So here it is, we’ve been promising it for a while and thank you for being patient. This isn’t the final product of seitan experiments though. We are constantly trying to develop and evolve to improve the flavour and texture so take this as an introduction, a ‘my first seitan’ if you will. Heil seitan!

• 1 white onion sliced
• 100g chestnut mushroom sliced
• 1 stick of celery diced
• 50g molasses
• 1 tbsp yellow mustard
• 1 tbsp liquid smoke
• 2 tbsp ketchup
• 2 tbsp Worcester sauce
• 1 tbsp dried oregano
• 50 ml apple juice
• 400g vital wheat gluten
• 50g nutritional yeast
• 100g strong white flour
• 200-400ml water

First, this is not a fast recipe. If you’ve got a craving munch on something else, this is a make today enjoy tomorrow. Start off with your cast iron, nice medium heat, brown off your onion, chestnut mushrooms and celery till soft. Throw them in your processor along with the molasses, mustard, ketchup, liquid smoke, Worcester sauce, oregano and plenty of salt and pepper. You really can’t be too generous with the seasoning so get it in there and blend till smooth or smooth-ish.

Once you mix has cooled, combine the gluten, flour and nutritional yeast in a large mixing bowl. Mix the paste through thoroughly. So that’s the easy bit. Now is where people tend to go wrong; you need to add enough water for the dough to come together and be workable without it being too wet. When you think your dough feels right give it a good kneed for 5 mins to develop the gluten, this is probably the easiest point to determine if your dough is too wet or dry, don’t worry though just add extra flour or water and kneed for another minute. Put your mix in a greased bowl and leave it for an hour or so.

Fill a large pan with veg stock, some bay leaves, cloves, garlic soy and any savoury flavours you like, this will slightly flavour the seitan as it cooks, and bring it to a light simmer. Roughly cut your seitan into chunks, the smaller the quicker they will cook, and lightly kneed again. If you are going for a free form look just drop your seitan in the broth, for a tighter shape we use clean cheese cloth and tie the ends. Leave your seitan simmering until it firms up, this can be anywhere from 40 mins to 3 hours depending on sizes and temperatures so keep an eye on it. When it has firmed turned the heat off and let it cool in the broth.

At this point it’s good to eat, just slice and go but if you have just a little more patience its better grilled or fried. We love it pan fried with a little soy and mop sauce. So that’s it, it takes a couple tries to really get a feel for it but keep at it, hail seitan baby.

GP