Moo Shu Vegetables

I had to look up what “moo shu” (actually “muk sui” in Cantonese) meant in Chinese since it doesn’t translate in any way that makes sense… like “hot dog.” According to the wikipedia entry on the etymology, it doesn’t make literal sense and there’s some dispute over how the name came about. Anyways I don’t think we ever made these at home but I have fond memories of eating them in restaurants. There’s just something about going out to a restaurant only to make your own food…

You can play with the ingredients according to what you have in your fridge and what you like.  Each moo shu burrito will take about 3/4 – 1 cup of filling.

Basic ingredients:
moo shu pancakes (store bought or make your own)
white pepper
soy sauce and/or shaoxing cooking wine
sesame oil for stir-frying
lots of hoisin sauce

And for the filling, you can use any combination of:
tofu, drained and cut into slices
seitan
veggie chicken cutlets, shredded
green onions, greens cut into 1-inch pieces, whites into rings
chinese chives
regular onion, sliced
carrots, julienned
shitake mushrooms, soaked and sliced
dried tiger lily bulbs, soaked and cut into 1-inch pieces
canned bamboo shoots
scrambled eggs (pre-scrambled)
bean sprouts
cabbage, shredded thin
baby corn, sliced
garlic

I got about 6 moo shus worth of filling with 1 carrot, 1 can seitan (chai pow yu), 1/5 head cabbage, 2 cloves garlic, 3 big mushrooms, 2 green onions, 3/4 cup dried tiger lily bulbs, and 1/3 of an onion.

Store-bought moo shu pancakes:

Tiger lily buds, which are the closed buds of the bright orange tiger lily plant and readily available at any Asian grocer (very common in hot & sour soup):

Preheat your pan to med-high with 1-2 tbsp oil and add the ingredients in the order they need to fry– tofu, carrots, onions (both kinds), cabbage, then garlic. You can time each addition about 2 minutes apart, and then add the rest of the ingredients that don’t need to be cooked– mushrooms, tiger lily bulbs, seitan, bamboo shoots, etc. But NOT the bean sprouts or they will turn to mush.  Add 2 tbsp shaoxing wine, 2 tbsp soy sauce, and a generous dash of white pepper.  These aren’t key, since most of the flavor will come from your veggies and the hoisin sauce anyways.  Once everything is cooked but not soggy, turn off the heat and make sure everything is mixed.  Add bean sprouts at this point.

Take a pancake, smear generously with hoisin sauce, fill with veggies, and wrap it like a burrito but with one end open. Keep the pancakes moist and only fill/wrap moo shus as you eat them or the liquid from the veggies will soak through the pancakes and they’ll turn to mush. Also, when you scoop the filling from your pan, try to avoid as much liquid as you can. Enjoy!

Hidden animal ingredients

I went to the Maine Vegetarian Food Festival last year and picked up a list of commonly-used Hidden Animal Ingredients.  I was reminded of it today because we bought a bottle of Sobe Lifewater, “yumberry pomegranate” flavor:

Apparently it’s supposed to “purify” me with these ingredients:

FILTERED WATER, ERYTHRITOL, NATURAL FLAVOR, CITRIC ACID, ASCORBIC ACID (VITAMIN C), XANTHAN GUM, CALCIUM LACTATE, POTASSIUM CITRATE, REB A (PUREVIA tm BRAND), MODIFIED FOOD STARCH, COCHINEAL EXTRACT (COLOR), VITAMIN E ACETATE, CALCIUM PHOSPHATE, GUM ARABIC, GINGER EXTRACT, DANDELION ROOT EXTRACT, CALCIUM PANTOTHENATE, NIACINAMIDE, PYRIDOXINE HYDROCHLORIDE (VITAMIN B6), CYANOCOBALAMIN (VITAMIN B12).

“Cochineal extract” is made from crushed scale insects that look like this:

Just goes to show– you can’t even trust the most innocuous-looking fluids not to have animal ingredients.

Coconut Curry Rice with Tofu

My dad’s sisters (there are a few) used to make a big batch of this in a industrial-sized rice cooker for family get-togethers. It’s not quire the same on a stovetop and without chicken drumsticks but here’s my version.  Start at least 1 hour before you plan to eat; it takes a long time for the rice to absorb the coconut milk.

