Devil Meat
A little while ago, I bought a slow cooker for the first time. I also bought a selection of vegetarian slow cooker recipe books. One of these books kept mentioning seitan (pronounced say-TAN) and even had a recipe for making it from scratch. Apparently an alternative name for it is 'wheat meat'. I tried to make it and posted about the disgusting mess on an internet forum. Given the pronunciation of the name, it was christened 'Devil Meat'. We didn't like it too much at first, but it was ace in fajitas. I promised to make it again, this time documenting it. So here it is:The ingredients - wholemeal flour and water for the Devil Meat itself, and other ingredients for the stock to cook it in.
First things first: the stock goes into the slow cooker on high while I prepare the rest
1500g of wholemeal flour - I needed two bowls to hold it all. Adding the water...
The first sight of the dough.
After a vigorous kneading for ten minutes:
Now it goes back in the bowl, is covered with warm water and left for twenty minutes.
Now, you have to knead it again. Underwater. This releases the starch and bran, then you drain the water,
fill 'er up again and knead some more. You can see the difference between the kneaded bowl on the left
and the unkneaded bowl on the right.
This is the texture after five kneads - very sloppy and loose and squidgy between your fingers. *shivers*
And again after another few kneads - very very sloppy indeed
After ten or so kneads, the texture has changed again - it's much more together, and has
a terrifying organic kind of look...
...which gets worse with the next few kneads...
This is how much bran was exuded by the devil meat during the kneading process.
That's a dinner plate. Next time, I might just sieve the flour before I add the water...
Two bowls full of flour, and this is the final result - a rubbery, tasteless lump.
And, let's be honest, not much of a rubbery, tasteless lump at that...
Chopped into four for cooking...
...and here it is again after four hours on low.
Your final treat - a close up of a cross section through one of the pieces:
