Seitan is made of wheat gluten and it's a kind of 'Marmite' addition to a vegan cook's repertoire. We seem to love it or hate it! Obviously it's not good for coeliacs to eat, but as I'm fortunate not to suffer in that regard, I wanted to explore its potential. I'd not had much success with premade commercial Seitan in the past - too dry & bland - so wondered if making it myself might be the answer ... ?
I didn't go all out from scratch for this first attempt, instead choosing a couple of Praise Seitan UK kits from Etsy. I bought Italian Sausage flavour and Chicken Tikka flavour packs for £5 each and only needed 1/2 of one kit to make enough seitan for two good portions.
The seitan kit is a dry powder mix of wheat gluten, herbs and spices. I measured out 1/2 the pack and mixed it with cold water (as per the pack instructions). The powder turned into a pliable dough which I kneaded for a few minutes, feeling its consistency becoming more elastic and denser as I did so. It's quite a strange texture. Kind of like bread dough, but more springy. (I actually made 2 batches before writing this up. The kit contained a pouch of Piri Piri seasoning which should have been added later in the process. For my 1st attempt I followed instructions, but 2nd time around I added the Piri Piri with the powder mix which I felt worked better.)
After a few minutes kneading and five minutes rest (for the seitan and me!), I cut the seitan into three even(ish) pieces and rolled them to sausage shapes with my hands. The seitan was a little sticky and I found it helpful to quickly rinse my hands in cool water before starting. The seitan stuck less to wet skin.
The next step was to wrap each sausage in foil (shiny side inwards). They need to be wrapped securely enough that steam won't get in, but loosely enough that each sausage can nearly double in size. My new-to-me rice cooker has a steamer basket so it nicely doubles up as a small steamer. You could also use a colander over a saucepan of boiling water. Either way, the foil-wrapped sausages needed to steam for about 30 minutes.
A cautionary tip: Don't be too eager to unwrap the foil straight from steaming. Steam is hot! You can see the top sausage in this picture is a bit wonky. This is because I wrapped it too tightly in not-enough foil so it unwrapped itself during steaming. It wasn't ruined, but the texture was a little dry on the side that had opened. Second time around I made four sausages and steamed them wrapped in pairs which was successful. I left the sausages to cool and popped them in the fridge overnight as this helps their flavour to develop. You could go straight ahead to the next step though.
Next day, shortly before dinner time, I took the sausages out of the fridge and rolled them in the Piri Piri seasoning I mentioned earlier. This didn't really work because there was nothing for the spice blend to adhere to. Most of it ended up in the frying oil so I filled out the pan with strips of fresh, local purple sprouting broccoli and had Piri Piri broccoli instead (which was nice enough!) I fried the seitan sausages in a little rapeseed oil over a medium-low heat for about ten minutes, turning them frequently. They were quite large and densely textured so it took them a while to get piping hot all the way through and I didn't want the outsides to burn in the meantime.
Two sausages turned out to be plenty, especially as I served them up with purple sprouting broccoli, new potatoes and a dollop of vegan mayonnaise. The sausages looked pretty good and had a nice aroma. They also had a pleasant herby flavour but, I admit, after all that effort I was a bit disappointed by their texture. I'm used to juicy Cumberland or Lincolnshire-style vegan sausages and these seitan ones were too dry by comparison. My meal was nice enough, but it wasn't the earth-stopping triumph I had hoped for. (The story doesn't end with this meal though!)
Spot the difference with this seitan sausage serving suggestion? This meal is made with the second seitan batch. After the overnight refrigeration stage, I sliced two sausages into 1/2cm thick discs and cooked them in a rich tomato pasta sauce. I boiled up spaghetti separately and then mixed the pasta with the tomato sauce and sausage slices, topping my dish with a scattering of mixed seeds. What a difference this cooking method made! The seitan was now juicy and just-a-little chewy which provided a nice texture combination against the soft pasta and the crunchy seeds. Its flavour really complemented the tomato sauce. Seitan sausage pasta was the flavourful triumph for which I had hoped!
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