They are not even meat.
Yes, you guys got the right Blog.
Yes, it is me, Fimbulmyrk. ☺️
The magic troll, in her usual awesomeness, had made some Seitan. Now do not get me wrong. I have some really big questions concerning veganistic mindsets, as in contrast to vegan food. Some years ago the WHO demanded to substitute every food with surrogates, slowly removing vitamins from daily victualies, and that, while understandeable in the context of ever decreasing Vitamin content in plant-based food, together with claims by the then Monsanto Corporation, now a part of the German Bayer Corporation to dominate the food market with genetically manipulated crop seeds and thusly reaching World dominion (no joke) made me a bit suspicious of buying surrogates, so to say.
Now do not get me wrong again. I do not buy into any world conspiracy theories and please do not quote old uncle Fimbulmyrk. It is highly probable, but I really have no evidence either. I am deeply suspicious of any hooray about veganism is all. But I am deeply suspicious of any conspiracy theory as well.
The soy and surrogates food industry takes up nearly as much space as the breeding of lifestock. If you want to do good (and have a tasty meal), buy locally, support small farming businesses, period.
Anyway, for the aforementioned reasons I always was a bit reluctant to try surrogates. Also, I did not quite get the point. If I do not want to eat meat, I simply do not eat meat. ☺️
Now the magic troll, who is an absolute food conoisseur, and, truth be told, so little of a vegan that she gets the golden Patty of honour for veganists on Facebook unfriending her 😁❤️😈, made vegan food and liked it.
Truth be told, we both are fascinated with all things alchemy, and that Seitan stuff triggered our fondness hard. Also it is dead simple to make, can be made with few and organic ingredients and is rich with protein.
It is not suited for people with an adversion to Gluten. Because that is what it is.
You make a stiff dough of wheat meal and water and knead it hard for some 20 minutes. Then cover with cold water, let it rest (I left mine over night) and then, by adding more meal, add some stiffness back to it and then knead out all the starch. Well, you might not get out all of it, but it does not matter. Cook it for some twenty minutes, then press out most of the water with a cheese cloth or something like that. After that, tear it into strings and knead the strings onto each other several times. It will then very much resemble chicken meat.
Since I am not a vegan, I put smoked sprout heads and tails into strong vinegar together with salt for a fast Garum which, when used sparsely, adds a nice Umami flavour. I also experimented with fried tomato concentrate with fried wild garlic, roasted nettle seeds. Knead it well in.
I ate it with fried nettle leaves, fresh wild garlic and tomatoes, fried walnuts with fried nettle, lesser celandine, wild garlic and ground elder. You can also use chicken spice to make it more chicken - like. Actually it can taste very much like chicken with only a tiny hint of meal flavour. The more Umami you add, the less distinguisheable it becomes from real meat.
For me, it is poverty food, because those steaks cost me from 0.3-0.8€for a whole meal. I also want to try and make "hunger pills" from Seitan.
Actually, I will not stop eating meat, of course. But good vegan food is indeed possible. ☺️ ❤️
