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.

 

Mushroom Dim Sum Buns for One

These little filled balls are super filling—they’re metaballs! I thought about making a salad to go with them, but in the end, they were so filling I’d have put the salad back in the fridge.

Makes 5 or 6.

½ cup non-dairy milk

1 cup all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon of baking powder

Pinch of sea salt

Peanut oil (or canola)

8 ounces of mushroom—mixed is nice, but anything will do—sliced or diced

2 slices of onion, diced

2 leaves of bok choy or cabbage, diced

1 clove garlic, peeled and finely diced

½-inch piece of ginger, peeled and finely diced

Several sprigs of cilantro or parsley, diced

1 TBLSP rice wine vinegar

2 TBLSP tamari or soy sauce

2 green onions, sliced small

1 TBLSP sesame seeds, toasted slightly in a dry pan

½ TBLSP sesame oil

2-4 TBLSP protein of some sort (optional), such as beans, tofu, or brats, diced small

1. In a small bowl, add the milk, flour, baking powder, and salt, and stir it into a dough. Let it rest in the refrigerator for 20 minutes to half an hour.
2. In a frying pan, heat a splash of the oil over medium heat and toss in the mushrooms and onions and stir fry until they’re golden brown, about 5 minutes. Add the bok choy or cabbage and stir fry until it’s soft. Now add in the garlic, ginger, and cilantro.
3. Add the vinegar and soy sauce, and cook for about 5 more minutes, until the liquid has boiled away. The mushrooms should be pretty soft now. Remove from the heat.
4. Add the green onions, sesame seeds, and sesame oil to the mushrooms, and set aside. This is the point to add some protein if you wish, too, like baked tofu, cooked beans, or diced vegan brats.
5. Dust a surface with flour (I like to use a piece of waxed paper for easier clean-up, rather than doing this straight on the kitchen counter), and roll the blob of dough into a thick sausage. Cut it into 6 pieces, roll them into balls, and then flatten them into rounds. I like to make them about 3-inches in diameter, but it’s up to you how thick or big you make them. You could also roll the dough flat with a well-floured rolling pin and cut out neat circles with a cookie or biscuit cutter.
6. Plop some mushroom mixture into the centers of the 6 pieces of dough, making sure that there’s a large circle of bare dough around each mound of mushrooms. Do fill them as full as you can, though. Pull and fold the edges of the dough over the filling, pinching the edges to make a seal. There will be extra stuffing, even if you fill the dumplings very full. It will be nice on scrambled tofu tomorrow morning.
7. Place the little darlings on a cabbage or lettuce leaf (to keep them from sticking to your steamer) or place each in a paper muffin cup with the scruffier sides of the little orbs down. It doesn’t really matter much—it’s not for presentation purposes. It’s for anti-stick purposes.
8. Bring a pot of water to a boil with the steamer already in place. The water should come up to the steamer but not enter it or bad things will happen to your buns and their paper wrappers. Place the buns and their wrappers into the steamer, lower the heat to medium, cover, and steam for about 12 minutes.

Serve with hoisin sauce (recipe included below), plain soy sauce, teriyaki sauce, or a nice soy sauce/miso/rice vinegar/mirin (in equal parts, and seen below) dipping sauce. Yummmmm!.

   

Homemade Hoisin Sauce for One

Produces 1/3 cup.

4 TBLSP soy sauce

2 TBLSP peanut butter

1 TBLSP molasses

2 teaspoons rice vinegar

1 clove garlic, diced finely

2 teaspoons sesame seed oil

1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper.

1. Whisk all ingredients together in a small bowl.
2. Serve with Chinese food, particularly dim sum offerings, like Mushroom Buns, pot stickers, or non-egg rolls. 

Brown Rice Congee (Jook) for One

The first time I had this satisfying and filling breakfast, it was as a late night snack in a San Francisco restaurant. I had it again when I was hiking in China, and that’s where I became a real fan. The nice thing about this savory meal is that it’s never the same twice, and you can make a big batch to reheat and eat all week, if time is a problem.

4 or 5 dried shiitake mushrooms (or fresh)

Slosh of vegetable oil

1 garlic clove, thinly sliced

3 thin slices of fresh ginger,

¼ cup long-grain brown rice, rinsed and drained

2 ¼ cups water or veggie stock

¼ cup thinly sliced greens (bok choy, spinach, kale, fennel, broccoli, etc.)

Salt or soy sauce

Pepper to taste

Garnish Ideas:

Sliced scallions

Fried shallots

Chopped fresh cilantro

Parsley

Roasted or fried peanuts

Toasted sesame seeds

Pickled ginger

Soy sauce, sesame oil, chili paste

1. If you’re using dried shiitake mushrooms, set them in a small bowl of water to soak for 20 minutes or so. You can discard the water, or toss it in with the rice, if you like. Remove the woody stems from the mushrooms and slice them thinly.
2. In a heavy pot, sauté the garlic, ginger and mushrooms in the oil until the mushrooms are droopy.
3. Add the rice and water or stock and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally to prevent the rice from sticking. Cook for about an hour.
4. Add in the greens and continue to simmer for another 30 minutes, or until it is like oatmeal or porridge. Some people like it soupy, some people like it pudding-y. It’s up to you. If you simmer too long and need it thinner, add boiling water.
5. Season to taste with salt or soy sauce and pepper. Serve hot with the garnishes of your choice.

Doubles well. 

Fried Rice for One

I love Chinese food. There’s something about how practical it is, using whatever is in the kitchen, how quick it is, oh, and how fried it often is, that I find irresistible.

2 dried shiitake mushrooms

½ cup long grain rice (brown or white, whatever suits you)

1 TBLSP peanut oil (or olive oil or sesame—whatever you’ve got)

1 TBLSP minced carrot

¼ cup chopped cabbage (green or red)

1 stalk of broccoli, chopped, stem and all

1 scallion, thinly sliced

1 clove garlic, minced

½ inch peeled fresh ginger, minced

¼ cup tofu (I like to use name age, a baked purchased product, but raw is good too)

1 TBLSP soy sauce

1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil

A slosh of rice vinegar

Peanuts for garnish

1. In a small pot, cook rice in 1 1/14 cups water, bringing it to a boil, covering, and lowering the heat. You can also use about 1 cup of cooked left-over rice.
2. Place the shiitake mushrooms to soak in enough water to cover for about 10 minutes.
3. While the rice is cooking, prepare the vegetables. Chop the carrot, cabbage, and scallion, mince the garlic and ginger. Destem and chop the mushrooms when they’re soft enough.
4. Once the rice is finished cooking, set it aside.
5. In a frying pan or wok, heat the peanut oil and fry up the carrot and cabbage. When it’s starting to soften, add in the mushrooms, scallion, garlic, and ginger.
6. Add the rice and give it a good stir. If it’s yesterday’s rice, keep stirring until it’s heated through. You may need to add some water or oil to keep it from sticking to the pan.
7. Toss in the tofu, and when it’s heated, add the soy sauce, sesame oil, and rice vinegar. Garnish with peanuts, as liberally as pleases your palate.

Devour with the rapt attention of a thousand wild dogs.

Variations:

• You can use whatever veggies you have on hand—just put the longer-cooking vegetables in the wok first (like squash, yellow onion, or broccoli), and work your way to the things that need less heat.
• Frozen veggies will do well in this dish too, if that’s all you’ve got.
• Try it with a different kind of grain, like quinoa, farro, or bulgur wheat.