Seitan Part Two

I was expressing my love for this wheat gluten called Seitan in a previous post, and since then, I found out that it is now sold at Superstore (St. James location) in a can for $2.19 for 284g. I mentioned before how you can pick this diverse product at Organza for $5.69 for 225g but the Superstore deal is by far, better. And to be honest, Organza does not always have this product in stock and that is not the case for Superstore.  I prefer to support a smaller local business but, when it comes to me working with a tight budget, unfortunately, i'll have to say that Superstore will win this battle. 

The brand is called Companion and it's called Cha'i -Pow-Yu/ Braised Gluten Tidbits which can be found in the ethnic foods aisle. 

Since it's getting a little cold around here (fall has officially shown up- hopefully it hangs around longer than spring did) last weekend, I was in the mood for soup. I discovered a wonton soup from my vegan yum yum cookbook a couple years ago and it quickly became one of my favourites. Too bad it's so labour intensive which is why when I make the wontons specifically, it occupies my entire afternoon so that I can make a little supply. Unfortunately, it only lasts M. and I two meals instead of the intended four.  

This is a vegan friendly recipe and, conveniently, you can also find vegan wonton wrappers from Superstore. 

Here are all the ingredients I needed:

Broccoli, Tamari, Dijon, Seitan (2 cans), fresh ginger, wonton wraps and hot sauce.

First, I needed to drain the 'wheat meat' and grind it up in a food processor. 

In a large sauce pan I sauteed the grounded up Seitan, cut up broccoli and fresh minced ginger.

Once the broccoli turned bright green I transferred it to a large mixing bowl and I added some tamari and mustard. With Seitan you don't need to cook it since there is nothing that technically needs to be cooked. It's a pretty quick process. 

As I mentioned before, it's quite the labour intensive process making the wontons, and it literally takes close to three hours. I always set up a little station for me when I make these so that's it's a quicker and more efficient process. The Seitan mix is shown on the top right, with some water to its left to seal the wontons and the wonton wraps to my left. There is also my laptop set up showing Gilmore Girls to keep me entertained. :)

To make the wontons, you first take a wonton wrap and put the mixture in the centre of it. By using your finger, you dip your finger in water and smear it on all sides of the wonton... 

You then make a triangle to seal the mixture inside while trying to get rid of all of the air pockets because air pockets mean that the wonton is more prone to rip open when it's in the broth.  

You then fold both corners over and press hard to seal it with more water.

Final product!

And all of its brothers and sisters... 

On to the broth...

This is a mixture of water, tamari, rice vinegar, mirin and slices of ginger simmering for 30 minutes to get the flavour of the ginger out. 

I added chopped spinach and some of the completed wontons. You know that the wontons are ready when they become transparent which takes no more than 2 minutes. The spinach will have wilted by then.

The broth is flavourful and light and perfect for when you bite into these wontons, and it hits you with intense flavours of mustard and ginger. It's delightful.  If only those little buggers didn't take almost 3 hours for 60 of them to be made (believe me your back gets soar and you need to take breaks!) M. and I would probably have this soup at least twice a week during the winter.

If you are interested in trying out this soup, go to your local library and pick up Vegan Yum Yum. I'd post it, but, you know, those pesky copyright laws!