Radical Rangoons for One

This little recipe is usually an appetizer, but it’s so good, you’ll want to make a meal out of it. Vegan wanton wrappers are hard to find, but it’s not hard to make your own. They’re not pristine and perfect like the store-bought ones, but you won’t care when the nori recalls the sea to your taste buds and the horseradish makes you glad you were born.

For the Wanton Wrappers:

½ cup all-purpose flour

Pinch of salt

2 TBLSP hot water (not boiling)

For the Filling:

1 TBLSP canola oil, more for frying

1 garlic clove, minced

2 green onions, chopped

5 fresh shiitake mushrooms (or any other kind you like—oyster would be particularly good)

Slosh of tahini or soy sauce

4 TBLSP vegan cream cheese

For Assembly:

For Assembly:

1 nori sheet, cut into 2-inch squared

For the Sauce:

1 TBLSP Dijon-style mustard

2 teaspoons freshly grated horseradish

Make the Wanton Wrappers:

1. Combine the flour and salt in a small bowl (a cereal bowl will do) and add in the water. Knead it until it’s a supple dough, a little bit shiny and fairly sticky. You may have to add pinches of flour or dribbles of water to get it right.
2. Roll the lovely dough into a ball, dust it with flour, and wrap with plastic wrap. Let it sit in a quiet corner meditating for about half an hour. (Not in the refrigerator.)
3. When its time has come, unwrap the dough and plop it onto a lightly floured surface. I like to cover my counter in waxed paper because it makes cleanup easier, but you flour whatever surface appeals to you.
4. Knead the dough for about 2 minutes. It will seem springier than it did before its rest and have a quiet sheen to it.
5. Roll the dough into a log about 1-inch thick and slice the log into 1-inch segments. I get 6 or 8, depending on my mood.
6. Flatten the pieces of dough into little rounds with your fingers, and then hit ‘em with the rolling pin to make them very thin and about 3-inches in diameter. Mine aren’t exactly round and it still works out just fine.

• Another method is to roll out one big sheet and then cut it into 3-inch squares, and fold the little darlings into triangles over the filling. This way gets a less tender wanton, but it’s still pretty darn good.

If you’re not using them right away, wrap the circles (or squares) individually in plastic wrap and then let them enjoy the quiet and darkness of the refrigerator. They’ll keep about a week, so it’s definitely something you can do the night before.

Make the Filling:

1. In a small skillet, heat the TBLSP of canola oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and onions and sauté them for 45 seconds or so, until they start to smell fabulous.
2. Add in the mushrooms and cook, stirring merrily, until they’re tender.
3. Add the tahini or soy sauce and remove from the heat.
4. Add in the cream cheese and combine until thoroughly mixed. The heat will melt the cheese a bit.
5. Set aside until it’s completely cooled.

Make the Sauce:

1. In a small bowl, vigorously stir the mustard and horseradish.
2. I made a second sauce (equal parts—about 1 TBLSP each—of tahini, mirin, rice vinegar, and miso, tossed in a little garlic powder and whisked until smooth), which is my go-to dipping sauce, but it was too bland for these little minxes. You’ll want the fire of the horseradish, so I didn’t include the recipe for the second sauce in the ingredients section.

Assemble the Rangoons:

1. In a large skillet, heat about ¼-inch of canola oil over high or medium-high heat.
2. Peel one of the wrappers up from its little plastic wrap so you know that it’s inclined to roam freely, and then set it down again. You might try stretching it a bit while it’s up in the air, just enough to get it roundish and about 3 inches. I tried loading them up in my hand, but the heat of my hands made the dough stick and we had to have a serious conversation about cooperating. So put the wrappers down again.
3. In the center of your wrapper, place a square of nori. In the center of the nori, place a blop, maybe a scant teaspoon, of the filling.
4. Wet your finger (I put a little bowl of water there to prevent wasting water or getting glop all over my faucet), and trace the circumference of the wrapper with your wet finger.
5. Fold the little darling into a semi-circle (or triangle), pinching or folding the edges together. The water will help. Try to avoid the filling pushing its way out. It will be petulant and try, but you’re in charge here. The nori will fold in half on the inside and make a sturdy spine for the little thing, if you do it right.
6. Repeat with the rest of the wrappers and filling.
7. Fry the assembled rangoons in the hot oil, turning them over when the first side is golden.
8. Let the finished rangoons rest in splendor on a paper towel and then serve immediately with the prepared sauce.

 

Spring Rolls with Ginger-Peanut Sauce for One

I love these little rolls of sunshine. It’s not as hard to make them as it is to decide what to put into them—go crazy! Let your veggies rule the day! 

For the Dipping Sauce:

2 generous TBLSP peanut butter (or almond butter, in a pinch)

2 teaspoons tamari or soy sauce

1 ½ teaspoons brown sugar or maple syrup

1 teaspoon lime or lemon juice (rice vinegar, in a pinch)

Shake or two of garlic powder (or a small fresh clove, diced super small)

Pinch ginger powder (or a small amount of fresh, grated very finely)

Hot water to thin

For the Rolls:

4-6 spring roll wrappers (available in the Asian section of the grocery store)

Crunchy things, including but not limited to:

Mung bean sprouts

1 mushroom, sliced thinly

1 small carrot, julienned thinly

1 inch of cucumber, julienned thinly

Baked tofu, cut into slender slabs

Cilantro leaves, plucked from about 8 stems

Mint leaves, plucked from about 6 stems

2 lettuce leaves, chopped a little

2 green onions, diced

Plum sauce

1/2 Avocado, sliced

Left-over stir-fry

Vegan cream cheese

Alfalfa sprouts

Asparagus, cooked and cut into 2-inch lengths

Green beans, cooked and cut into 2-inch lengths

Pickled red onion

1 mushroom, sliced and sautéed in olive oil or vegan butter

Make the Dipping Sauce:

1. In a small bowl, combine the peanut butter with the soy sauce and sweetener of your choice. Thin with the lime juice. (I used rice vinegar when I didn’t have any citrus and it was fine.)
2. Add in the garlic and ginger to taste. Thin with water, if necessary. It should be fairly gloppy, but you want to be able to dip a soft spring roll in there.