Ingredients:
1.5 cups white rice
1 can coconut milk (I use the lite variety)
1.5 cups water
1 cup frozen green peas
1/2 cup golden raisins
3/4 tsp and 3/4 tsp Better Than Bouillon, divided
3-4 tsp non-spicy curry powder
1 package firm or extra-firm tofu, well drained; or pieces of veg. chicken (not breaded)
2-3 bay leaves
salt if desired

Non-spicy curry powder:

Slice the tofu about 1 cm thick and smear both sides of each piece with portion of the Better Than Bouillon (I get 8 slices from Nasoya). Sprinkle tops with about 1 tsp of curry power and bake in a 400 degree oven for about 40 minutes until the pieces are nice and meaty/chewy.  If using veggie chicken, just sprinkle the cutlets with some curry powder and place on top of  your rice while it cooks (see below).

In a large pot, throw in the rice, coconut milk, water, peas, raisins, 2-3 tsp curry powder, and 3/4 tsp Better Than Bouillon. Set the 2 bay leaves on top. Cook on low for about 1 hour (mine took 1.5 hours on very low). Usually opening the lid is a total faux pas but because of the coconut milk, you’ll have to lift the bay leaves and stir the rice 2-3 times while it’s cooking to make sure the rice on top doesn’t get dry while the rice on bottom overcooks.

After an hour, check to see if the rice is done. Once the rice thoroughly cooked, remove the bay leaves mix the whole thing so the peas and raisins are evenly distributed. Then throw the tofu pieces into the pot and mix again. Add salt if desired. Let sit for 5-10 minutes and then serve.

Pad Kee Mao/Drunken Noodles

Drunken noodles/pad kee mao is my favorite Thai dish… thai basil, sweet soy sauce, chilies… mmmm…. I always start with this easy recipe as a basis for experimentation.

You can find thai basil and rice noodles at Haknuman Meanchey up Forest Ave., along with lots of hard-to-find asian produce, dry goods, and prepared foods. I went in there for the first time recently and was pretty wowed by their variety.

Onto the eating part…

Drunken Noodles Sauce:
2 tablespoons Golden Mountain sauce or Maggi sauce
2 tablespoons white vinegar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 cup thai basil leaves
Sambal oelek to taste (start with 1/4 tsp)

Noodles:
5-6 oz. rice noodles/rice sticks/rice flakes (big flat square noodles)
1-2 thai peppers, diced small
1 tomato, cut into wedges
1/2 onion, sliced
oil for stir-frying
1/2 package of extra firm tofu, drained and cut into strips

Optional:
snow peas
1 carrot cut into rings or matchsticks
1/2 red or green bell pepper, cut into strips

Soak the noodles in hot (just before boiling) water, making sure all the noodles are underwater. In a separate bowl combine just the sauce ingredients and muddle the basil leaves in with it, set aside. Stir-fry the onions and carrots on medium high and add the tofu strips in a ring around the outside. Spoon some of the sauce onto the tofu, just enough to that all of it is absorbed by the tofu. Once the onions are cooked, add snow peas/bell peppers/chili peppers (if using) and stir the whole mixture and keep stir-frying until the carrots are no longer raw.

Check on the rice noodles- drain them when they are just under al dente because they will absorb the sauce at the end to become al dente. It’s best to undershoot this because you can always add more fluid at the end but you can’t take water out once the noodles are soggy. When ready, drain the noodles and set aside. Clear a spot in the middle of your stir-fry and add the tomato. Stir-fry briefly- about one minute. Clear all veggies to the side, dump the noodles in the middle and the sauce on top. Stir-fry the whole thing together until the sauce is absorbed (you may have to separate clumps of basil leaves or clumps of rice noodles), then serve.

Drunken Noodles

Time to stop eating eggs?

My policy is to buy cage-free only, although “cage-free” is a loose term that apparently has been used to include hens that are let out of their cages for an hour a day.  Also, one could make the argument that a lifetime of egg-laying (or being milked) is worse than a quick death.  So… I guess ideally I would be vegan but I haven’t made the switch… yet.

