Seitan: Making your own vegetarian meat.

 One of the things I get more inspiration from is going out to nature. It makes me feel connected and sometimes it gives me insights. As I was having an early walk this morning, I thought about the purpose of life, Why am I here? What is my purpose in this life...? I know it may sound cliché but I think everyone of us has come to this kind of question at some point.

 I raised my gaze to the sky and suddenly, something beautiful happened: a magnificent falcon flew few meters right above my head crossing like an arrow in the morning winter sky. I felt overwhelmed with awe by this beautiful event and some tears came out from my eyes. That made me think that perhaps my purpose in this life has to do with nature...but maybe this is just an idea, who knows?

I like to think that the ultimate purpose of life is just to live this life, nothing else...Just do the things that make us feel connected, happy and peaceful. I believe that if we want to align our personal purpose with a Higher purpose, then the most direct way must begin from our heart.

Vegetarianism and yoga are very related nowadays. I love vegetarian food and I personally believe in the benefits of practising yoga and having a healthy life style which may include adding more veggies to your diet. However, I do not agree with fanaticism of any kind and, when it comes to diet, I believe the more important thing to do is listening to your own body. Sometimes we may decide to be a vegetarian or a vegan from an idealistic position, following this without listening what the body is trying to say. Our guts are just like another brain and any decision about our eating habits should come from down there more than our head. Having a healthy lifestyle will surely help you to connect with that inner wisdom that will orient you towards being capable of feeling and understanding what is good or bad for you.

 Sometimes we may think we are more on the spiritual path by practising yoga or eating just vegetarian food, but that is just our own ego talking. In the end I think Life itself is the ultimate and absolute spiritual experience and practice, and the rest are just tools that sooner or later we must transcend in order to advance our evolution as human beings. Respect, starting from what I feel, is one of the things at which I am aiming.

Today's recipe is seitan. It is a popular mock meat made from wheat. It is a well known product among vegetarians and it is high in protein. You can find it in almost every healthy store, sometimes as the base ingredient for other commercial meat substitutes like sausages, etc.

Seitan is highly versatile as an ingredient and it taste so good, if you are planning to cut off some animal products from your diet, you can use it as your "meat-substitute" as it has a very similar texture to meat and it  is a vegetarian quality protein.

 If you like seitan and you have some spare time to invest in your kitchen, then probably it is worth for you to learn this recipe.

Seitan with "papas arrugadas" on a pumpkin-cream bed. 

Ingredients:

(For 250gr. approx.)
-1/2 kg of wheat flour.
-1/2 onion.
-2 garlic cloves.
-2 cm ginger root chopped.
-8 tablespoon of soya sauce.
-1 teaspoon of dry oregano.
-A piece of Kombu or another seaweed.
-1/2 teaspoon of dry ground garlic.
-A pinch of cumin.
-A pinch of smoked paprika.

Process:

Seitan is pure gluten (the main protein found in wheat). It is made primarily with wheat flour and in the process, we basically are going to separate the starch from the gluten, and we will aim to keep the last one.

The first thing we need to make is a dough by mixing and kneading wheat flour and water. Once the dough is done, place it in a bowl and cover it with water.

After the dough has been under water for at least two hours, we are going to start working it in the sink. Here start the process of separating the starch and the gluten. Place the bowl in the sink under the water tap and knead the dough into the bowl, letting all the starch (which will colour the water in white) come out. You must try to knead "compressing" the dough, this will allow the gluten to stick together while the starch dissolves and goes away. Change the water in the bowl a few times while you are working the dough, it will take some time until you clearly see that most part of the starch is gone and the remaining is a chew-gum-like sweet little monster.

This is the remaining gluten, our sweet little monster.


Next step is doing a broth where we are going to cook the gluten. This will give some consistence and flavour to our seitan.
 In a litter of boiling water add 4 tablespoon of soya sauce, the onion, the garlic cloves, ginger, oregano and seaweed. Feel free to be creative here and add whatever you think will give a nice flavour. 
Place the gluten inside and cook in a medium flame for 45 mins.

And there it is: your home-made seitan. Cut it in chunks or slices and marinate with 4 tablespoon of soya sauce, the spices and the dry garlic before you use and cook as you would do with  meat.


Enjoy!!