Make the Rolls:

Set up a work station like this:

1 dinner plate with cold water in it (nearly to the rim)

1 dinner plate for assembly

1 plate or cutting board with your prepared veggies lined up—everything should be horizontal, to make it easier

1 serving plate

1. Place one wrapper in the plate full of water. Dunk it well, and flip it over. You’ll want to run your fingers all over this one (it feels slippery in the nicest way). The next wrapper will soak while you’re assembling this first one, so you won’t have to stand there impatiently next time. When the wrapper is transparent and very very soft, pick it up by the edges and lay it as flat as you can on the assembly plate. Dunk another wrapper into the water and turn it over to soak while you’re assembling Spring Roll Number One.
2. Lay a pretty veggie (it will show through) on the prepared wrapper. Put it on the wrapper just south of the center. If the wrapper is 6-inches wide, you’ll want to keep your veggies limited to a 2-inch-wide stack in the middle. If your wrapper is larger, you can take up more space proportionately.
3. Layer ensuing veggies on top of the pretty one, being careful to keep everything very horizontal. The stack, when complete, should be 2-inches horizontal, 1-inch vertical, and about 1-inch high. Helpful hint: Mung bean sprouts are wily creatures and you may want to shuffle them like cards before lining them up on the stack.
4. Fold in the SIDES of the wrapper first, snuggling them tightly against the stack of veggies. Over-long or sharp veggies (like julienned carrots) may poke through, so monitor them closely.
5. Now fold the edge closest to you up over the stack of veggies. You can pull on it a bit to get it to completely cover the veggies and most of the far side of the stack.
6. Carefully roll the little darling up, pushing the bottom of the stack over the remaining bit of wrapper. You can tug on the wrapper a bit without tearing it, and the tighter you get the roll, the easier it is to eat.
7. Set the beautiful little roll on the serving plate. Congratulate your self, because it wasn’t as hard as you thought it would be.
8. Repeat steps 1-7 with the remaining wrappers and veggies.

These will keep overnight if you wrap them in plastic wrap, but I don’t know why you wouldn’t just fall on them like a condemned prisoner and devour them at once.

  

Bánh Xèo—Vietnamese Crepes—for One

I had this in a restaurant and it was so good, I scurried home to figure out how to make it myself. OMG. It’s SOOOO worth the wait for the batter. You could put the batter together at breakfast time and then cook up the meal for lunch or dinner, and you’ll hardly even notice the wait. Or maybe leave it overnight. You DO want to wait though. The flavors intensify with time.

For the Crepe:

¼ cup rice flour

2 TBLSP all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon turmeric (more, if you like a stronger color)

½ cup water

¼ cup coconut milk (other non-dairy milks work too)

Pinch salt

Vegetable oil (for cooking)

For the Filling:

½ cup of any combination of the following:

Cooked broccoli

Scallion, chopped small

Carrots, julienned

Mushroom, lightly sautéed

Mung bean sprouts

Spinach, chopped

Cucumber, diced small

Avocado, sliced

Radish, sliced and diced

Baked tofu, cut into small cubes

For the Crunchies:

Lettuce/spinach leaves

Mint leaves

Cilantro

Cucumber disks

For the Sauce:

2 TBLSP rice vinegar

1 TBLSP water

1 teaspoon sugar

1 TBLSP finely julienned carrot

1 TBLSP finely julienned jicama (optional)

Prepare the Crepe Batter

1. Combine rice and all-purpose flours, turmeric, water, milk, and salt in a small bowl, and let them sit for at least 3 hours. It should be more like orange juice than pancake batter. The turmeric will get increasingly brighter in time, so go easy on this.

Prepare the Filling:

1. Cook, sauté, or dice the filling ingredients of your choice. I like to leave them fairly separate when I toss them on my crepe, but you could pile them into a bowl and mix them, too.

Make the Sauce:

1. In a small bowl, combine all the ingredients. You might want to stir the sugar into the vinegar a bit before adding the carrot and jicama. If this sits for a little while, the vinegar pulls some of the color from the carrots, and you get a pale orange sauce.

Cooking the Crepes:

1. In a large (12-inches or larger) non-stick frying pan, slosh in a little cooking oil (not much—the crepe will float if it’s too much), wipe most of it up with a paper towel, and heat over medium heat.
2. Pour in about half of the batter, and quickly rotate and tilt the pan so that the batter spreads evenly over the bottom (not the sides) of the frying pan. Add more batter if you need to get complete coverage. You want it super thin. If the pan is too hot, it will create bubble holes almost immediately.
3. Add some of the filling items, spread evenly and thinly over the crepe. Cover the pan with a lid for 2-3 minutes. The batter should be transparent around the edges when this time is up. If the crepe is too thick, it will still cook just fine. You can tell if it’s cooked after the next step, if you can pick it up with a wide spatula.
4. Remove the lid and lower the heat. When the crepe is crisp (another minute or two), fold it in half and slide it onto your serving plate.
5. Repeat with the remaining batter and filling.

Serve with the crunchies. You can tuck them inside or spread them on top, or maybe tuck them inside individual bites and either dip the bites into the sauce or slosh the sauce over the pile of crepe and veggies.

This may be enough for two. I don’t know. I didn’t have any trouble eating both crepes, but they were delicious and there was no one to prevent me from gluttony. You won't tell, will you?