Chicken Seitan

The seitan is much less 'spongey' if you put the seitan in cold broth and then bring it up to a simmer instead of dropping it in boiling broth.

As far as seitan goes this is pretty good. I have tried to make seitan a few times and this was definitely the best one I've tried (easy and similar in taste to the store-bought kind. I didn't use the dashi kombu because I live in a rural area that doesn't sell it; it still turned out pretty good.

I've always baked my seitan in the oven because boiling it always seemed wrong to me, but I thought I'd give this a try since everyone seemed to like it... Suffice it to say I'm glad I halved the recipe first. The end product was spongey and SO salty. The flavor wouldn't have been bad had it not been so salty, but the texture was just not good at all.

I've made seitan a few different ways (baked, steamed and wrapped in cheesecloth then simmered) but I've never made it by dropping it directly in simmering broth as in this recipe and I don't think I will again. I knew seitan expanded as it cooked but this absolutely exploded in size. There was already too much liquid in the dough itself. As I was needing it I squeezed out at least 1/4 cup. Then the simmering added even more liquid to the chunks. I wasn't crazy about the spongy texture once it was done cooking so I squeezed out as much liquid as I could. It came to almost 2 cups. And even though I added extra seasoning and some vegetarian chicken broth powder to both the dough and broth it was still very bland in flavor. I didn't add the kombu (not available around here) but I can't imagine that would have improved the flavor that much. I will use the seitan I made but I don't think I will make this recipe again.

As one reviewer mentioned already, this does have a much spongier texture than the seitan recipe I was used to working with, but I rather like that, especially for vegetarian chicken salad recipes. I prefer to use the chewier texture for things like stews and casseroles.

I will say that it had excellent flavor, it soaked up so much into it. However, it came out very spongey, not quite seitan. I will try a second batch another time and see how that on fairs.

This turned out very tasty -- I was quite pleased by the flavour. I look forward to making this again.

this was wonderful! my partner absolutely loved it!

Very good!