DIY Seitan (without using Vital Gluten Flour) - 2

Lysol:

This is my first post here so I apologize if this puzzle has been solved in another thread but I found this website by searching "How to make seitan like Ray's" and this thread became my source of inspiration in finally figuring out the mysterious secret to Ray's seitan. Shortly after my first visit to Horizon's (back when it was in Willow Grove) I became obsessed with this style of seitan. I never liked the dense, salty chunks you could buy at Whole Foods or the "mock meat" that you can get at Asian food stores. If you haven't had it, Ray's is other worldly. Being able to buy it locally when I lived in Philly, my experiments were never that focused but having since moved up to the LHV (where Ray's is located but the supply is surprisingly lack) and the prospect of moving even further to New Jersey, I knew that now was the time to figure this out. I am happy to report that I think that I've finally gotten it.

As previously stated, this is all about the method, not the ingredients. I've made this using only the ingredients listed on a container of Ray's and suggest that you add the majority of your flavor after cooking the seitan in the form of a marinade, rather than loading up your broth with a bunch of ingredients. I feel that the flavor is a lot more bold this way and you waste an awful lot less of the ingredients. This style of seitan is very porous and will take to a marinade much better than the stuff you might be used to. Anyway, here we go...

INGREDIENTS:

For seitan:

2 parts all-purpose flour
1 part water

For broth:

Water (enough to cover the top of your seitan)
Soy sauce (to taste)
Seaweed (I use nori because it's more readily available but Ray's uses kombu)
Sea salt (to taste)

UTENSILS:

Colander
Muslin or cheese cloth
Slow cooker
Pressure cooker

PROCESS:

This is a traditional washed seitan so if you've got that down, you can skip straight to Step #3.

1. Mix flour and water and kneed into a ball until it is a no longer sticky.
2. Begin washing the starch out of your dough. I find it easiest to do this in a colander with the spray attachment on my sink rather than using the bowl of water most methods call for. When you've washed out most of the starch and the water begins to run clear, you're ready to start forming the dough so that it will give the "shredded"-ness of Ray's. It's important to note that you shouldn't over-wash the dough. In the past I've had a tendency to wash the dough so it was practically stiff enough to eat without cooking. You want it to be tight but with a little give and still sort of "doughy." A good indicator is that the wash water runs hazy, not clear.
3. Now you're going to form the dough to give it the special characteristic of Ray's. If you've had it, this step will probably make more sense then the hack job I'm going to do describing it. Essentially, take the dough, while you're running it under cold water and sort of wrap it around your hand, then push it back into a ball, then hold it out and let it sort of sag down and then wrap it around your hand, push into a ball, let it sag, repeat. This will make more sense when you're actually doing it but essentially what you're trying to do is form layers to the ball of dough. Do this four or five times and you're good.
4. You're now ready to cook the seitan. Take the ball, wrap it in muslin with a little bit of room to breath and tie it up. The cheesecloth is a must. If you look at Ray's one side is kind of smooth where the other is shredded, the smooth side is formed by the cheesecloth. This also helps keep the seitan a little dense and not the fluffy, water-logged mess we've all experienced.
5. Seitan ball then goes into a slow cooker. Cover it with cold water, add a few pieces of seaweed, and soy sauce to taste. Put the lid on, set it to low and find something to do for six or so hours.
6. Fast forward six hours, take the seitan out, put it in a colander and run cold water over it. Open up the muslin and you're going to want to then start to pull apart the ball. Since the seitan is going to be hot still from the slow cooker, it's best to do this under a stream of running cold water as well. What's happening here is that since it was given a slow cook, the outside of the ball is going to be tight but the inside is still going be slightly dough-like and "stringy." Pull it apart into hap-hazard pieces. Don't try to be perfect with it. Pull off a steak or two, some smaller "nuggets", and of course all of the little scraps that you find at the bottom of a container of Ray's. As you're pulling it apart, if you've had Ray's, everything will make sense and you'll jump for joy that you've figured it out. If not, the best way I can describe it is to just make shredded little cutlets. The inside should be cooked enough that it will hold this shape and look just like Ray's but it's not quite ready for eating. If you taste it, it will taste like half cooked bread.
7. Take all of your pieces and shock them with some ice water. You're going to re-wrap them in the muslin cloth and cook them in a second step and the ice water shock will make sure that they don't reform into a ball or attach when you put them on top of each other in the muslin. Rewrap in muslin and tie it off.
8. Pressure cooker time! It seems that the balance here is slow, easy cooking at first and then fast, intense cooking to finish. The seitan already has its shape here, you just want to tighten it up so you can eat it and the pressure cooker is perfect for that. If you try and do a regular boil or steam it in this second cooking, it's going to expand and get fluffy and lose the shape that we've worked so hard to get. Using the same broth from the slow cooker, drop the muslin with your seitan pieces into the pressure cooker. Add some water if the top of the ball is not submerged. Lid goes on, turn it to med-high and wait for it to start blowing steam. Cook for 10-15 minutes or until the seitan has the right density.

You're done! I took my pieces and put them in a zip-lock with some tamari, crushed garlic cloves, and a fresh rosemary spring and let it sit in the fridge overnight. It was divine.

If you try this, I would love to hear success stories or thoughts to the contrary. I can't tell you how happy I was when I figured this out. I feel like I can finally leave the Philly area in peace. ; )

Update of finished product:

Last edited by Lysol (Mon 7/26/10 9:47 pm)

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