Glutinous Maximus II,
Seitanic Lab Meat recipe
March 28, 2008
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Loaves of Seitan during steaming process
Like the soybean, like bread, like fish, like wine, like salt, seitan is part of the utopian food group, foods laden with morality, infused with ritual, oozing with culture, drowning in history. Seitan is desperately in need of appropriation from its association with macrobiotics but on the positive side is bound to the discussion of the ethical implications of lab meat and the effect of industrialized food on our local/global economies and environment.
At last year’s Lab Meat debate and dinner at the Centraal Museum in Utrecht, I expounded on why the creation of industrial meat substitutes is not sustainable and why Lab Meat proponents may be (inadvertently) greenwashing environmentally unfriendly tissue labs. Like a vegan appropriating the meaty recipes of pop-chef Anthony Bourdain, I offered several sustainable meat substitutes well-rooted in the whole foods firmament and explained how we all can make make lab meat with flour and water, in the lab that we commonly refer to as our kitchen.
This Sunday I’ll be in another lab meat debate, with a.o., esteemed scientific ethicist Cor van der Weele. The venue is Amsterdam’s Platform 21, on the final day of the Cooking and Constructing exhibition, at 16.00h. If you’re in Amsterdam and want to join in the preceding seitan workshop that I will be giving, write, call, or simplly show up on Sunday at 15:00h. There are still a few spaces open for participants.
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1 cup gluten flour, 1 heaping tbs white flour
Recipe/technique for making Seitan (serves ±4)
- 1 cup gluten flour
1 heaping tbs unbleached white flour
(pinch of sea salt)
water
peanut oil
Seitan marinade
- water
soy sauce
rice wine vinegar
juniper berries
dried shitake mushrooms
ginger
marmalade
bay leaves
garlic
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01: Mix the flours with a fork until fluffed and drizzle with water, tablespoon by tablespoon. Stir this mixture sloppily and within seconds it will start to bind together. When it looks like a large piece of spent chewing gum, you’re ready to form it into loaves for steaming.
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02: Steam the wheat meat loaves for at least 2 hrs over a fiercely boiling pot of water. Not unlike raw octopus meat, gluten needs to be processed before achieving good mouth feel.
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03: All done steaming
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04: Test the texture by cutting off the ends and popping them in your mouth for a test-chew. You don’t need to be an expert, if the gluten is fun to eat, it’s good, if chewing glute starts to feel like aerobic exercise, it’s bad. If too chewy, you can best just start over, as it has to do with the amount of white flour you added in the beginning; too little flour equals too chewy.
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05: Deep fry the loaves for at least 5 minutes. Don’t protest and think you can skip this step, because it radically transforms the texture into something delicious, even for folks that don’t wear goat wool socks.
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06: Put all of the ingredients of the marinade into a large pot on a medium flame, add the seitan and braise for up to 2 hours. Later you can store the seitan in the braising juices in the fridge.
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07: When cooking with seitan, treat it as if it were tofu or tempeh. It’s already mostly ‘cooked’, so you just need to add it to whatever you like, fire up the flavours and get it warm.
Some folks liken seitan’s texture to duck meat. I think that these people have probably never eaten a properly prepared duck in their lives. Seitan can be really very good, but not in the same way that meat can be good. And this ultimately is the problem that I have with the notion of the meat substitute. Foods need to be enjoyed for what they are, for their inherent qualities, not for how well they exude an I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-bacon!-feeling.
Seitan can be truly sublime and delicious, but to my knowledge (which is to say, to Google and Wikipedia’s knowledge) I’m sure that no one has ever uttered the words, I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-seitan!
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Culiblog’s debunks myths about seitan and a homestyle guide to gluten harvesting
Last year’s Lab Meat debate and dinner at the Centraal Museum in Utrecht
debra at 17:59 | | post to del.icio.us
Can I bake it rather than fry it?
Comment by Maggie — March 28, 2008 @ 20:37
Your seitan/ gluten experiments look so good! I have had good results with deep-frying the chewing gum chunks in hot oil, omitting the steaming steps. The chunks puff up in an incredible way. Love the end result in your pictures after the braising stage, must try soon!
Comment by kattebelletje — March 30, 2008 @ 21:48
Hi Maggie,
You can try baking instead of deepfrying. Yesterday at the Platform 21, we didn’t have time to steam the seitan and we boiled it instead. It worked out great in a fraction of the time.
Experiment with the baking - it’s all about getting away from the chewing gum texture.
Comment by debra — March 31, 2008 @ 9:47
Hi Kattebelletje,
After yesterday’s experiment - and this comment from you, I’m going to try omitting that initial water stage. Also when I boiled the seitan (only 20 mins) it puffed up beautifully in the oil - but your experiment is something I’ll repeat. Great stuff, Thanks!
Comment by debra — March 31, 2008 @ 9:50
a stupendous post with great pictures! I love seitan but your recipe sounds so much better than the stuff you can buy in the refrigerated section of the healtfood store!
Comment by foodhoe — March 31, 2008 @ 19:30
Yay! Interesting…
Comment by Marians — August 3, 2008 @ 19:06