Wheat Gluten

Photo: flickr user avlxyz

Ingredients

5 pounds white flour

Preparation

Large bowls and colanderlarge container that can be sealed, hold liquids and small enough to fit in the fridge large microwave bowl for cooking 45 minute approx.

Microwave oven

Make a smooth dough in the evening. Fill the sealable container with cold water and place dough in it also. Seal this container and place it in the fridge over night.

Late next morning take the dough out and throw out the water. Put the dough in a large colander inside of a large bowl. Pour a stream of room temperature water over the dough as it is vigorously kneaded. Keep rinsing and kneading the dough in the water until all of the white wheat starch is washed away.

Place the wheat gluten which should have lost all white colour, into an open container for microwave cooking. The gluten should be strained of water as much as possible. Microwave the wheat gluten for 45 minutes or until it develops a somewhat hard skin on the top. The gluten should not be covered when cooking. It may rise as much as bread so make sure it has plenty of room.

After it is well cooked take it out and dump it upside down into another bowl and allowed to cool. After it is cool enough to handle it needs to be cut into bite size pieces. The bite size pieces can be refrigerated in a sealed container at least for a few days. Add some bite size pieces of cooked wheat gluten in with your favorite vegetable preparation.

Gluten is a protein and this makes a preparation more desirable. However, some people may have difficulty in digesting gluten. To remedy this use a small amount of chile as well as digestive aids like ginger and turmeric in your preparation. Also it is wise not to make the gluten the main meal. Since gluten is made from wheat it might be best to cut down on other wheat preparations in the meal.

Use soy sauce and nutritional yeast to add a cheese flavor to your preparation. Of course, you must account for the salt in the soy sauce. You may like to salvage the wheat starch that is washed away to uncover the gluten. If you have used good quality flour you may want to use this wheat starch for gravy and other preparations.

Serving Idea:Try sprinkling the small chunks of cooked gluten with soy sauce, olive oil, and which can also be mixed with nutritional yeast. This should be done before adding the chunks of wheat gluten to another vegetable preparation.

I like to prepare the small chunks of wheat gluten like this before covering them with "Ugma" a preparation I learned while living in the Hare Krsna temple. Your vegetable preparation should have enough juice to soak the chunks of wheat gluten. The chunks of wheat gluten will expand once soaked. I've noticed that olive oil tends to combine rather well with tomato sauce.