Chickpea seitan cutlets

A couple weeks ago, I tried out the recipe for seitan from my Veganomicon cookbook. In that post I said that I was also keen to make the chickpea cutlets which are apparently really good too. I finally bought some chickpeas and cooked these babies up. I served it up with a side of salad and a slice of the walnut and wholemeal loaf my friend bought for me yesterday when we went to the Coventry Markets in Morley. And there you have it, all the food groups have been included :)

Seitan cutlets and sweet onion sauce

While I was on holiday in Los Angeles at the end of last year, my wonderful cousin took my mum and I out to a vegan restaurant called Native Foods Cafe. It was my first time dining at a vegan restaurant and so I struggled big time trying to decide on what to order. After much umming and ahhing, I decided on a dish called the Soul Bowl (named so because it was hearty Southern style food). It was with this meal that I discovered a vegan meat substitute called seitan (say-tan), as well as the deliciousness of cornbread. 

On the counter were Native Foods cookbooks for sale, and like any newbie vegan willing to explore, I bought the book so that I could have more of this seitan which I had never heard of before that night. It turns out that seitan has been around for a while and there are many recipes using it in all the cookbooks I now own. 

Seitan is made from gluten flour. It has a similar texture to chicken and is more chewy than tofu and tempeh. I've only attempted to cook seitan tonight because I've been on a search of gluten flour since returning home from America at the beginning of January. In all of my recipe books, gluten flour is called gluten vital wheat flour and so I spent most of the time walking past the 'gluten flour' not knowing that it was what I needed.

I pulled out my trustworthy Veganomicon cookbook and used their simple seitan recipe. It was super quick and easy to make and I paired the 'meat' with a sweet onion sauce, also from the same cookbook. Since going vegan, I haven't missed eating meat, so I don't think I'll feel the need to cook this up all the time, but I have missed using a steak knife. 

The Veganomicon book also has a recipe for chickpea seitan cutlets which they say will "take over food blogs worldwide". Challenge accepted. We'll see just how good this recipe is, so watch this space.