Plum Seitan ‒ Luumuseitan

Though I actually eat them rarely, plums are among the tastiest fruits I know, be it straight from a tree or dried ones. Chocochili's seitan dish reminded me of a simple meat dish my mum used to prepare although BBC's original pork version of it doesn't look like that at all. But at the same time, there was something so christmassy in this I thought I'd save it for December.

When I finally started cooking, I noticed I was out of vinegar so I replaced the stock part with red wine (and had to finish the rest of the bottle as well so it wouldn't turn into vinegar). Oh poor me. Also, I assumed the plums in the original are fresh ones so I doubled the amount for dried ones and dismissed the sugar. So finally, I ended up with a treat like this:

The seitan:
- 3 dl seitan flour (aka gluten flour)
- 1.5 dl pea flour (or chickpea)
- 0.5 dl soy sauce
- 0.5 dl rape oil
- 2 garlic cloves
- smoked pepper powder
- water (just enough to make it stick together, about 1 dl)

The rest:
- 1 onion (or 10 pickled spring onions)
- 10 dried plums
- 1 carrot (or celeriac)
- 4 dl red wine
- 1 dl tomato sauce
- 1 dried chili
- anise or star anise (I bet salmiakki would work as well)
- cardamom
- juniper berries

Mix the seitan ingredients. Slice into strips and drop into boiling water. Precook about half an hour (I like to season the water with some stock). Slice the onions and the carrots. Halve the plums. Combine everything in a casserole. Let the plum seitan simmer for 45 minutes in a 175ºC oven. Thicken the marinade by boiling it together in a sauce pot and return on the seitan (or if you're lazy like me, just sprinkle some potato flour on top and stir).

Serve with mashed potatoes.

Nutritional values / 1272 g:
energy 1890 kcal
fat 54 g
protein 143 g
carbohydrates 139 g
fiber 21 g