say boo (please)

say it's seitan

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we have been known to be a little obsessed with masterchef around here, and today i took the first volume cook book out of the library. i found this recipe by the runner-up, poh, called buddha's delight, which was inspired by some of the buddhist vegetarian dishes of her childhood.

it uses wheat gluten, aka seitan in japanese/macrobiotic lingo (sounds much nicer than wheat gluten doesn't it?). wheat gluten is also the culprit behind creepy fake meat such as 'mock duck in a can'. google images will help you envisage just how creepy this is if you haven't been lucky enough to come across it before.

now, the ground breaking info for me discovered this recipe was that wheat gluten is a protein! what? am i just really behind in my vegetarian protein source knowledge? i always thought wheat gluten was an odd substitution for meat as i assumed it was more of a starch. now gluten intolerance makes more sense to me as usually allergies pertain to protein. . .

it has a sort of chicken-like texture in some cases, but can also be made a little spongier, like fried tofu to absorb sauces. actually, there's a chinese vegetarian restaurant in fortitude valley called kuan-yin tea house (the goddess of mercy) and i'm positive all their fake meat dishes must be made from wheat gluten - they have a large variety - it seems there is no end to the things one can do with wheat gluten!

the recipe for poh's buddha's delight gives instructions on how to make wheat gluten dumplings yourself from scratch, using plain flour, a bit of salt, and water. the idea is to make a simple dough and then massage and rinse the starch out of it until only gluten remains. in this case the dumplings are fried and added to the dish, where they take on the flavour of the other ingredients.

yum!

i also found some really amazing looking recipes using vital wheat gluten and nutritional yeast for making seitan from scratch via fatfree vegan kitchen. this doesn't require all the massaging and rinsing mentioned above as it has already been done for you. vital wheat gluten can be found in health food shops, as is ready made seitan, however the obvious advantage of making your own seitan over buying it prepared is that you can control exactly what is added to your food, and customize the flavours to your recipe.

i am hoping to get my hands on some vital wheat gluten this weekend sometime, so i'll let you know how i go. . .