Vegan Mofo #9 - Talking about my first time... seitan

Well, I set myself one major challenge during Vegan mofo for 2008 and that was to make my first seitan. The only time I have ever eaten seitan was once in a vegetarian chinese restaurant in Melbourne. I was the only vegan (there were also two vegetarians) but the omnis found it highly amuzing that they were ordering steak and sweet and sour chicken and the like.

My first seitan after it was cooked. Sorry its just on our chopping board - it was 8pm and we still hadn't had dinner and were starving (I decided to make the Seitan a little late in the afternoon. Whoops).

So.... I have been reading all these amazing seitan recipes but I was nervous. Despite looking at seitan recipes for a few weeks, it wasn't until about 10mins before I started making the seitan that I had decided whether I was going to steam or bake or wrap in foil or boil... oh goodness me - there is so much variety out there.

I ended up tossing up between the seitan recipe from VWaV and Seitan O'Greatness. After asking nat - we decided that we would attempt a baked seitan and so my seitan challenge began in earnest.

Me kneeding seitan

It was really good - my aliminum foil ripped on the bottom so it was a little tough underneath (Tip: don't ever buy cheap al. foil) I actually couldn't believe how easy it was (I was imagining it to be some kind of horrible difficult multitasking thing that took hours (maybe because the first time I ever saw a recipe it called for ordinary flour and a heck of a lot of kneeding).

And what did we do with the seitan. Well we chopped it up and put it on some baked spuds with some corn, spinach leaves (the only greens I had in the garden) and a cheesy sauce that I make when I make cauliflower cheese (its made from soymilk, nutritional yeast, arrowroot flour, onion powder and salt). I was desperate to try another type of "cheese" but I just thought that too many experiments was asking for trouble.

The best bit about the spuds was that I was able to fit the potatoes with the seitan into our little toaster oven so that we were using a lot less power.

I enjoyed my first time with seitan and hope to make at least one other type before mofo finishes. Does anyone have a good recipe for a chicken style seitan - or their favourite seitan recipe that they would like to share?? I am very open to suggestions!!