Italian seitan links

Seitan take 4.

I’ve documented my seitan adventures in three other posts (sauerkraut and vegetarian barbecue, vegetarian noodle bowl with seitan and seitan refined).   I have a short list of what I want out of this refined seitan project:

– more firm texture

– more italian style seasoning infused into the seitan

– sausage “link” shape

– increased salt flavor in the seitan

With these needs in mind, I added a ton of spices to the dry wheat gluten.  I also ground the spices up in a mortar and pestle.  Oregano, basil, marjoram, salt, pepper, fennel seeds, and chipotle pepper (for smoke and heat) were my spices of choice.  Do your own darn thing.

I was hoping that the small pieces of spice would just absorb into the tissue of the seitan.  And I remembered that the whole fennel seeds in the last seitan experiment seemed to cut up the gluten strands.

I had seen an Australian youtube video where the cook wrapped the seitan loaf in some cloth to help shape it into a particular form.  So I chopped up a couple of old pillow cases (well washed).  I pressed the cut chunks of kneaded seitan into logs and then wrapped them tightly and tied off between each link.

I cooked the wrapped sietan links for about 45 minutes in stock that was just short of boiling.

RESULTS:

The addition of ground up spices seems to have flavored up the seitan.   Kneading the seitan until quite firm seems to have toughened up the dough and the final project.  Within a few seconds I could see that the cloth wrapping was billowing around . . . I think I could have just dumped the links into the broth without bothering to use the cloth.  I also had mild chemical fears about halfway through the process . . . afraid that some dye would get into my food.

Next time I’m going to knead even more and increase the salt in the broth.

But it is pretty dang good.  And nice to have vegetarian Italian sausage hanging around for meal prep.

Keep eating and experimenting party people!