I’ve been making my own seitan for about 4 months now and I am a big fan. It’s better tasting and cheaper than the store-bought stuff, if you can find it. I have been using the basic recipe from Vegan Vittles and adjust the spices, but I recently thought I should branch out. Hence, this. (Click and scroll for recipe.)
I don’t know if I could even tell you what real pastrami tastes like. I’ve had it and I loved it, but its price is a bit steep relative to comparable meats. So I can’t say if it actually tastes like pastrami. I would guess no, but it is pretty tasty in its own right.
First time through: I followed the directions pretty closely. I used soy flour instead of chickpea and used the “or more!” option for whole black pepper. I probably also threw an extra or two garlic clove in. I didn’t include the bulger.
The directions say to slice thin and, presumably, eat on a sandwich. I did not try the log with anything—I ended up just cutting off a chuck at a time to chew on. It’s thick, but not hard, and has a real nice texture.
I thought the first one was a bit heavy on the tomato paste. So, the second time I made this, I cut out a tablespoon of tomato paste, used the bulger (it makes a positive difference) and increased all the spices, doubling almost all of them. I like my food spicy, so I put in probably 2 tablespoons of whole black pepper and 2 teaspoons of cayenne. This time it was much better.
Overall, it’s pretty easy to make and relatively cheap—probably $2 or so for a cylinder eight inches high and 2.5 inches in diameter. It works really well—almost too well—as a snack and I imagine it would be good as a replacement for sandwich meat.