How to Make SEITAN!! (This is also super easy!)

Seitan is just the gluten from flour - it is a perfect (and I mean perfect) substitute for meat. As I am not long vegan I do miss my meat from time to time! Seitan is both meaty, chewy and delicious which helps me to not day dream about the taste and texture of succulent meat! I didn't know about seitan until 2 days ago, when I was talking to my dad about making my tofu he mentioned seitan as another delicious substitute to meat. I was curious and started to look for ways to make it, and found actually it was really easy to make!

I will do step by step photos to help those who don't like reading instructions (like me!)

Ingredients 

• 500g of white flour 
• 300ml of water 

Equipment Needed 

• 1 large bowl 
• A very large sieve or colander (I found the seive is better, because with the colander the bits of gluten tend to slip through the holes. If you have a colander with small holes then you should be fine though.)
• A saucepan 
• A normal sized seive
• Optional: Vegetable stock / spices/ salt etc.. 

Method

1. Mix the water and flour together in the large bowl to make a dough. Kead for around 5 - 10mins, on a board or table. (Don't add any more water than the 300ml - I promise it will come together) 

Mixing 

When finished kneading: Should look like bread dough

2. Now this is the fun part! Punch the dough at least 50 times to get the air out (do this on a table or board)

3. Put the dough back in the large bowl and cover with cold water - leave to rest for at least 30mins

Dough covered in cold water: should be completely submerged

4. Start to knead the dough inside the cold water. Do this until the water is COMPLETELY white (so white you can not see the dough at all anymore - it should look like milk) 

It should look like milk 

5. Take the dough out of the bowl and transfer the dough into you sieve/ colander. Keep the white water that is in the bowl (set it aside for the moment). Put the sieve or colander with the dough in it under a running tap. 

Transfer the dough into a sieve or colander. Under the running tap 

 6. Keep rinsing the dough with the water. The water that filters out will be white, taking the starch with it and leaving only the gluten. Do this for around 5-10 mins, until the water is relatively clear as it filters out of the sieve or colander.

This is what it should look like by the end of the rinsing period . It is the pure gluten and the water filtering out will be clear. 

5. Take out the dough and squeeze the excess water out of it (it will not be completely clear and might still be a bit white, but don't worry about that).

Pure gluten dough

6. Put the gluten dough in the fridge to set a little (around 5mins). Meanwhile boil up some water and you can put in some spices or vegetable stock etc. to make the seitan have a certain flavour. However if you just boil it then you can add flavour later when you put it in a dish. 

7. Take the seitan out of the fridge after around 5mins. Cut/ chop or pinch off bite size bits of seitan and drop them into the boiling water. 

Cut up pieces of gluten dough

8. Take the sauce pan with the seitan in it over to the sink. Pour over a sieve to collect the seitan. 

YOU HAVE SEITAN!!! Yea! :)

9. Store in the fridge, in an airtight container for up to a week. Take out and use in dishes (I will be posting some!)

10. With the bowl of water: leave the white water to stand for an hour or two, until the water and flour have separated. Pour out the water out so that you are left with just the flour. It should feel like cornflour! Store in the fridge for 3 days max - use to thicken soups etc. (Use like cornflour - for Americans that is cornstarch)