Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Vegan MoFo Day 24: The Protose Chronicles, Part 2



After the disappointments of my previous adventure with homemade protose, I decided to try again - using a more recent recipe involving gluten, from Linda & Milton Mahabee's A Vegetarian Cookbook & Better Living Guide (1985).

Their recipe calls for:

4 c raw gluten
2 c peanut butter
2 medium onions, grated
1 c water
1 T salt

(I made the gluten by stirring up 4 parts vital wheat gluten to 1 part chickpea flour with enough water to make a firm dough, continuing to add to it until I had 4 cups.)

Mix the peanut butter with onions, water, and salt. Gradually work in the gluten, using your hands. You do not want it perfectly combined. Place into a greased double boiler, and cook forever. The Mahabees imagine that you will be making this in greased soup cans, and cooking about 3 hours. I made a big block in the double boiler, and it took more like 4 1/2 hours. Also, the above recipe was enough to fill my double boiler twice, so you might want to cut it in half unless you have a huge double boiler.

Results: a firm, sliceable, yet somewhat crumbly block. It doesn't really taste like seitan, mostly because the peanut flavor dominates. It is suitable for a sandwich, but our favorite use was chopping and baking it with bbq sauce. I like it fine (especially as bbq!) but I doubt I'll make it again due to the cooking time. I wonder if I could bake it? Even if it took a long time in the oven, I wouldn't have to continually top up the water in the double boiler. More to explore...

3 comments:

panda with cookie said...

I need a better living guide.

Anonymous said...

The name protose is so strange. It sounds like something that would be fed to space explorers on the first flight to another galaxy.

JohnP said...

And who is to say that's not what it is?