Wheat meat? Sweet!
Feb. 9th, 2026 11:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
baroque_mongooseQuite a long time ago now, I used to make seitan regularly. This was when I was living in Sheffield and still had a regular cooker (and reasonably decent health). Seitan, for those who aren't familiar with it, is... I was going to say a kind of fake meat, but that would be doing it down somewhat. Seitan is its own thing, though it does slot very neatly into all the places where you might want to put meat. Pre-made seitan tends to be expensive and isn't always especially good, but the home-made stuff is delicious, and it's quite cheap to make, at that. (Of course, that does partly depend where you get your flour. Seitan is based on wheat gluten, so you need a gluten flour; it's easy enough to get that because there's so much demand for gluten-free flour these days, and all that extra gluten may as well get used somewhere, but some people charge a lot more for it than others. I now get mine from Buy Wholefoods Online.)
Now, that stuff takes a deal of slow simmering on a hob, so for a long time I thought I'd never be able to make it again; while I do now have a separate hob, it's quite awkward for me to supervise it for the length of time needed for seitan, and I really don't feel comfortable about leaving it unsupervised, even though I can see into the kitchen from where I usually sit. (My kitchen is so small that there's no room for a regular door. There's just an opening in the wall, a bit wider than standard door width, between the living room and the kitchen.)
And then I thought... oh, wait. I could do it in the slow cooker, couldn't I?
In fact, seitan is an ideal thing to do in the slow cooker, because you can tell exactly when it's cooked; this is often quite difficult with a slow cooker, unless you keep opening it and sticking an experimental fork into the contents. (My pro tip is not to do parsnips in it, or at least not unless you give them a bit of a pre-cook in the microwave. They take for ever, and by the time they're ready everything else will be mushy and your pearl barley will have completely broken down into the sauce.) Seitan, though? You just simmer it till it floats, pretty much. My recipe says 45 minutes for the hob, which is usually just a little longer than it takes all the pieces to start floating. The other thing the recipe tells you is not to boil it vigorously, because if you do that it becomes spongy. Fine if that's what you're after, but generally it's best to go for a nice firm texture for easy slicing.
So I've ordered gluten flour and a large economy bottle of good soy sauce, because this recipe, as you will see in a moment, uses quite a lot of soy sauce. I have no idea where I originally found it or if it's still there, so, for reference, here it is:
150g vital wheat gluten flour
3 tablespoons nutritional yeast flakes
125 ml cold vegetable broth
60 ml soy sauce
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cloves garlic, pressed or grated on a microplane grater
For the simmering broth:
1 litre vegetable broth
1 litre water
60 ml soy sauce
Fill a stock pot with the water, broth and soy sauce, cover and bring to a boil.
In the mean time, in a large bowl mix together gluten and yeast. In a smaller bowl mix together broth, soy sauce, lemon juice, olive oil and garlic. Pour the wet into the dry and combine with a wooden spoon until most of the moisture has absorbed and partially clumped up with the dry ingredients. Use your hands and knead for about 3 minutes, until it’s an elastic dough. Divide into 3 equal pieces with a knife and then knead those pieces in your hand just to stretch them out a bit. Let rest until the broth has come to a full boil.
Once boiling, lower the heat to a simmer. Add the gluten pieces and partially cover pot so that steam can escape. Let simmer for 45 minutes, turning occasionally. Turn the heat off and take the lid off, let sit for 15 minutes.
Remove from broth and place in a strainer until it is cool enough to handle. Slice and use as desired.
(The recipe also recommends you give it a quick sauté before adding it to recipes - they reckon about 5 minutes should be sufficient. I'm alongside that.) So, there you go - that's how you do it. And don't just take my word for it; even my mother, who's quite happy to eat meat, thinks it's delicious!
Now, that stuff takes a deal of slow simmering on a hob, so for a long time I thought I'd never be able to make it again; while I do now have a separate hob, it's quite awkward for me to supervise it for the length of time needed for seitan, and I really don't feel comfortable about leaving it unsupervised, even though I can see into the kitchen from where I usually sit. (My kitchen is so small that there's no room for a regular door. There's just an opening in the wall, a bit wider than standard door width, between the living room and the kitchen.)
And then I thought... oh, wait. I could do it in the slow cooker, couldn't I?
In fact, seitan is an ideal thing to do in the slow cooker, because you can tell exactly when it's cooked; this is often quite difficult with a slow cooker, unless you keep opening it and sticking an experimental fork into the contents. (My pro tip is not to do parsnips in it, or at least not unless you give them a bit of a pre-cook in the microwave. They take for ever, and by the time they're ready everything else will be mushy and your pearl barley will have completely broken down into the sauce.) Seitan, though? You just simmer it till it floats, pretty much. My recipe says 45 minutes for the hob, which is usually just a little longer than it takes all the pieces to start floating. The other thing the recipe tells you is not to boil it vigorously, because if you do that it becomes spongy. Fine if that's what you're after, but generally it's best to go for a nice firm texture for easy slicing.
So I've ordered gluten flour and a large economy bottle of good soy sauce, because this recipe, as you will see in a moment, uses quite a lot of soy sauce. I have no idea where I originally found it or if it's still there, so, for reference, here it is:
150g vital wheat gluten flour
3 tablespoons nutritional yeast flakes
125 ml cold vegetable broth
60 ml soy sauce
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cloves garlic, pressed or grated on a microplane grater
For the simmering broth:
1 litre vegetable broth
1 litre water
60 ml soy sauce
Fill a stock pot with the water, broth and soy sauce, cover and bring to a boil.
In the mean time, in a large bowl mix together gluten and yeast. In a smaller bowl mix together broth, soy sauce, lemon juice, olive oil and garlic. Pour the wet into the dry and combine with a wooden spoon until most of the moisture has absorbed and partially clumped up with the dry ingredients. Use your hands and knead for about 3 minutes, until it’s an elastic dough. Divide into 3 equal pieces with a knife and then knead those pieces in your hand just to stretch them out a bit. Let rest until the broth has come to a full boil.
Once boiling, lower the heat to a simmer. Add the gluten pieces and partially cover pot so that steam can escape. Let simmer for 45 minutes, turning occasionally. Turn the heat off and take the lid off, let sit for 15 minutes.
Remove from broth and place in a strainer until it is cool enough to handle. Slice and use as desired.
(The recipe also recommends you give it a quick sauté before adding it to recipes - they reckon about 5 minutes should be sufficient. I'm alongside that.) So, there you go - that's how you do it. And don't just take my word for it; even my mother, who's quite happy to eat meat, thinks it's delicious!
