Seitan "bratwurst" (and my generic seitan recipe)

What I made



We like seitan around here. Okay, all but wtfpotatoes -- she says it's evil. I mean, she eats it, because she's really not picky, but it disappoints her because it's not meat. But it's cheaper than meat, hits a lot of the same spots, texture-wise, and while it's highly refined, it's fairly benign nutritionally, so we have it probably a few times a month. sogwife says she could be vegetarian if there were always seitan available, so when she's going to be joining us for dinner, I know seitan is a good bet.

To make this particular sausage, I used the method from Everyday Dish, and searched the web for recipes for seitan bratwurst in order to decide which seasonings to use. I adjusted for ingredients I have on hand, but this method is SO flexible: change the seasonings about all you want, modify ingredients, etc. I just recommend that you keep the liquid to a little less (in volume) than the total dry ingredients. The "dough" for this should be a cohesive but not over-firm mass -- you can't go wrong if you follow Julie Hasson's instructional video.

Seitan Bratwurst

Dry ingredients:

2 1/4 cups vital wheat gluten
1/2 cup nutritional yeast flakes
1/4 cup chickpea flour
2 tbsp dried minced onion
1/2 tsp coarsely ground pepper, preferably freshly ground
2 tsp paprika
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp salt
1 tablespoon ground mustard
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar

Wet ingredients:

1 cup cool water
3 whole cloves garlic
2 tbsp soy sauce
12 ounces firm silken tofu

Combine dry ingredients. Blend wet ingredients until smooth. Add wet ingredients to dry and mix until completely combined. You can knead it for a minute to make it all come together, but it's not really necessary. Divide into 10 roughly equal pieces (for this batch, I broke off approximately-100-gram pieces) and roll each piece into a sausage shape. Place on a rectangle of foil (or parchment paper) and steam all the sausages for 30 minutes.



Cost Per Serving:

10 servings. Cost per serving isn't very high. The gluten and tofu for the whole batch was in the two-or-so-dollars range, and the price of everything else is negligible. So wild-ass-guess is around $0.30 per sausage? I have begun to compile a list of the prices of all the ingredients I buy, so I will start having much better (Bay Area) price references for you in the future.

How we liked it:

someotherguy: "We should have this again, but you should tweak the recipe. Maybe just fry it. It would taste even more like meat if you could find a way to put some fat in it."
serene: I liked it fine. Not more or less than any steamed seitan sausage I've made before, and it's way more trouble than my usual recipe, which is so simple I have it memorized. The method is the same as above, but here's the ingredient list, adapted somewhat (I think) from Jo Stepaniak's Vegan Vittles version:

Dry ingredients:

1.5 cups gluten
1 tsp. each granulated garlic and granulated onion
.25 cups nutritional yeast

1 cup water (or 1/2 water, 1/2 tomato juice, or some combination to make a cup of liquid)
3 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp olive oil, optional