Seitan Bake part one

::rough draft version::

So, I've been thinking about mock meats for the SCA cook. There are plenty of Lenten recipes and so forth in period cookery, but once you cross to veganism or vegetarianism, the substitution of fish for beef is no longer a possibility.

There are no "meat analogues" in western Euro cookery before 1601, as far as I know. One could speculate on the use of certain vegetables or nuts or fungi as part of a meatless medieval diet, but I have not noticed anything that describes such a use. In eastern cuisine, meat analogues come into wide use with the spread of Buddhism. Pre-1601, both tofu and seitan are used in various Oriental cuisines specifically as meat replacements. Thus, both of these substitutes, while not in use in Europe at this time, do exist in cookery in our time period for the purpose of replacing meat. If you wish to use a meat analogue to create a vegetarian version of a beef/chicken/pork/lamb/fish dish, these would be a good choice.

I, myself, enjoy meat analogues, and find that they are very nice forserving as the source of chewiness when experimenting with sauces. However, tofu is something I rarely eat because of the effect of unfermented soy on my body. The primary fermented soy-based analogue, tempeh, does not appear in any written records before the 19th century.

Seitan, however, is a wheat based meat analogue believed to have originated in ancient China, AND it is easily made by the home cook.

So, for my first medievaloid mock meat, I decided to alter Joanna Vaught's standard seitan recipe with the typical spice profile as usually found in medieval sauces. Out with the veggie broth, nutritional yeast, and so forth, and in with a red wine sangria, cloves, cinnamon, ginger, & long pepper.

One reason I particularly like Joanna's base recipe is because she adulterates the traditional 100% vital wheat gluten (VWG) recipe with Bob's Red Mills chickpea/fava bean flour. Any Scadian cook worth her salt knows that these two legumes are proven period, and most nutritionists still recommend the practice of complementary protiens. The VWG plus the legume flour works to create such an improved product while still staying in that pre-1601 range we love so well.

But after that, it's all in your spices. I used sangria and olive oil for the wet ingrediants, VWG, chickpea flour, and the above mentioned spices for the dry mixture, blended it all together, rolled it into sausage shapes, and steamed it in the rice cooker for an hour.

And what flavor sensation did I get out of the pot?

Something that tasted remarkably like unsweetened cinnamon bread.

:sigh:

Well, I certainly did not expect it to taste like beef or pork, but I was hoping the wine would give it a little more of a stewed flavor. And, too, I know that basic seitan like thise is a first step.

So, now, I have to decide what sort of second flavoring treatment I am going to give it. I've got a texture and a flavor profile that should work with many a medieval meat recipe... Now to see how it subs in.