No-Egg Foo Yung for One

This filling dish is one of those wonderful “clean out the cupboards” recipes that you can go wild with. Really, all you need is the tail ends of things and left-overs, and you’re golden. You can consider anything in the ingredients list above the tofu to be interchangeable with whatever you’ve got in your refrigerator, and it will still come out tasting just like the Foo Yung you remember!

For the Foo Yong:

1 TBLSP canola oil

1/3 celery rib, halved lengthwise and chopped

2 TBLSP diced onion

7 green beans, cut into thirds

1 or 2 minced mushrooms (shiitake is nice, but any kind will do)

2 TBLSP sliced water chestnuts (canned), drained

1 clove garlic, minced

1/3 cup mung bean sprouts

3 ounces firm tofu, pressed and drained (about 2/3 cup)

Slosh of tamari or soy sauce

Pinch of Himalayan black salt

1 ½ TBLSP all-purpose flour (substitute gluten-free flour, if you like)

Pinch baking powder

For the Gravy:

1/3 cup water

2 teaspoons tamari or soy sauce

Pinch of granulated sugar

½ inch fresh ginger, peeled and diced or put through the garlic press

1 teaspoon cornstarch

1 TBLSP water

Green onions, diced or sliced, to garnish

Make the Foo Yong:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease a baking dish or cookie sheet with sides to catch the juices. You can shape some aluminum foil, too, to make clean-up easier.  

1. In a sauté pan, heat the oil and add the celery, onions, and green beans, and sauté for a few minutes, until the onions begin to soften.
2. Add the mushrooms, water chestnuts, and garlic, and heat until the mushrooms begin to soften. Add in the mung bean sprouts and remove from the heat.
3. Crumble the tofu into the mushroom pan (off the heat). Add in the tamari, salt, flour, and baking powder and mix it well together.
4. Plop the mixture into the baking dish or form it into a patty (or two patties) on the cookie sheet. Squishing it together between your hands before laying it down will help you turn it over later. Brush the top with oil ever so slightly.
5. Bake for 15 minutes. Flip it over and bake for another 15 minutes. (If you’ve plopped it into a baking dish, you can probably still turn it over if you haven’t smooshed it into the corners.)

Meanwhile, make the gravy.

Make the Gravy:

1. In a small pot, heat the water, soy sauce, and sugar. Toss in the ginger whenever you like.
2. In a small bowl, combine the cornstarch with a slosh of cold water and mix until smooth. (Make sure there’s more water than cornstarch, or it will fry into unpleasant shards in the gravy.)
3. When the water, soy sauce, sugar, and ginger mixture comes to a boil, add in the cornstarch mixture, and stir. Cook it down to the desired thickness.

To Serve:

1. Put as much of the gravy on the Foo Yung as your heart desires and garnish with green onions. This is nice served over rice or noodles.

Variations:

• Use 1 to 1 ½ cup of left-over stir fry (such as this one) instead of the fresh veggies, adding in mung bean sprouts and water chestnuts to the cold mixture. Proceed from Step 3. (It’s okay if the veggies are cold.) The image over the green noodles (at the top) was left-overs. Yummm.