Southern Fried Seitan Chickn' Pieces. Vegan! Homemade! Easy!

Today we decided to make homemade Seitan.
We've seen this mock 'meat' everywhere; it has become very popular in vegetarian and vegan eateries. It almost has a cult following, hail seitan, haha!

I looked at multiple recipes and what we had in our cupboards and put the below together. The only ingredient we did not have was vital wheat gluten. This is essential for the method we are using to make seitan. (Alternatively you can make this with a bag of strong white flour, I may try that next time, vital wheat gluten is a 75% protein flour). We picked up a 500g bag from a whole food/Vegan store for £2.49. 

It took about 35 minutes start to finish to make the below chickn' pieces. It was a very simple process with three stages; 1. Make and bake the chickn', 2. Prepare the batter and breadcrumbs, 3. Shallow fry and eat! Please see our recipe below.

Ingredients

Chickn mix

• 125g Vital wheat gluten
• 2 Tbsp Nutritional yeast
• 2 Tsp Onion powder
• 2 Tsp Garlic powder
• 1 Tsp Salt
• 1 Tsp pepper
• 1 Tbsp Light Soy sauce
• 1 Tbsp Chicken seasoning spice mix (vegan blend of spices)
• 160ml Vegetable stock

Coating

• 125g Plain flour
• 2 Tbsp Paprika
• 1 Tsp Garlic Powder
• 1/4 tsp Hot chilli powder
• 2 Tsp Oregano
• 1 Tbsp Chicken seasoning spice mix (vegan blend of spices)
• 100ml Almond milk (or sub for any milk)
• 1 tub of bread crumbs (we used about half, depends on size of chickn pieces)

Method

1. Pre heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. 
2. Measure and mix the dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl.
3. Add the Vegetable stock gradually until the mixture has formed a firm elastic dough, add more stock if needed.
4. Portion the dough into the desired size pieces. We tore the dough into 10 rough pieces, use smaller pieces for bite size chickn' or larger for burger shapes.
5. Bake on greaseproof paper for 12 minutes. If your shapes are larger or smaller adjust the time accordingly. The pieces should start to brown.
6. Place pieces on wire rack to cool
7. Prepare the batter. Mix the dry ingredients with exception to the bread crumbs in a bowl. Add the almond milk to make a thick batter. If desired add more milk for a thinner batter.
8. Fill a second bowl with bread crumbs.
9. Once the chickn' has cooled add a piece to the batter mix. Cover thoroughly and add to bread crumbs and coat completely. Repeat until each seitan piece is battered
10. Shallow fry, turning often until golden brown. It took around 10 -12 minutes, adjust time accordingly.
11. Place on kitchen towel to absorb excess fat and to cool slightly.
12. Enjoy!

We ate our portions in wraps with lettuce and vegan mayonnaise. They would go very well with any usual fried chickn' sides though.

I hope you enjoy this recipe, please let me know in the comments how it turned out.

Solstice