Wontons!
{This post is an nod to my friend and colleague, BPS, whose regular cooking-related blog posts are much more fancy than what I normally cook.}
I love wontons, really I do. Unfortunately for me, most wontons are prepared stuffed with pork. Since I don't eat the little piggies and I stumbled upon this fantastic looking recipe, I just had to try my hand at homemade vegan wontons! I have some pictures here, along with a few little things that I changed about the recipe, as I do with almost every recipe I try.
Here are the two key ingredients, tofu & leafy greens. I used a little more tofu than the recipe called for and I froze it the day before, then let it thaw before crumbling it up because I like the texture better after it freezes. It's chewier and denser. Also, make sure to really get all the excess moisture out of the tofu. I usually do this by squeezing the chunk of tofu in a dishcloth, as the recipe suggests. For leafy greens, I chose curly mustard greens. They are a bit more veiny and harder to chop after blanching than bok choy but the stupid store didn't have any bok choy, sigh. Yet they tasted great with the mustard greens!
The other change I made was to use hot pepper sesame oil in place of both the regular sesame oil and the chile oil. This was mostly because all I had was the delicious pepper sesame oil, and I think it made it a little spicier than it was meant to be, but it was all the more yummy to me.
I bought wonton wrappers instead of making them (shame!) but I think it's a reasonable thing to do. Like buying phyllo dough. My "nurse's caps" didn't come out as nicely as the recipe picture, especially after the boiling process. But does really good food always have to look amazing? No. And were they really good? Hell yes.
And a little cute overload to brighten your day (on top of the wontons):
Edith & Squishy taking a snooze, butt to butt
I love wontons, really I do. Unfortunately for me, most wontons are prepared stuffed with pork. Since I don't eat the little piggies and I stumbled upon this fantastic looking recipe, I just had to try my hand at homemade vegan wontons! I have some pictures here, along with a few little things that I changed about the recipe, as I do with almost every recipe I try.
Here are the two key ingredients, tofu & leafy greens. I used a little more tofu than the recipe called for and I froze it the day before, then let it thaw before crumbling it up because I like the texture better after it freezes. It's chewier and denser. Also, make sure to really get all the excess moisture out of the tofu. I usually do this by squeezing the chunk of tofu in a dishcloth, as the recipe suggests. For leafy greens, I chose curly mustard greens. They are a bit more veiny and harder to chop after blanching than bok choy but the stupid store didn't have any bok choy, sigh. Yet they tasted great with the mustard greens!
The other change I made was to use hot pepper sesame oil in place of both the regular sesame oil and the chile oil. This was mostly because all I had was the delicious pepper sesame oil, and I think it made it a little spicier than it was meant to be, but it was all the more yummy to me.
I bought wonton wrappers instead of making them (shame!) but I think it's a reasonable thing to do. Like buying phyllo dough. My "nurse's caps" didn't come out as nicely as the recipe picture, especially after the boiling process. But does really good food always have to look amazing? No. And were they really good? Hell yes.
And a little cute overload to brighten your day (on top of the wontons):
Edith & Squishy taking a snooze, butt to butt