Homemade Chinese Wheat Gluten Mian Jin 自製麵筋

By Ellen L. 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)  And 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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