Seitan ( SAY-tan, US also -tahn; Japanese: セイタン) is a food made from gluten, the main protein of wheat. It is also known as miànjīn (Chinese: 麵筋), fu (Japanese: 麩), milgogi (Korean: 밀고기), mì căn, wheat meat, gluten meat, or simply gluten. Wheat gluten is an alternative to soybean-based foods, such as tofu, which are sometimes used as a meat alternative. Some types of wheat gluten have a chewy or stringy texture that resembles meat more than other substitutes. Wheat gluten is often used instead of meat in Asian, vegetarian, vegan, Buddhist, and macrobiotic cuisines. Mock duck is a common use. Wheat gluten first appeared during the 6th century as an ingredient for Chinese noodles. It has historically been popular in the cuisines of China, Japan and other East and Southeast Asian nations. In Asia, it is commonly found on the menus of restaurants catering primarily to Buddhist customers who do not eat meat.
Production Gluten is traditionally extracted from wheat flour. A dough is washed in water until most of the starch granules have been removed, leaving behind the sticky, insoluble gluten as an elastic mass. This mass is cooked in a variety of ways and eaten. There are several industrial methods for separating gluten from starch. Powdered forms of wheat gluten are also industrially produced and sold as an alternative way to make seitan. Their production involves hydrating hard wheat flour to activate the gluten, and then processing the hydrated mass to remove the starch. This leaves only the gluten, which is then dried and ground back into a powder, and can be used by consumers to make a seitan-like product. When prepared to eat, seitan is generally marinated with a variety of ingredients.
History Called miànjīn (麵筋) meaning wheat tendon, this way of preparing wheat gluten has been documented in China since the 6th century. It is widely consumed by the Chinese as a substitute for meat, especially among monastic and lay adherents of Chinese Buddhism. The oldest reference to wheat gluten appears in the Qimin Yaoshu, a Chinese agricultural encyclopedia written by Jia Sixie in 535. The encyclopedia mentions noodles prepared from wheat gluten called bótuō (餺飥). Wheat gluten was known as miànjīn (麵筋) by the Song dynasty (960–1279). Traditionally, food is perceived as kitchen medicine within Chinese culture. Gluten is part of traditional Chinese food therapy called shí liáo (食療), and was prescribed by traditional Chinese medicinal physicians to treat a wide range of illnesses and disease. Wheat gluten arrived in the West by the 18th century. De Frumento, an Italian treatise on wheat written in Latin by Bartolomeo Beccari in 1728 and published in Bologna in 1745, describes the process of washing wheat flour dough to extract the gluten. John Imison wrote an English-language definition of wheat gluten in his Elements of Science and Art published in 1803. By the 1830s, Western doctors were recommending wheat gluten in diets for diabetics. In the United States, the Seventh-day Adventists promoted the consumption of wheat gluten from the late 19th century. Sanitarium Foods, a company affiliated with John Harvey Kellogg's Battle Creek Sanitarium, advertised wheat gluten in 1882.
Etymology The word seitan is of Japanese origin and was coined in 1961 by George Ohsawa, a Japanese advocate of the macrobiotic diet, having been shown it by one of his students, Kiyoshi Mokutani. In 1962, wheat gluten was sold as seitan in Japan by Marushima Shoyu K.K. It was imported to the West under that name in 1969 by the American company Erewhon. The etymology of seitan is uncertain, but it is believed to come from combining the characters 生 (sei, "fresh, raw") and 蛋 (tan, from 蛋白 (tanpaku, "protein")). The meaning of the word "seitan" has undergone a gradual evolution. One early commercial product, imported from Japan in 1969, was a salty condiment, the color of soy sauce, sold in a small glass jar or plastic pouch, which was used as a seasoning for brown rice. The name gradually came to refer to any wheat gluten seasoned with soy sauce. The people most responsible for this change in the USA were Nik and Joanne Amartseff, who introduced Tan Pups in 1972, and John Weissman, who in 1974 introduced Wheatmeat (first meatballs then cutlets made of seitan) in Boston. All worked for years to popularize these products at the Erewhon retail store, and developed a trademark on the Wheatmeat name.
Preparation While wheat gluten itself is rather flavorless, it holds a marinade very well and is usually simmered in a dashi (broth) made from soy sauce, kombu, ginger, and sometimes also sesame oil.
Chinese
Wheat gluten, called miànjīn in Chinese (traditional: 麵筋, simplified: 面筋, literally "dough tendon"; also spelled mien chin in Latin script) is believed to have originated in ancient China, as a meat substitute for adherents of Buddhism, particularly some Mahayana Buddhist monks, who are strict vegetarians (see Buddhist cuisine). One story attributes the invention of imitation meat to chefs who made it for Chinese emperors who traditionally observed a week of vegetarianism each year. Miànjīn is often deep fried before being further cooked in Chinese cuisine, which confers a crispy rind that enhances the texture of the gluten. There are three primary Chinese forms of wheat gluten. Oil-fried gluten (油麵筋, yóumiànjīn) is raw gluten that has been torn into small bits, and then deep-fried into puffy balls of 3 to 5 cm (1 to 2 in) in diameter and sold as "imitation abalone". They are golden brown, and cooked by braising or boiling in a savory soup or stew. They are frequently paired with xiānggū (black mushrooms). Larger fried balls of gluten, called miànjīnqiú (麵筋球) or miànjīnpào (麵筋泡), which may be up to 13 cm (5 in) in diameter, are sometimes seen in Asian supermarkets, often stuffed with meat or tofu mixtures and served as a dish called "gluten meatballs" (麵筋肉丸, Miànjīn roùwán) or "gluten stuffed with meat" (麵筋塞肉, miànjīn saī roù).
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