Meeting seitan...

Monday morning meeting with seitan...

Met the great mysterious seitan today. It was quite the day devoted to making seitan and a variety of dishes with it so we could see its properties and how it can be used.

Why seitan? Is it a an alternative meat product used often in Asia in particular (called kofu in China) and used by most vegetarian restaurants. It is an excellent food for vegetarians as it is the richest source of vegetarian protein with 3 oz having 16-18 grams of protein, which is more protein than 3-4 eggs or a regular sized steak. Also, it is low in fat at 1%, very cheap to make, can keep to 5-7 days in water, and you can use it in a variety of ways.

So, what is seitan? Seitan is made up of gluten (whole wheat flour, unbleached white flour in the recipe that we tried), which is made made into a dough through the addition of cold water and kneaded for awhile. This dough is submerged in cold water, and kneaded in a colander under cold water to rinse out the starch and bran. The dough will end up being a rubbery texture and this is dropped by a large spoonfuls into a flavourful broth to simmer.

What can you make from seitan? The possibilities are endless but we made seitan bordelaise with a reduction, seitan burgers, seitan vegetable stews, grilled seitan kebabs over yellow rice, and sandwiches with fried seitan. My favourites were the bordelaise, burgers and kebabs.

Spending the night thinking of knives and cuts...

The evening was spent studying for a quiz on Tuesday on knives and cuts for vegetables like the julienne of 1/8x 1/8 x 2.5-3 inches, the brunoise of 1/8 x 1/8 x 1/8 inches, the batonnet of 1/4 x 1/4 x2.5-3 inches, the matchstick of 1/8 x 1/8 x 2.5-3 inches but with a Japanese cut at the ends vs. a straight edged French cut. We will use our brains for this quiz and our body, mind and spirit for the next tests we will have when we will be tested on these cuts and the end results.

What is amazing is that our teachers can teach and be making these cuts without even looking at their fingers, while the class cringes. Also the chef yesterday said she could feel the texture of food through her knife. That fascinated me. The knife being like an appendage. The only thing I can think about when cutting now is losing an appendage.