I always hope that when Maine is in the national news it’s for positive reasons but that’s not the case today.  The animal welfare group Mercy for Animals had been investigating an egg farm in Turner, ME,  run by Maine Contract Farming LLC and distributed by Quality Egg, the largest egg supplier in the region.  Undercover workers shot footage  showing:

” workers killing hens by grabbing their necks and swinging them around in circles, workers throwing live hens into trash cans, and birds suffering from broken bones, open wounds and infections.

“The hens in the battery cages are oftentimes forced to produce eggs in cages with extremely rotting corpses of other birds who’ve died because they were unable to access food or water.”

The Press Herald states that “Quality Egg was known previously as DeCoster Egg Farm, which was accused of hiring undocumented workers and violating human rights.”  They’ve gone from violating human rights to animal rights, so I’d say it’s a small step up.

Here are the links:

Portland Press Herald (AP story; apparently PPH reporters can’t be bothered to drive an hour for a story )

the bostonchannel.com (much more thorough)

video (haven’t watched it, not going to)

Veg News Recap

Some recent vegetarian-related stories on the interwebs…

Veggie kids, omnivorous dad: I’m a little slow in posting on this piece in Slate, written from the perspective of the Dad (and only omnivore) of a 4-member family. He takes great pains to dispel the concerns that normal meat-eating parents would have about veggie kids– will they be freaks? Will they get enough nutrition? (No, and yes.) My main objection is that he evaluates vegetarianism as a lifestyle choice the same way that, say, wearing jean shorts is a lifestyle choice. For me, being a vegetarian is a lifestyle choice in as much as not stealing is a lifestyle choice. He doesn’t seem to get that, and I find this is a common problem. And I know 99% of the world won’t agree but I do believe that in an American society where veggie protein sources are cheap, plentiful, and convenient, choosing to raise kids who eat meat is as morally wrong as choosing to raise your kids to steal. Yes, I’m sure vegans feel the same way about ovo-lacto vegetarians, and yes, I’m fine with that. I think now that I’ve stuck with it for 16 years, relatives and friends can finally stop asking “are you still vegetarian?” The people I like get a “do animals still feel pain?”; the people I don’t particularly care for get “yes, are you still [insert his/her religion here]?”

Crustaceans feel and remember pain: It pains me to be a Mainer sometimes, land of the mighty lobster. A new study from Queen’s University in Belfast shows that hermit crabs who received a shock when they went into one shell would move into a new shell, while crabs who were not shocked remained in their original shells. A second study by the authors showed that crabs showed less response to negative stimuli when given painkillers.  They believe that their studies go to show that crustaceans’ response to “negative stimuli” like having their legs ripped off are not merely reflexes but true reactions to alleviate pain.  On a side note, here’s a disturbing but fascinating piece from the late author David Foster Wallace called Consider the Lobster. It starts out like a fluffy Maine travel piece and then takes a very serious turn into the ethics of eating animals, describing the way lobsters die by boiling and the myriad of ways cooks try to deny what they’ve done (like claiming that lobsters’ brains don’t allow them to feel pain or leaving the kitchen so they don’t have to hear the lobster scratching at the sides of the pot).  It’s some seriously good reading.

Red meat intake increases risk of death from cancer and heart disease:  I consider this a “no shit” argument I’m pretty sure I heard 16 years ago when somehow I got a hold of some PETA literature (or some PETA literature got a hold of me).  This time around, in a 10-year study of a half million Americans aged 50 to 71, both men and women in the top 20% of meat consumption had a much greater risk of dying from cancer or heart disease than those in the lowest 20% of meat consumption. Still, there will always be naysayers like meatsafety.org, who choose to go after the source of the information instead of the info itself (like criticizing The Cancer Project as a “Vegan, Animal Rights Group”).  Did you know that meatsafety.org was started by the American Meat Institute, “the nation’s oldest and largest meat and poultry trade association”?

Chow Mei Fun

chow = fried, mei (may)= rice, fun= thin noodles, sometimes called vermicelli.

This is an all-purpose, add anything dish. I always include some seitan for protein, and then the veggies are whatever is going bad in the fridge. My mom makes this dish with canned smoked oysters, which adds a nice flavor but I can’t endorse that

Ingredients:
1/2 of a 17.5 oz. package of mei fun, plus 4-5 cups water for soaking
3-4 black mushrooms
1/4 onion, sliced
1 can mock meat (seitan), drained
1/5 head of cabbage, sliced up
soy sauce to taste
black pepper
oil for stir-frying

Optional ingredients:
1 egg (beaten, fried in a patty, and sliced)
1 carrot (sliced thin or julienned)
snow peas
baby corn

Start by soaking the mei fun in hot water (not warm but not boiling), and also soak the mushrooms in warm water separately. Keep an eye on the mei fun while you cook to make sure they do not get too soft, and make sure no parts of it are sticking out of the water. The mei fun should take about 20 minutes. If it’s still hard after 20 minutes, drain the water and reheat it, and then throw the mei fun back in.

Preheat the oil and stir-fry the onions for a couple of minutes on medium, then add the cabbage and carrots. Allow to cook until the cabbage is no longer raw but not mushy, about 8 minutes. Cover if it gets too dry on the bottom. Add whatever veggies need to be cooked (snow peas, etc.) Once those are done, add the seitan, baby corn, and (sliced) mushrooms. Stir fry until they are hot, and sprinkle with pepper to taste.

Once the mei fun is al dente, drain it well and add to the veggies. Stir fry until the mei fun is hot, sprinkle with 1 tbsp soy sauce to start with and add more to taste. Mix thoroughly and serve.

Yard long beans, two ways

Yard-long beans are called dau gok in Cantonese. They’re just like green beans but skinnier and longer, and with less flavor.   I think they’re used mainly for crunchiness.

I picked some up last weekend when I was in Houston for a wedding.  There was a brief period when the big Hannaford (Forest @ I-295) was carrying unlabeled Asian veggies– they were all the same price per lb and you had to know what you were looking for– but I guess they discontinued that because all the other Asians in Portland have their own restaurant or store and buy wholesale.  Anyways, the upshot is that I had to carry dau gok back from Houston.

These two recipes epitomize what Cantonese like to do with veggies: (1) fry them in egg, and (2) stir-fry with garlic and soy sauce.  So, here they are:

Dau gok tzeen dahn (dau gok in fried egg)
1/4 pound yardlong beans, trimmed and chopped into pieces about 1/4 inch long
3 eggs, beaten
dash black pepper
soy sauce
oil for pan-frying

Pan-fry beans on medium for about 5 minutes. Disperse evenly throughout the pan and sprinkle with pepper. Add the egg, cover, and let fry undisturbed for at least 5 minutes. Once the top is solid enough to flip, cut the patty into halves or quarters and flip. Fry another 5 minutes, sprinkle with soy sauce, and serve.

Dau gok with garlic and soy sauce
3/4 lb yardlong beans, trimmed and cut into 4 inch pieces
2 cloves garlic or shallots, minced
splash soy sauce or szechuan sauce (like San-J)
oil for saute-ing

Saute beans and garlic on medium for 5 minutes, covered. Stir, cover, and fry for another 5 minutes until beans are tender but not overly soft. Add sauce, stir, and serve.

The Pepper Club for Restaurant Week

I got a small cost-of-living increase (emphasis on small) last Wednesday so we decided to go to the Pepper Club Restaurant for dinner since it was Restaurant Week anyways. We went there over a year ago and the service was terrible (rude and slow) and the veggie options scant even though they are touted as a veggie-friendly restaurant. But the prix fixe menu for Restaurant Week had lots of veggie (and dessert) options and was a decent deal for $20.09 for an appetizer, entree, and dessert, so we decided to give it another try.

(from The Pepper Club)

We started with a shared appetizer, brie with apricot jam and crackers. It was delicious, although I’m pretty sure they just spooned some jam onto a brie wedge and broiled it a little. For his entree Elliott got the tempeh meat loaf, which was a little… mushy… to be called meat loaf. It tasted healthy, if you know what I mean. I got the quinoa stuffed peppers, which was an insane amount of food considering I was about done after the brie. It was also a little under-spiced. Needed some onion and garlic or something.

For dessert Elliott got the grapefruit tart, which I’m pretty sure was actually a lemon custard pie. I got the chocolate cheesecake, which was great but I left it out on the counter overnight and couldn’t bring myself to eat it after that. Anyways, unlike last time, our waitress was super nice but the whole dining experience took 1.5 hours, which is way too long for me to sit at a table with Elliott without a TV, computer, newspaper, or at least a radio. And I overheard the table next to us complaining that they had been there two hours (during their dessert).  Given, the restaurant was a taken over by visitors in town for the U.S. synchronized skating championships…but still, it’s Restaurant Week– a good time to make sure you are fully staffed, right?  So, in sum:

first experience: bad food, bad service
second experience: okay food, friendly but slow service

Chinese Chive Dumplings

When I have a recipe in mind, I usually look up more than one source just so I know what I can fiddle with and also so I can take the laziest route.  I had a little “taking off the rose-colored glasses” moment a couple of nights ago when I found a recipe I wanted to make from a book from the library and then I found a blogger that had passed of the book’s recipe, drawings, AND commentary of as her own!  And the blogger is a FoodBuzz Featured Blogger and has had over 2,000 visits PER DAY. I mean, this happens every so often on Allrecipes.com, but I think if you’re making money as a blogger and offering commentary, at the very least the commentary should be one’s own, right?

Anyways… chive dumplings…. right.

I adapted this recipe from “Dim Sum: the Art of Chinese Tea Lunch” by Ellen Leong Blonder. It normally calls for a filling of shrimp/chives or pork/chives inside a translucent dumpling wrapper based on wheat starch instead of wheat flour or rice flour. Note that you have to use Chinese chives– they have flat blades and are much bigger than regular chives. I substituted tofu for the meat and got 14 dumplings out of this recipe.

Ingredients:
1.25 cup wheat starch+some for dusting (available at Hong Kong Market on Congress)
1/4 cup glutinous rice flour or tapioca flour
1 cup boiling water
1 tsp vegetable oil

1 bunch Chinese chives (about 20 stems)
3 green onions
1 package tetrapak tofu, extra firm, drained
1 tbsp soy sauce (or 1/4 tsp better than bouillon)
1 tbsp sesame oil

For the wrappers: mix the wheat starch and flour, add the boiling water and vegetable oil, and form into a dough. Turn out onto board dusted with starch (I don’t recommend a wooden board as it starts out pretty sticky). Once you have a uniform dough, form about 14-15 balls a little more than an inch in diameter. Cover with a moist paper towel.

Filling: heat a large pan with the sesame oil; add the tofu and soy sauce (or bouillon). Mash the tofu and let it fry for about 10 minutes on medium, burning off excess water. Take the chives and green onions, hold them in a bunch over the pot, and cut them into bits with scissors.  Stir-fry the whole thing for at least 10 more minutes.

Allow the filling to cool for about 10 minutes. Then take one of your dough balls, sandwich it in between 2 sheets of wax or parchment paper, and roll out a circle about 4 inches across (it should be the thickness of a dumpling wrapper). Put some filling the middle, then pull the dough up around it. I just pull in 4 opposite ends first and then pull in the rest. No fancy pleats for me. You want the dough to meet in the middle with minimal overlap, because these dumplings should be round and fat (like a cheese wheel), not crescent or bun-shaped. Once there are no holes on top (seam side), put the dumpling top-side down on wax paper until you have a batch ready to go. Preheat your pan to medium with a little oil and set the dumplings in bottom side down. Flatten with a turner if necessary. After 2 minutes (just starting to brown), flip them over and pan fry the top-side for 2 minutes.

Then, add about 1/3 cup water (carefully, it’ll splatter)– enough to cover the bottom of the pan, but not too much because you will have to burn this water off. Cover and steam the dumplings for about 5 minutes– the wrappers will become translucent. Turn the heat up to med-hi, let the water burn off, and then pan fry the tops again for a few minutes until they are nice and toasty on both sides.