Thursday, March 29, 2007

Gluten Wheat-Meat "Chicken"

I tried a recipe that I found here called Bryanna's New Seitan "Chicken." After reading through several of the recipes, I figured out that when the poster had posted, something happened to the amounts so some of them are a little wacky. After reading thru most of this post as well as thru some of Bryanna's other recipes from vegsource.com and her own website, this is what I came up with and notes of how I did it (based on my ingredients on hand):

2 1/4 c. vital wheat gluten
1/2 c. Minute tapioca
1/2 c. old-fashioned rolled oats
2 Tbsp. "chicken-style" veggie broth powder
2 Tbsp. garlic powder
2 Tbsp. nutritional yeast flakes
1/2 tsp. onion powder

2 1/4 c. cold water
1/4 c. raw cashew nuts
a few dashes of homemade Kitchen Bouquet
3 Tbsp. mushroom sauce (one of Bryanna's recipes from the cycling website I think)
a few asparagus tips, will probably add more next time

Mixed the wet together into the dry in my Bosch Universal mixer and mixed on 2 for 10 minutes, let it rest for an hour, then mixed again for another 10 mintues. Then I took it out, cut into 3 long loglike pieces and boiled in:

1 c. asparagus juice (from canned asparagus)
about 1 c. mushroom sauce
5 c. "chicken"-style broth
7 cloves garlic, chopped
a few dashes of homemade Kitchen Bouquet
3 1/2 Tbsp. nutritional yeast flakes

I cooked the wheat-meat logs in the broth in my slow cooker on high for about 6 or 7 hours till they had swelled up and started to float. I tested them and they were done when they were more meaty and less like edible rubber (not that there is such a thing).

I like it because it kind of reminds me of the consistency of Worthington Chickettes which I used to love, but didn't love all the additives. It slices in deli-slice thickness with ease, and was very delightful in some chicken a la king that I made today. Yum-o. I want to keep trying more recipes, but this one did turn out pretty good. A far cry from the really spongy blobs I used to make that I had the nerve to call gluten steaks.

The only thing I find distressing about this is that I read the other day that slow cooking of protein creates free glutamates (like in MSG) and this is something I try to avoid so I'm not going to go overboard with gluten, but it's nice to have something to fill the "meat" gap when trying to follow non-veggie recipes (and the kids and hubby love it).

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