Seitan Meatballs

Seitan is great, but the stuff you can buy ready-made looks like chunks of E.T. floating in formaldehyde. So make these balls instead.

Wet ingredients

75 g cannelini beans from a tin

250 ml vegan vegetable stock

2 tbsp soy sauce

Dry ingredients

155 g gluten flour/vital wheat gluten

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp onion powder

1 heaped tbsp spice mix of your choice (I’ve used picadillo spices, merguez spices, and curry powder but the sky is the limit, really).

1/4 cup nutritional yeast

Preparation

– Blend all the wet ingredients using a (stick) blender or small processor.

– Mix all the dry ingredients in a largish bowl.

– Pour the wet ingredients into the bowl with the dry ingredients and mix, but only until all the white flecks of gluten flour have disappeared. DO NOT OVERMIX OR KNEAD. Sorry about the caps but this is crucial.

– Divide the seitan mixture into 6 balls (about 83 grams each) and wrap each ball in aluminum foil.

– Steam the balls for 40 minutes. I do this in the Instant Pot. Pour 250 mls/1 cup of water in the Instant Pot and put the wrapped seitan balls on the trivet. Steam for 40 minutes on high pressure and release pressure manually.

– Eat straight away or cool and store until you are ready to eat. I usually braise/heat these up in gravy.