This stir-fry is based on the Kung Pao Tofu recipe in The Asian Vegan Kitchen. I tweaked it quite a bit, but the essence of the dish remains: a stir-fry sauce with chili paste, soy sauce, sweet soy sauce, sweet miso, and sherry. As my version doesn’t have peanuts or cashew nuts in it, I couldn’t call it Kung Pao any more. As a side we had a Sweet and Sour Cucumber salad from the same book and some jasmine rice.

This amount of ingredients made about three portions.

Sauce:

• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon sweet soy sauce (kecap manis)
• 2 teaspoons chili paste
• 1 and ½ tablespoons sweet (light) miso paste
• 1 and ½ tablespoons dry sherry
• 1-2 teaspoons lemon juice

Stir-Fry Ingredients:

• 3 tablespoons canola oil for frying
• 1 cm slice of ginger, crushed
• 2 bell peppers, diced
• 1 carrot, diced
• 300 g tofu, pressed and diced
• 1 fresh red chili, chopped
• ½ dl sunflower seeds, roasted
• ½-1 dl chopped chives and chive flowers
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• fresh coriander and chive flowers for garnish

I began by preparing all the ingredients – mixed the sauce, removed the seeds from the fresh chili, and chopped and diced all the ingredients. Then I put a wok over medium heat, heated the oil, and threw in the chili and the tofu, and fried them for a couple of minutes, stirring constantly. Then I picked up all the chili slices and the tofu cubes with two spatulas, and put them aside in a separate bowl.

I heated the oil remaining in the wok to high heat, and first put in the carrot and the ginger. After stir-frying them for half a minute, I added the bell peppers, and after another half a minute, the chives and the chive flowers. I stir-fried the veggies for about a minute more, and then poured in the sauce followed with the tofu and the chili. I stirred to combine everything, lowered the heat, and cooked it for a couple of minutes more. Before serving, I added in the sunflower seeds, stirred them in, removed the wok from heat, garnished with coriander leaves, and drizzled with sesame oil.

We decorated our portions with pretty chive flower petals. By the way, stir-fried chive flowers taste amazing!

The stock recipe we adapted from the Great Vegetarian Cooking Under Pressure by Lorna J. Sass, a book we very much recommend for anyone with a pressure cooker. There is a little planning ahead to do for this dish: the tempeh needs to be put in the marinade on the day before, the wrappers need a few hours to thaw, and the filling has to cool down before the assembling process can begin.

The Marinated Tempeh:

• 200 g tempeh, crumbled
• 1/2 dl light soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon brown rice vinegar
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon minced ginger

Heikki mixed all the ingredients and let the tempeh marinate overnight in the fridge.

The Filling (for about 64 wontons and a little extra):

• 1 red bell pepper, finely cubed
• 1 leek, the white part, finely chopped
• the marinated tempeh from above
• canola oil for frying

We fried the marinated tempeh crumbs in the oil for about 15 minutes on medium heat, until they were all nicely browned. Then we added the veggies to the pan, and fried for a few minutes, until they’d softened a little bit.

The Stock:

• 2 carrots, sliced
• 2 dl shredded cabbage (new crop)
• 1 leek, the green part, chopped
• 5 large garlic cloves, sliced
• 4 cm piece of a ginger root, sliced
• about 4 dl loosely packed fresh cilantro, with roots (scrubbed)
• 1 stalk shopped lemon grass
• 1 and 1/2 litres water

We placed all the ingredients in our pressure cooker, brought it to high pressure, cooked it for 10 minutes, and then let the pressure come down naturally for 10 minutes. Then we strained the stock through a fine sieve and added:

• 4 tablespoons light soy sauce
• 3 tablespoons sesame oil

Without a pressure cooker, the stock needs at least an hour of simmering.

Assembling the Wontons:

The wrappers need to be defrosted first, which takes a few hours at least. They do keep in the fridge for a while after defrosting, so this can be done on the day before. Not all wonton wrappers are vegan, so it’s important to read the labels carefully!

While I was assembling the wontons, I took care that the additional wrappers were covered with plastic. The method I used for assembling is very easy and seals tightly, but there are many other possibilities, like the fun boat shape in Veganyumyum‘s wonton recipe.

