Seitan Vegetarian Rolls

Photo: Anu Menon

Ingredients

5 cups Wheat flour-

Water- just enough to make a tight dough

Loads of water

For the gravy/filling:

1 cup Onion- finely chopped (Optional)

2 cups Zucchini-- sliced any way you want

Salt and Pepper to taste

Sauce:

2 teaspoons White vinegar-

2 teaspoons Soy sauce-

2 teaspoons Tomato Ketchup-

1 teaspoon Brown Sugar-

Preparation

I made a soft dough with the durum wheat flour and water. The texture should be such that when you press into the dough it bounces back(sufficient elasticity). This took me about 15 minutes of rigorous kneading. I used a huge glass bowl for kneading so that i could fill it up with enough water to submerge the dough for the night. This is called resting. Basically once you knead the dough you fill up the vessel with cold water and make sure the dough is completely submerged and leave it this way overnight(around 6-7 hours).

Once rested the dough is ready to be worked on. You will see that the dough has loosened up quite a bit so knead it well and you will see the starch coming out of the dough in the form of a white/milky paste. Get rid of the excess water. Add new water and continue the process. Another way to do this is to use a colander and knead under cold running water. Initially during the kneading process the dough will start to fall apart so don’t worry just continue the process till the rinsed water is clean. Do this till all you are left is a springy, stretchy mass of gluten. It took me about 30 minutes but that was because i wasn’t making much - just enough for the ‘seitan rolls’…

What I then did was pull and separate the mass into 2” size pieces. I heated some oil in a pan and fried the gluten/seitan till it was done all over. I poured some soy sauce over it and let it absorb the flavor. You can do it the other way too. Marinate the pieces in soy sauce and then fry. This is a good snack to have jlt. Just to complicate things further I decided to go ahead and make a curry out of it and then I saw the spring rolls s kin and finally decided to make ‘prawn wraps’ to scare(read surprise) my (R)oomie.

Heat some oil in a wok and add onion(optional) and zucchini and toss around for a bit. Add some salt and pepper.Saute for a bit till the zucchini is done. Now add the sauce and let it simmer for about 5 minutes. Add the fried and soy soaked gluten or the marinated and fried gluten to the mixture and let cook for about 7-8 minutes on medium high. Add a cup of vegetable broth or water if you like to have it as gravy. Take off heat and keep aside to cool.

Pass the spring rolls skin in water for about 5-10 seconds and spread out on an even surface. Put a bit of the ‘prawn’ gravy and roll up and make sure it doesn’t spill. Or just have the gravy with rice.

The chewy texture had a feel of chicken/prawn and it looked like baby prawn to me.

But just to clarify, this is VEGAN - 100% made from scratch, at home, by moi!