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oh, goodness! My first reaction was, "What? You can MAKE seitan?" I have to admit that I always kinda thought it was an invention of the modern vegetarian industry. So exciting!

I intend to try the version in Veganomicon , and bought some vital wheat gluten to do so. But I'd love to hear from folks who've done it before, particularly those who still or until very recently ate meat. I'm looking for a good, versatile, chewy alternative to meat for stir fries, etc. Tried tempeh and found it inedible.

I did try the chickpea cutlets from Veganomicon, which seemed to have some parallels to seitan (involved kneading a mixture of ground chickpeas with vital wheat gluten), but we found it unpleasantly mushy/pasty. I hope that seitan is neither.

I just found a very easy recipe for seitan that requires minimal kneading, and you don't have to wash the dough under water to expose the gluten. You can use a mixer, and then bake it in a bain marie (giant hot water bath). It is from the Real Food Daily cookbook.
http://www.realfood.com/cookbook.htm
We made the RFD's recipe for Salisbury Seitan, and it came out great!

I wrote about my go-to seitan recipe here: http://cheaphealthygood.blogspot.com/2008/07/city-kitchen-chronicles-make-your-own.html

It gives you something vaguely pepperoni-ish, depending on how you flavor it, but very versitile and it's super easy. It's baked rather than boiled, so the flavor comes from ingredients rather than broth. Great stuff!

I had no idea, I always thought it was another soy product.

The chickpea cutlets from veganomican had a really strange consistency. Not sure if the mixing of beans and gluten caused the odd texture. I fried these, I may try them again and bake them.

I really love the veggeroni from fatfree vegan kitchen and make that several times a month, plus vegan sausages have worked well for me.

I've gotten really good at making seitan. Just FYI, the PPK recipe is much faster than the Native Foods recipe.

I have no patience for kneading, so I use a "no-knead" recipe, but if you have a bread machine, you're good to go. Just remember to boil it instead of baking it in the machine!

Here is a link to the seitan that we use at the community dinner I co-host http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=373017901&blogID=394052611

It's pretty easy once you've given it a practice run. We season it all sorts of different ways and have found it to be very versatile and this makes a decent amount. Feel free to send questions to the myspace (myspace.com/denvegancommunitydinner) if you need help making it!

Growing up, my dad would often make "gluten," as he called it. He let me do a lot of the washing and kneading ('cuz it looked like a lot of fun). He prided himself in a texture that wasn't dense and chewy--analogous to how you like air pockets in bread. This also allowed the gluten to soak in a lot of the flavor. One tricks of his was to pressure cook the gluten, instead of simmering. I don't remember times or exact recipes, but I can remember much of went into his "broth": soy sauce, onion, garlic, black peppercorn, bay leaf, and vegetable oil. He'd usually put it into a dish as a meat substitute (which we also ate), but when it came out of the pressure cooker, we could never resist eating it plain with some steamed white rice. Yum!

I've made seitan using the Candle Cafe cookbook. Very labor intensive but delicious. I do think the flavor of home-made seitan rivals store-bought--and it's MUCH MUCH cheaper to do it at home.

the "satan" of plum village was made from scratch and still quite rubbery/dense. I'd love to have your friend's recipe to try out.

duh, I didn't read far enough and see you did provide recipe links.

I have made it from vital wheat gluten before. Seasoned, breaded, and fried, it makes a great "chicken" nugget!

I've made gluten (as we know it) for as long as I can remember - my mom did it, her mom before her.. there are a couple of recipes for cooking it that have been passed down.

Come Christmas time, "vegetarian turkey" is a must - the washed-out gluten is rolled tightly into a muslin cloth, cooked in boiling water for 2 hours, cooled, then peeled into strips and marinated in an oil and herb mix.

"Gluten steaks" were made by cooking pieces of washed-out gluten in a broth that included Marmite. Those could then be crumbed and fried or served with a gravy.

"Seafood gluten" involved mincing cooked and cooled gluten, mixing it with thousand-island dressing and serving it in an avo half.

It was such a mission to make that it really was a special-occasion dish (I've never seen or tasted store-bought seitan - not available in South Africa or Zimbabwe where I grew up). But it was very much worth it.

i find that with a kitchenaid--equipped with paddle and bread hook--and starting from wheat gluten, making seitan is super quick and easy.
particularly, takes pretty much no time at all, and is so exciting when you open up your low-stress crock pot and get to eat some lovely and much cheaper hearty food!

When I make it, I use a combination of the following two recipes:
http://www.gapersblock.com/airbags/archives/the_finest_in_fake_meats/
and
http://www.theppk.com/recipes/dbrecipes/index.php?RecipeID=112

I do not use the nutritional yeast, because I don't stock it in my pantry. In the simmering step, bring the water just to a boil but do not keep it at a boil, turn down to a simmer -- boiling it does do something weird to the texture. I also don't cut it into slices before I simmer it (but then again I also halve the recipe because I'm making it for one person). I use Bob's Red Mill Vital Wheat Gluten.

Eventually I'll make these different flavors as well:
http://gapersblock.com/airbags/archives/seitan_certainly/

Can't think of any other useful tips. I've only made it twice, but honestly, it's very easy. Stores well in the simmering liquid in the fridge for about a week, but I've also frozen some and thawed later and it's been good. Batch two I made for a veggie bbq and covered in sauce on the grill was quite good. Most people thought I purchased it.

Funny, I just made seitan this weekend for the first time in ages (it was for the polenta-mushroom-seitan "lasagna" in the latest Gourmet Magazine, which was really, really good, BTW, though it calls for store-bought seitan and polenta logs).

There are a ton of seitan recipes out there, and that should tell you how flexible and error-proof it is. Seitan doesn't take flavor quite like tofu, but by throwing in obvious spices (curries, italian herbs) you can make it really work for a particular recipe.

My recommendations:
1) Start w/ a simple recipe the first time. Don't use nutritional yeast, tomato paste, wacky-ass goddess dressing, tahini, etc until you at least know what the simple stuff tastes like.
2) If you're using canned broth for your boiling, throw in some stock vegetables or aromatics if you've got em around: garlic, ginger, sliced onion, cloves, allspice, carrots, celery, dry white wine, etc. Most canned/boxed veg stock is blah and you want to kick it up a notch.
3) I would never use an electric mixer on seitan -- if you over-knead it, it can get tough.

Here's my simplest recipe, culled and adapted from the internets:
1 c. wheat gluten
3/4 c. COLD water or broth
2 Tbs soy sauce/tamari
1 tsp ginger powder
1 tsp garlic powder or zested/microplaned garlic
(optional: mustard powder, paprika, cumin, lemon zest)

Mix dry. Mix wet separately. Mix wet into dry. Mix w/ wooden spoon, then with hands until well combined. Put lump onto counter. Knead 15-20 times. Let sit 5 minutes. Knead 5 more times. Tear ball into 3-4 smaller balls. Roll into logs. Flatten into "cutlets" -- keep pressing them down and out -- they will want to ball up.

6 cups broth, preferably cold (definitely not hot)
1/4 cup soy sauce
(optional: half a small onion, sliced; a few chunks of ginger; roughly chopped garlic, 2 cloves, 2 whole allspice berries, 1 carrot chopped; 2-3 Tbs white wine)

Put cutlets in cold broth in large pot. Bring to boil. Keep partially covered. Reduce heat to simmer; simmer for 1 hour, flipping cutlets (they'll float) every once in a while. Take off heat. Preferably, let cutlets cool for 1/2 hour or so in broth. Slice into strips; store in fridge covered in broth (add additional water if necessary).