Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Vegan Gyoza makin' on a Sunday night

I still have a bunch of random-ish food porn to post, but I wanted to post something else that is cohesive. This weekend I wanted to pick up some groceries to inspire/keep me busy for the week, and didn't feel like a typical Trader Joe's trip, so I went to Fubonn, which is conveniently on my bus line. I also shop at New Season's and People's Coop, but they're not much of a 'trip', and don't serve bubble tea.

While there, I was inspired to pick up gyoza wrappers, and I got to it Sunday night. I also picked up vegetarian chicken patties, vegan chicken things, sesame chili oil, a bamboo spoon, vacuum packed silken tofu, water packed silken tofu and firm tofu.

It can be difficult to find vegan wrappers, and I've found my best bet to be asian markets. The fewer the ingredients the better your chances of not reading whey or egg whites.

What I did: The filling for these consists of half a chopped yellow bell pepper, one chopped carrot, handful of bean sprouts cut in half, handful of chopped spinach, 5 or 6 diced mushrooms and 6 or so diced fake chicken things. This fake chicken was from Food Fight!

I pan fried the chicken in little bit of my new sesame chili oil in my wok, added 3 cloves of chopped garlic and a pinch of ginger powder, added the carrots, peppers and mushrooms and cooked for a 3 minutes or so. I added a small squeeze of hoisin sauce and a small amount of tamari. I'm really liking tamari lately. Next I added the bean sprouts and spinach, cooked out the moisture, removed from heat and filled my defrosted wrappers. I put 1/2 tablespoon of filling in each wrapper, making 30 total, with unused wrappers stored in the freezer, as well as extra gyozas I did not cook.

I half steamed/half pan fried these guys.


Tommy had vegetarian chicken patties with them, and I had some pad thai. But I'm sick of rice noodles now. The dipping sauces were shoyu/sesame chili and a bottled thai sweet chili. And Tommy actually said "I don't like dumplings" before eating a plateful of the gyozas...


The end. (more photos and honeyball recipe on the way)

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

That looks so good. I love all foods that are wrapped up (sort of); pies, wraps, sushi, pita bread, tacos and dumplings. Love it!

erica said...

Ooh yum. Pan fried = Excellent Imperial Deliciousness.

Taylor said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Taylor said...

Yum. Next time you should tell Thomas he can't have any, since he doesn't like them. More for you!

Anonymous said...

That looks good. I find that it's easy to cook 'fake chicken' to taste like real chicken. I guess that's because chicken doesn't have much of a taste, and everything tastes like chicken.

Did I tell you about the Vegan Forums.

Amey said...

YUM!!!
Those look great! It never even occured to me that one could make something like this. I love the "I don't like dumplings," followed by a massive pig-out. Hee hee.

scottishvegan said...

Yummy! That's funny that Tommy says he doesn't like them then eats a plateful! Sounds like the kind of thing my hubby does!

MeloMeals said...

Those look delicious.. I have some wrappers I need to use.. one of these days. I cook a lot, but don't always have the patience to do individual things like this.. maybe my kids will help me?

JENNA said...

i'm drooling over the Gyoza! I get my wrappers at asian markets also. The ones in regular stores alway's have egg whites in them.

JENNA

aTxVegn said...

Those turned out perfectly! Sesame chili oil sounds really nice. I have sesame oil and chili oil, but not the combo.

Those donuts things on the earlier post look awesome - can't wait for the recipe!

urban vegan said...

you gyoza, girl!

KleoPatra said...

Come here, my little dumplings!! These really look wonderful!

Vicki's Vegan Vice said...

I'm way too hungry to be reading & viewing this post.

Anonymous said...

looks great!

jess (of Get Sconed!) said...

thank you!!!

Anonymous said...

i've kept myself from going to Food Fight to pick up those chicken things. i could eat them every day...all day long...but i'm trying to be good with my money.
the gyoza look so yummy!

Tracy said...

Those little dumplings looks awesome! And the filling sounds perfect to me. If I can find some vegan wrappers where I'm at, I'm definitely adding those to my must-try list.