Not-so-spicey Italian Sausages

I haven't made seitan lately, so I decided to jump back into it with a Spicy Italian Seitan Sausage recipe from the internet. I am pretty sure that if you search for those key words you too can find this recipe (or one similar!).

Some necessary and perhaps predictable ingredients include: vital wheat gluten, nutritional yeast, flour, soy sauce and water.

Some fun ingredients include: paprika, chili flakes, fresh minced garlic and ground allspice.

Smoked Apple Sage sausage

Not too long ago I declared that the best veggie sausage in the market is made by Field Roast. I still think this is true, but I no longer feel like I'll spend so much money on them because I can make them at home! In true form, I constructed a recipe from multiple online sources so that I could pick and choose which ingredients I wanted (read: had) and which I didn't.

The dominant flavors were these:

Fresh Braeburn apple
Rubbed sage leaf
Liquid hickory smoke

Ohter things that my delicate palate may or may not have been able to taste: cayenne pepper, sea salt, ground pepper, thyme, Tamari soy sauce, garlic

The end result was firm, flavorful and fun to look at! They tasted great with Patatas Bravas, in a sammie with veggies and all by themselves (browned in a little olive oil).

After getting to know a little about gluten and how it behaves, I am excited to experiment. Once the liquid to vital wheat gluten ratio is set up, the seasonings seem limitless. Any ideas on good sausage flavors out there? Spicey Italian is one I always like. Perhaps something with orange?

Seitan: the wheat meat

(You might want to sit down for this post, it's a long one)

Seitan is one of a handful of mock-meats that can be interchanged easily for meat in a recipe. I find it desirable because of its density and texture, which sets it apart from tofu which can be softer and more fragile. Seitan is just wheat gluten that is seasoned and cooked. It's made by washing away the starch of wheat flour with water until just the insoluble, elastic gluten is left. It is often hidden as a thickener in your food and you don't even think of it (I'm looking at you ice cream!).

In my world, Seitan takes a back seat to more accessible, less expensive, and more healthful meat substitutes like tempeh and tofu. Even the biggest grocery chains carry tofu readily. And I hesitate using the word "substitutes" because I am not looking for seitan to replace the void of a piece of meat. I appreciate seitan, for what it is, how it tastes and how it can be used in different recipes; not because of how closely it comes to beef.