp, and add 1 to 2 Tb chili powder, ¼ tsp ground black pepper, and ¼ tsp cayenne to the dry ingredients.
(From “Vegan Vittles”)
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