Flavorless Seitan

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JP Alan
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Flavorless Seitan

Post by JP Alan » Tue Mar 05, 2019 23:29

I hope I don't get shot for asking a question about Wheat Meat on a Genuine Meat site. I bought the book "The Art of Making Vegetable Sausages" by the Marianski brothers because I, for medical reasons, decided to go Vegan. I've tried some of the Seitan recipes in the book and I tried several recipes offered on the web. Unfortunately, I've been unsuccessful in getting a decent tasting sausage. Texture is fine but the problem is, the ol' bangers are absolutely flavorless. The seitan just tastes bread like. I've used various flours to see if that made a difference. None.

I've doubled the amount of spices called for in some of the recipes as a test. I even put triple the garlic in one recipe but still, no joy. Barely perceptible. I read that when it comes to seitan one must use more of a spice in order to taste it, but really, if that's true how much more!

So...does anyone have any advice/suggestions on this problem. I really like my sausage and would like to solve this problem. I can't eat the real deal so it's seitan or nothing.

Thanks
JP
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redzed
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Re: Flavorless Seitan

Post by redzed » Thu Mar 07, 2019 00:03

I have most of Marianski's books but don't have the one about making vegetable sausages. But in reading your post I am surprised that you are not having the spices come through when using seitan as a base. From what I understand the stuff has essentially no flavour, but the same goes for today's commodity chicken and pork. What I would try is to use recipes for standard pork and chicken fresh sausage, and use seitan instead of the meat. How about trying a hot Italian sausage made with Calabrian peppers or one of my favourites, feta and spinach?
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Re: Flavorless Seitan

Post by Rick » Fri Jan 03, 2020 21:47

JP, I hear your concern. I just recently did a headcheese that I felt was way too strong in the black pepper taste. I did grind whole black pepper corns which may have been the problem. I'm a firm believer in that you have to experiment with a recipe before you get a keeper, it's a trial and error process. At the moment I'm going to experiment with a fresh Kielbasa as the last recipe I used was too mild. It's the same recipe I've used in the past but something tells me our taste buds change as we grow older.
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