Simple Gluten Steaks

Some people call it seitan, and that’s fine too. But around here we’re simple folk and generally just call it what it is: gluten.

Gluten is not strictly an Adventist thing, but you’ll hardly go to a potluck where somebody hasn’t brought a pan of gluten steaks with gravy or gluten steaks in casserole or some other format. Some people even use the steaks on sandwiches.

I’ll be honest, I really don’t care as much for them as a steak as I like them cut up and used in other recipes, such as pepper steak (I’ll share a recipe for that next week) or other recipes where non-ground beef is called for such as fajitas or stew.

Gluten is high in tryptophan, as well, which makes it a good food for those who, like me, have bouts of depression. (But if you’re caeliac, of course that’s not an option and you’ll have to get your tryptophan other sources. Not to worry: there are many other ways to get your tryptophan. This is a topic for another post I’d like to write one day.)

This is the method my mother-in-law uses and they come out very tender and tasty made this way. Here’s what you need to make them:

3 cups water
3 cups high gluten flour (also known as vital wheat gluten or “do-pep”)
1 tbsp Vegeta or other seasonings according to preference
1 tbsp Kitchen Bouquet

In one bowl, pour 3 cups water and just enough Kitchen Bouquet to make the water a Coca-Cola brown (approximately 1 tbsp).

In a second bowl, put 3 cups gluten flour and Vegeta. Add in whatever other seasonings you prefer – steak spice, onion powder, etc.

Pour water into dry ingredients and mix thoroughly. Knead together and roll into a log. With a sharp knife, slice the log into patties, shaping them a little as needed.

Put patties into pot of boiling water and boil 30 minutes.

Place patties on a board or cloth to soak up excess moisture. Dip in a flour, salt, and steak spice blend to bread them and then pan fry.

Refrigerate or freeze until needed.

Bacon Crumbles

Bacon has a cult following. It’s kind of weird, but tremendously amusing. I myself have at least two friends who are bacon-obsessed, and I at one time was quite bacon-obsessed as well. Now while with the passage of time nothing could induce me to actually consume animal-derived bacon, I still have warm, fuzzy, fond, salty, savoury, crispy, delicious memories that float to my mind’s nose every time I hear the word BACON.

So, I mentioned Frontier Organic Bac’uns at one point in a past post. They are good. Delicious, in fact. But they can get kind of spendy if you eat tons of them, so here’s a recipe if you want to make bacon bits yourself. It’s great on baked potatoes, or on split pea soup (which is what I’m making at the time I’m writing this!), or just… straight out of the pan. Any way you use bacon bits you can use these.

1/2 c vital wheat gluten

2 T nutritional yeast

1 tsp pure maple syrup

2 T soy sauce (if you’re allergic to soy, try Maggi)

1 tsp Liquid Smoke

1 tsp ketchup

1 T oil

2 T water

Combine the gluten flour and nutritional yeast in a bowl. Stir in the remaining ingredients. Crumble with your finger tips and then fry over medium heat in a little oil until browned.

I fried them a little bit and then crumbled them into smaller crumbles (closer to regular bacon bit size) and fried them a little more. You can have them as big or small as you like. If you leave them big, just cook them longer or you’ll have kind of gooey “bacon”, and BACON SHOULD NOT BE GOOEY.