Friday, October 16, 2009

The Vegetarian Wheat Meat

I'm familiar with Chicken Cacciatore, which roughly translates as "hunter-style chicken", containing tomatoes, onions, mushrooms, and bell pepper. However, when I was filling my lunch plate from the hot foods bar at Whole Foods today, next to the baked fish and beef fajitas, there was something I'd never seen before...Seitan Cacciatore.

I guessed that seitan was some type of vegetarian protein. The dish was attractive-along with small pieces of a brownish-looking substance I assumed was the seitan, there were big chunks of tomatoes, red peppers, and onions swimming in a red sauce. I'll try anything once, so I put a bit of the cacciatore on my plate along with my other foods. I paid for my lunch, sat at a table, and dug in. Much to my surprise, the seitan was not just ok, it was good; it was denser than tofu, with an interesting chewy texture. I had to know exactly what it was, so I came home and did a little Web research.

Turns out this is definitely an ingredient you want to avoid if you have a gluten sensitivity. Seitan (pronounced say-tahn) is an alternative to soy-based meat substitutes like tofu. According to Wikipedia:
Wheat gluten, also called seitan, wheat meat, gluten meat, or simply gluten, is a food made from the gluten of wheat. It is made by washing wheat flour dough with water until all the starch dissolves, leaving insoluble gluten as an elastic mass which is then cooked before being eaten.
Seitan was first developed in China several centuries ago, and is now often used instead of meat in Asian, Buddhist, vegetarian, and macrobiotic cuisines. Like tofu, it doesn't have much taste on its own, but can pick up the flavors of the foods with which it is cooked. Based on today's experience, I'd agree with that assessment. I'd definitely eat seitan again.

8 comments:

  1. Very interesting. I have never heard of this before. I'll look for it next time I visit the Whole Foods in CA.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Never heard of it either. Very interesting!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sounds like we ALL learned something today!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I have cooked with seitan since I have a vegan daughter. I battered and fried it much like chicken. Whole Foods has quite a selection.

    ReplyDelete
  5. In my opinion, ANYTHING that's battered and fried would be good!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I made a gumbo with a meat subsitute the other night. Not bad. The okra is not something I really like, so I won't make it again, but the chicken "tenders" were not bad. I think they may have been seitan because it was not a soy-based product.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Laura (me) says... use tvp it comes in chicken... tvp...is gluten free...it is a soy based item that looks like dried dog food..took me years to buy...but all the great vegetarian restarants use and it is expensive there...TVP is cheap and you put it in hot water and 15 minutes later...yummy
    you can use tvp fpr this recipe

    ReplyDelete
  8. Wheat meat! I had way too many bad experiences with seitan when I was living @ university and as a result, I can't stand it. I'm a vegetarian, but I don't really eat many of these meat substitutes.

    ReplyDelete