Vegan MoFo - S is for Seitan Gyros

When I spotted Rachel's post about Seitan Gyros a couple of weeks ago, I wanted to try it straight away! Unfortunately G had already been posted so there was an agonising wait until the letter S came around. The mixture of herbs and seasonings that Rachel used in her seitan sounded interesting and I loved how thinly her slices looked.

I made a few minor adjustments to the ingredients, by adding in some chickpea flour and slightly more salt and lemon zest. The method was also adjusted to allow the dough to rest for 10 minutes after an initial knead so that the gluten develops. This was inspired by the Viva Vegan seitan recipes which have been highly successful for me in the past. I always make seitan at least a day before I am planning to use it as the texture improves after an overnight chill in the fridge.

On the day I only had to make pita bread, garlic sauce, finely slice and fry the seitan, and chop the lettuce, tomato and onion. One thing I noticed with this garlic sauce as it was my second attempt making it, is that the garlic flavour develops a lot after the sauce is chilled for a while. I should cut back to 2 cloves next time and see how that fares as 4 makes it rather pungent.

The pitas were lined with lettuce, tomato, red onion, gyros seitan and topped with garlic sauce and sriracha. I don't think this would fool a hardcore omnivorous gyros lover but I really enjoyed the herbs and lemony flavour throughout the seitan. The man and son thought they tasted pretty good too and devoured them rapidly.

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Seitan Gyros (Adapted from I Eat Grains!)

1 1/4 cups gluten flour
1/4 cup chickpea flour
4 tablespoons nutritional yeast flakes
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary
2 teaspoons dried oregano
Grated zest from one lemon
1 1/4 cups water
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon liquid smoke
2 tablespoons ketchup

Place the gluten flour, chickpea flour, nutritional yeast, salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic power, rosemary, oregano and lemon zest in a large bowl. Mix ingredients thoroughly then make a well in the centre.

Combine the water, soy sauce, sesame oil, liquid smoke and ketchup together in another bowl. Pour the wet ingredients into the well then mix with your hands. Tip the dough onto a clean bench and knead for a couple of minutes. Allow to rest for 10 minutes then knead for another 30 seconds.

Divide the dough in half, shape each half into a loaf shape and wrap the loaves in separate pieces of aluminium foil. Ensure that there is a bit of room for the seitan to expand. Bake in the oven at 180C for 1 hour, alternatively the seitan loaves can be cooked for 35-40 minutes using a steamer. Allow to cool completely then store in the fridge until required.