Sadly, my birth month is now done, but I did get TWO fabulous birthday dinners and two birthday cakes out of it this year–one on the actual day with a cake made by James…

And a second a week later with an amazing crow cake made by Bid!

And we’ve also had a lot of visitors, which made August particularly fun this year (especially after 2020!). As such, we’ve done tons of cooking, but I haven’t done much experimenting–until today when I attempted something I’ve been thinking about for weeks…

A new method of making seitan chick’n has been getting a lot of traction on a Facebook group I follow called The Seitan Appreciation Society. This new method involves using vital wheat gluten and instant mashed potatoes in a 1:.75 ratio. One member posted a video that looked intriguing, so I thought I’d give it a try.

I made a number of changes to the original–mostly to infuse more chicken-y flavour, so thought I’d post my version here:

Potato-Seitan Chick’n

1 cup Vital Wheat Gluten

¾ cup instant potatoes

1 cup veggie stock

2 TBSP apple cider vinegar

2 TBS vegan chick’n broth powder

2 TBS nutritional yeast

1 tsp poultry seasoning

2 tsp onion powder

1 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp white pepper

Mix together the potato flakes and vital wheat gluten in the bowl of a stand mixer. Blend the rest of the ingredients in the Magic Bullet and pour into the mixing bowl. Mix until all a dough forms with no dry patches.

Let sit for fifteen minutes, then knead on low in the stand mixer for six minutes.

Next, roll the dough into a flat rectangle, slice into three, and braid the dough. Stretch the braid out and knot a couple of times.

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Next, sear the dough on both sides in a well-oiled pan.

After both sides are nicely seared, add four cups of vegan chick’n broth to the pan and simmer for one hour. To make my vegan chick’n broth, I used four heaping TBS of vegan chick’n broth powder in four cups of boiling water:

Simmer for one hour.

I was tempted to just by-pass the simmering-in-broth for steaming in the Instant Pot, but I figured I should try the original method to see if it’s better than my regular chickwheat.

And even though I’m not crazy about all the oil you need to sear it and having to jump up every five minutes to ensure the water isn’t boiling because I turned the burner too high or has completely stopped simmering because I turned the burner too low, I would say now that the method is completely worth it for a moist, super tasty result!

After it’s simmered for an hour, place it on a rack with some paper towels on it to dry out a bit.

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The result is absolutely delicious! And verrrrry chicken-y!! My regular chickwheat recipe is more like dry chicken shreds, but this method produces a very juicy version–like those rotisserie chickens you can get at most grocery stores. And the seitan shreds VERY well:

Normally, I don’t like the taste of seitan unless it’s in a stew or gravy or barbecue sauce (or heavily spiced like my seitan pepperoni) because I always get that vital wheat gluten back-taste. BUT…there is no back-taste with this recipe/method! It is absolutely delicious!

Update: I’ve now tried this seitan without searing it in oil. Instead of searing the seitan, I wrapped it tightly in parchment paper and aluminum foil and steamed it for one hour in the Instant Pot. I then removed it, unwrapped it, and simmered it in vegan chicken broth for one hour. The result is just as delicious, but not at all browned on the outside. It tastes exactly the same….however, I do miss seeing the maillard reaction!

Now to make the gravy, make a slurry with….

2 – 4 TBS all-purpose flour (if you want a thinner gravy, start with only 2 TBS)

1/4 cup cold water

1/2 tsp dried oregano

1 TBS dehydrated parsley

Pour slowly into the pan with the broth and whisk until thick, smooth, and bubbly!

You CAN add a can of sliced mushrooms for extra flavour and texture, but it’s not necessary:

Our dinner for this evening is a hot chicken sandwich with gravy and corn brought over from Hornby Island last evening by Bid and Paul.

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And here’s our delicious dinner!!

And in another exciting development, our lovely neighbours across the street brought their daughter and her new three-month-old puppy, Ori, over for a playdate with Poppy and Stella!

And the song of the day is “Drunk by Noon”–Andrew Bird’s cover of a Handsome Family song: