September 16, 2016

Homemade Chinese Wheat Gluten Mian Jin 自製麵筋

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By Published: 2016-09-16
I was super duper excited to try my hand at making Chinese Wheat Gluten Mian Jin, or 麵筋, because my dearest Grandma 奶奶 used to make it for us all the time when I was growing up.  Gosh darnit if by the end of the day Grandma didn't have a huge pot full of her homemade wheat gluten, soaked through and through and juicy with fragrantly aromatic soy and spice based sauce with luscious bits of slippery cloud ear, chewy lily bud and fragrant mushroom snuggled in between.  (See Grandma's recipe for Red Braised Wheat Gluten Kao Fu 紅燒烤麩)  

We would eat and eat and eat and there still would be more for the next day and the next.  I would sneak it straight out of the fridge when Grandma wasn't looking, savoring the chilled version just as much as the hot.  (I love eating at the fridge.  Weird but true.)  

I've had it in the back of my mind for a long long time to try making the actual wheat gluten myself just like Grandma did and finally got around to it.   I'm very pleased to report that making your own Homemade Chinese Wheat Gluten Mian Jin or 自製麵筋 is actually much easier than I thought it was going to be, verra verra tasty and you can make all kinds of mouth watering Chinese 'mock' meat vegetarian dishes with it.  Definitely a must have skill in your repertoire if you are wanting to go for Vegetarian Domestic Goddess!

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Start with flour.  You can use any kind you want, I've tried it with wheat and all purpose flour.  I think that strong flour or bread flour will give you a bit more gluten but it's usually more expensive so I just went with the regular flour.  Wheat flour gives a rougher texture and of course will appear a bit darker.  You can also use wheat gluten flour, again more expensive, but I think it would provide the most gluten for the least effort.

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Add some water to your flour and knead a bit until it comes together as a dough.  It will look raggedy but that's all right.  Just cover your dough with a cloth and leave it for a bit to stretch out and relax.

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Once the dough relaxes a wee bit you can knead it much easier.  See how smooth and pretty the dough looks now.  Once the dough is all smooth like this you can just leave it for an hour or so to relax the gluten.

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Now comes the fun part.  Well I thought it was pretty fun.  Fill your bowl with water and squish the dough between your fingers.  Squish, squash, wash.  Change the water.  Squish, squash, wash.  Change the water.  Repeat.  Wash out all that starch!  

Tip:  You can save all the gluten washing water, extract the starch and make Liangpi Cold Skin Starch Noodles 凉皮!  Light and delicious!

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After a while the dough starts to change to a more bumpy springy texture, with little gummy bits floating all over the water.  Keep on squish, squash, wash.  Change the water.  Repeat.

At the final stage the gluten, for that is what is left in your bowl, will come together into a lump.  The water will no longer be milky white, just only slightly cloudy.  In the picture below you can see two colors.  The beige is the wheat gluten.  The bits of white are the last starchy bits which I easily removed with my fingers.

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Once you have your wheat gluten washed you tear it into small pieces and either boil, steam or deep fry it.  I think you can also bake it but I haven't tried that personally.  

Steaming creates a nice fluffy rise and good aeration of the gluten.  Boiling also creates rise and seems to provide more of a squeak when you chew.  Boiling and steaming both will make something you can use for Kao Fu 烤麸, that wonderfully aromatic oh so yummy Shanghainese vegetarian dish.  (See Grandma's Red Braised Wheat Gluten Kao Fu recipe here.)  The top photo of this post is the Kao Fu made after we boiled the wheat gluten.

Deep frying the wheat gluten creates Oil Fried Mian Jin 油麵筋, little golden puffs which have a much airier texture and a smooth tender texture when cooked again.  

And that's it.  It's that easy, oh my dear readers, to make homemade wheat gluten.  Much easier than I thought it was going to be.  Easier and more straightforward.  A bit of time is all, to squish, squash, wash.  So if you like yummilicious vegetarian food, why not give it a try?  The squish takes a bit of time but the results are just wonderful.  

You'll have a richly textured completely vegetarian product which absorbs whatever flavor you cook it in to become juicy and tender, deliciously chewy and sometimes squeaky.  You can then make all kinds of vegetarian Chinese 'mock' meat dishes from your wheat gluten mian jin which, by the by, is chock full of protein.  Really, what more could you ask for?
Homemade Chinese Wheat Gluten Mian Jin Recipe 自製麵筋
Prep time: Cook time: (makes 24 pieces, adapted from The Key to Chinese Cooking

Ingredients
  • 3 1/2  cups all purpose flour, 454g
  • 1 1/8 cup lukewarm water

Directions:

Mix flour and water together in bowl.  Stir and knead until a rough mass of dough comes together.   Cover bowl with a kitchen towel and let dough rest for 10 mins.  Knead 10 times and then cover and rest dough for another 10 mins.  Knead dough again, it should be quite smooth and elastic this time.  Now cover and let rest for 1 hour.

Place bowl in sink and fill to cover dough with room temp water.  Knead and squish the dough in the water in the bowl until the water turns milky white.  Dump water out and refill with fresh water.  Repeat until the water no longer turns milky white but is only slightly cloudy.  The mass left in your bowl, the wheat gluten, will be a tan color with a springy elastic texture and should clump together in one lump.  If you want at this point to keep the washed main jin for another day, submerge in cool water and keep in the fridge, changing the water everyday.

For the next stage of making wheat gluten main jin you can either boil, steam or deep fry it. Each method produces different to slightly different results in texture.

Boiled Mian Jin, also known as Kao Fu 烤麸, and is dense but springy with lots of small holes that absorb flavor and juice.  To boil, heat a pot of water.  Tear and twist apart the wheat gluten mian jin into approx 24 pieces, placing each piece onto a plate without touching.  Take one mian jin in your fingers, stretch it and drop immediately into the water.

Boil for 5-6 mins at high heat or until expanded and floating on top of water.  Remove, drain and the wheat gluten mian jin is ready for braising or stir frying.  

Steamed Mian Jin 蒸麵筋, often also known as Kao Fu 烤麸, and is dense but springy with lots of small holes that absorb flavor and juice.  It seems to be slightly more springy in texture than the boiled gluten.  To steam, place the whole washed mian jin on a plate in the steamer and steam over high heat for 20 mins.  

Do not open the steamer lid but allow to cool down for 45 mins before opening the lid.  Take out and slice into cubes or slices as you prefer and it's ready for braising or stir frying.

Oil Fried Mian Jin 油麵筋 is really different in texture, soft, tender and slippery while still absorbent of flavors and juices.  To deep fry, tear and twist off the mian jin into approx 24 small pieces, carefully squeezing all the water out and placing each piece on to a plate without touching.  Deep fry until it puffs up to a ball and turns a golden brown color.

Remove to drain on paper towels and it's ready for use in braised dishes or stir fries.  Note that the Oil Fried Mian Jin will deflate when cooked again.

Once you have boiled, steamed or oil fried the mian jin, you can keep in air tight container in the fridge for a few days before using.

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29 comments:

  1. Thank you for the recipe. This is easy to follow. I have made it successfully. This recipe is a keeper.

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    1. Hi Ellen
      Do you know of any online sources where one can purchase mianjin?
      Thanks, Michael

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    2. Hi Michael - I don't know any online sources of mianjin. Your best bet to guy it pre-made would be to go to a chinese grocery store and look for it in the refrigerated section. ~ellen

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  2. To save many steps of washing, have you tried VITAL GLUTEN WHEAT? It does work. My Dad tried it today.

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  3. Wow been looking for something like this for ages, thanks so much for Ur easy to follow step by step guide I luv it n I'm definitely going to try it now .

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  4. Hi! I really love the way you explained the recipe and how easy it was but for some strange reason, when I did it, it didn't turn out right. Instead of leaving only the gluten, my whole dough became sticky and was reduced to not even half of its original size. I don't know what I did wrong...

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    1. I think maybe you didn't wash and rinse it long enough, it does that quite a while. Hope that helps ~ellen

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    2. Oops...I meant 'take quite a while' ~ellen

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  5. Hi there,
    Thanks for this recipe!

    I've just recently found out about this - I'd never thought you can make something like this with just wheat flour.
    Anyway, I've discovered a couple things that might help when making it.
    First, it really helps if you roll and slice the dough into thin strips first, as if you were making noodles, and then soak for an hour or so - in my experience, it makes washing much quicker.
    Second, you can collect the starchy water in a pot, and set it aside. When most of the starch settles on the bottom, you can pour the excess water out, and use the starch, e.g. to make some pudding for the dessert.

    Cheers!

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    1. Glad you liked our wheat gluten recipe! Thanks for the tip about how to use the extra starch, I'll have to try that next time! ~ellen

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  6. Thank you! This is an excellent explanation and recipe.

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  7. Hi Ellen,

    I am a fan of Kao Fu but this is not readily available where I am (Philippines). I usually have it in a Cantonese restaurant, but it is a bit pricey for such a tiny plate, so I figured to try to make it my own. I was over the moon when I found your recipe! I tried it on New Year's Eve. The first batch I made turned out well (even though I didn't reach the "smooth" dough), but the recipe only yielded maybe 6 pieces. On New Year's I made two more batches... this time I reached the smooth dough phase, but the yield was even less than 6 pieces and the kaofu, after steaming, was a bit on the hard (very chewy) side, versus the first one I made that was spongy and just right on the texture. I am perplexed as I used the same measurements and the same brand of flour both times. I hope you can provide me with some insights. Did I knead it too much? Or can you deduce which part I can work on to improve my kaofu? I really want to master this recipe. Hope to hear from you!

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    1. Dear mizzzleepy - I think part of the problem may the type of flour you're using. The kao fu is the gluten part of the flour, so maybe the reason why you're not getting much kao fu after the wash is because the gluten content of your flour is low. I used all purpose flour, but bread flour (also known as strong flour) has even more gluten than AP so perhaps you could try that to increase the output. For the hard chewiness, I'm not sure what's going on but maybe try soaking the kao fu in water overnight in the fridge before steaming. Hope this helps! ~ellen

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  8. Can you give a recipe to use the left over flour water to make noodles?

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    1. Humm...starch noodles...Let me look into it. ~ellen

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    2. I've posted the recipe for making starch noodles from the left over water, check it out using the link in the post above! ~ellen

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  9. Thank you so much for this recipe. My late grandma used to make this alot and i loved it so much. Have been searching for this all over the internet. Now i can make it and think of her whenever i eat this.

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  10. Hi Mary - aren't grandmas who cook for us the best? ~ellen

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  11. Hello, if this recipe is doubled, how long should the steaming time be? I doubled it to 40mins and took it out right away without waiting 45kins to slice. The inside is not spongy like mentioned, it's dense but I am curious what it should have been like. The texture is very much meaty, bland but I should have seasoned it and will season heavily when I am using it for stir fry tomorrow. Thanks, William

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    1. I think steaming time around 30 mins is enough but you should really allow for the 45 min waiting time. Steamed wheat gluten is dense with lots of small holes in it and springy when pressed. Did you steam over high heat? And the wheat gluten is bland, it's meant to take on the seasoning when you cook with it as it will readily absorb flavor then. ~ellen

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  12. Thank you for this recipe! I have used the washing flour method before but this method was so easy and quick! I marinated mine with maggi, soy sauce, fresh ginger, garlic and red chili and it was so tasty. This will be a staple in my kitchen now. I've also shared it and your website with many cooking groups I'm in. I think a lot of people don't realize what they call seitan originated in China long long ago. I am grateful to the innovative people of China who created this type of meat alternative!

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  13. Dear Kristina - I'm so glad that you enjoyed this recipe! I shall have to try it maggi sauce next time, sounds yummy! ~ellen

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  14. Hi Ellen. Thank you for the recipe. I haven't it yet but would like to know if it can be done with wholewheat flour? Kelly

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  15. Hummm...not totally sure on this one. I looked it up and apparently whole wheat flour contains gluten but produces weaker gluten strands due to the fact that it has bran and germ in the flour. So I think it's possible to use whole wheat but you're going to get weaker gluten strands and a lot more stuff to rinse out, i.e. all the other parts of the wheat, thus ending up with less wheat gluten at the end. ~ellen

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