Pressure cooker for making seitan: a must or not needed
Posted by lucidonbuses on Jul 15, 2010 · Member since Jul 2010 · 1 posts
Hello! I am dying next week to try this recipe I found on the web of seitan baked ham, however it calls for a pressure cooker and sadly, I do not have one. I've come across one recipe where a pressure cooker was not used, but instead seitan was boiled in water for several hours (apparently the pressure cooker cuts this time to about 30-40 minutes). I've read a report where someone said the pressure cooker caused their seitan to come out all spongy. Should I abandon my project or not?
Most of the recipes that I have seen call for simmering or boiling it, I don't think I've ever heard of using a pressure cookers.
no pressure cooker needed! find a better recipe! i have never heard of pressure cooking seitan
I have no idea on an answer...but be interested in the recipe ;)
You don't need a pressure cooker to make seitan, but it comes in handy for other things so it's nice to have on hand.
I've successfully used this seitan recipe from this site: http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=7592.0
It only calls for a stock pot.
Good luck!
pressure cooker not neccesary, just a low simmer in a regualr pot on the stove is the best way, slow cooker works too if you have one of those.
You definitely don't need a pressure cooker. Some of the old school recipes (Ron Pickarski) made them popular. For me, the easiest way is in the crockpot and it turns out perfectly every time.
The only advantage to a pressure cooker is that it cooks faster. However, it also cooks at higher heat so I would think this would make the seitan spongy. You want to gently cook it at fairly low heat. One trick I have discovered is, after simmering the seitan in broth, is to bake it in the oven for 15-30 minutes sans broth. This gets rid of a lot of the moisture and gives a firmer and less spongy texture. I've never had it dry out, but I supposed if it did, you can just add broth to it.