Chicken-style Seitan Cutlets (Ch-eitan)

Thank goodness I printed this recipe out looong ago. The original comes from Joanna, who lost all of her recipes recently, and I think this is one of them that disappeared into the ether. I’m posting it now, because before, I just had a link to Joanna’s site. Without it there, I fear these slices of wonderful will be lost forever.

Turns out this is my absolute favorite quick seitan recipe! I use it for many, many dishes: chikin ‘n’ fauxsage gumbo, chikin marsala, breaded chikin ‘n’ gravy, stir-fry, salad topping, and on and on and on. I’ll be using these babies later today in a Martha Stewart Entree I’m veganizing. So if you want to follow along, this comes first.

Joanna Voight’s Chicken-style Seitan Cutlets (Ch-eitan)
1 Bouquet Garni (see below)
2 1/4 c. vital wheat gluten
1/2 c. flour or chickpea flour
1/4 c. nutritional yeast
1 Tbsp. onion powder
1 tsp. salt
pinch freshly ground black pepper
2 c. cold water
2 Tbsp. grapeseed or light olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced

Prepare a Bouquet Garni with a couple bay leaves, a few sprigs of parsley, sage, thyme, oregano, and/or rosemary. Either tie together or put in tea bag or cheesecloth. Place in pot with about 2 quarts of cold water.

Combine vital wheat gluten, flour or chickpea flour, nutritional yeast, onion powder, salt, and black pepper in large bowl. In a large measuring cup, combine water, oil, and garlic. Pour wet ingredients into dry and mix well, then knead gently until seitan dough is uniform and homogenous.

Between two sheets of parchment paper (or use a Ziploc bag), roll out a golf ball sized piece of dough as thinly as possible. Once rolled thin, slip it into the cold broth and repeat with remaining dough.

Once all cutlets are in the pot, allow them to sit in the cold water for 10 minutes. Then, bring the water to a gentle boil, reduce to a low simmer, cover, and allow seitan to cook for an hour (the cutlets will float to the top).

Remove from heat and allow cutlets to cool in water for about 30 minutes. Transfer to a container with the broth and refrigerate until ready to use. Although safe to eat raw, they’re much better seasoned and cooked in your favorite recipes.

Roll, roll, roll your dough

Shy away from rolling dough because you hate the idea of throwing flour all over your counter, and you just don’t like messes (me!)? Maybe you like baking all the more when things are made easier (me!). That’s when you use this completely brilliant dough-rolling technique I learned from my cookie testing experiences. This technique is so genius, you’ll never, ever go back to rolling dough any other way. Thanks to Garrick and Kelly for choosing me as a recipe tester and for sharing their complete genius with me. I love y’all for it.

Technique: Place dough in one-gallon zip-top plastic bag. Close top. Begin rolling dough, until bag is full and dough extends to all edges. Push air out through small opening at top of bag. Reclose bag and store in refrigerator or freezer until ready to use. When ready, cut plastic bag away from dough along edges.

Result: Uniformly thick dough in perfect, square shape.

Clean-up: None.