Seitan is the miracle food! It's cheap, easy to make, and very good for a high protein, low fat and carb diet. It's also versatile in cooking as a meat replacement. If you've made matzo balls before this shouldn't be too weird to follow --- it's basically a dough cooked in soup.
Vital wheat gluten - 312 grams (2.5 cups)
Chickpeas - 1 x can
Stock - vegetable
Soy sauce
Boiling water
Garlic powder
Onion powder
Ginger powder
Celery salt
Paprika
Nutritional yeast flakes
Pinch of baking powder
Dough
Broth
1. Mix dry ingredients in a bowl
2. Blend can of chickpeas, and add to mix.
3. Get your hands dirty! Massage the blended chickpeas into the dry mix. Quickly you will have a clump of wet material in the middle, and some dry powder around the outside. Add a few dashes of soy sauce and keep mixing. If the mix is ever not binding, add a small dash of water and massage until wet through.
4. Knead for five minutes until the gluten's activated and the dough is dense and bouncy. Leave for five minutes.
5. In a large pot, mix boiling water, stock, soy sauce, and honestly any spices you want. This is for the broth that cooks the dough so any flavour you can add is helpful. I've added coriander seeds, garam masala, turmeric, and all of the dry ingredients used in the dough before.
6. Get the dough out of the bowl and cut it in half.
7. Cut 2-3 cm slices out of each half
8. Add to the broth and boil for 45 minutes. At some points the seitan might float up to the top and want to escape. You can overcome this --- push it back down! Take a piece out and taste at the 45 minute mark, making sure it's springy but not coming apart. The longer you cook it the denser and juicier it gets, but at a certain point it can become chewy.
Drain and put pieces in a storage container. Seitan will last for about a week in the fridge, and six months or so in the freezer.