First, I placed a little less than a teaspoonful of the filling on one end of a wrapper, and brushed the edges of the wrapper with water. Then I rolled the wrapper tightly around the filling, and pressed down the ends of the resulting roll, adding a dab of water on each end. I took care to press the excess air out of the roll while doing this – the dumplings will be prettier that way.

Now, I folded the wonton roll gently in half, bringing the two ends together, and pressed them firmly with my fingers to seal. And then I repeated the process 63 times, keeping the already filled wontons covered under a kitchen towel while working on the rest.

The Boiling and Serving of the Wontons:

When all the wontons were ready, we brought a big pot filled with water to a brisk boil, and cooked them for 1-2 minutes, until all had floated up to the surface. Then we picked them up with a slotted spoon, and placed in the hot vegetable broth we’d just made.

We sliced some new crop cabbage into our bowls, scooped a generous amount of soup over it, and enjoyed!

One teaspoon of chili and sichuan pepper each don’t yet make a fiery dish, but it’s enough to enjoy the combination of their flavours. If you prefer more spiciness in your food, don’t hesitate to add more, but take it easy on the sichuan pepper if you’re not familiar with it – if you add it too much it starts to dominate the dish.

Sauce:

• 1 teaspoon toasted and freshly ground sichuan pepper (or to taste)
• 1 teaspoon dried chili flakes (or to taste)
• ½ dl dry sherry
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon fermented black beans
• 3 cloves of garlic, crushed

Stir-Fry Ingredients:

• 350 g broccoli
• 1 red bell pepper
• a quarter of a leek (or maybe 1 small leek, we didn’t have more!)
• ½ kg tofu
• 1 tablespoon canola oil for frying
• 2 teaspoons starch diluted in 4 tablespoons water

First we drained and pressed the tofu. Then we toasted the sichuan peppers over medium heat on a dry frying pan for a couple of minutes, stirring them every now and then so that they would not burn, after which I ground them in a mortar. Next, I mashed the fermented black beans with a fork, and then mixed all the sauce ingredients together: sichuan pepper, chili, sherry, soy sauce, black beans and garlic.

Then we cut all the veggies and the tofu into small pieces. You could also cut them into thin strips, squares, triangles or whatever shape pleases you!

Now, we put a wok over high heat, added the oil, and when the oil was really hot, we added the leek and paprika first, stir-fried them for a minute or so, then added the broccoli, fried it for maybe two minutes or so, then added the tofu, and stir-fried for maybe a minute more. Next, it was time to pour in the sauce, cook and stir for about one minute or so. Then we added the thickener, and stirred it in. We removed the wok from heat, and served the dish with yasmine rice immediately.

We cooked the brown rice in our pressure cooker, and it was ready in 20 minutes – the exact time it took to fry the tofu and make the stir-fry. The vegetables were slightly sweet and a little sour with a hint of sesame, and were a perfect accompaniment to the very five-spicy tofu. The tofu recipe makes enough for four, so the two of us had tofu leftovers for lunch yesterday, but the veggies were gone in no time. Reheating stir-fries isn’t very recommended anyway, since the whole point of stir-frying is to maintain the crispy freshness of the vegetables.

Tofu:

• 500 g firm tofu
• 2 teaspoons five spice powder
• 2 cloves garlic, pressed
• 1 tablespoon finely minced fresh ginger
• 1 and 1/2 tablespoons brown rice vinegar
• 1 tablespoon sherry wine
• 1/2 tablespoon agave syrup (or other sweetener)
• 5 tablespoons soy sauce
• some oil for frying
• (cilantro for garnish)

I cut the tofu block in slices about 1 cm thick, wrapped them in cheese cloth, and pressed them for about half an hour. Then I cut them in small triangles (I really like triangular food), tossed together all the marinade ingredients, and let the tofu marinate in an air tight container in the fridge for about 3 hours.

When the rice was cooking, Heikki heated the oil in our wok pan on high heat until it was very hot, and fried the tofu triangles until they had browned a little. We covered them to wait until everything else was ready, and sprinkled them with a little cilantro before serving.

Veggies:

• 2 carrots
• 1 onion
• 1 bell pepper
• 2 and 1/2 dl broccoli florets
• some oil for frying

I cut the onion in wedges, broke the broccoli in small florets, and cut the carrots and the bell pepper in small triangles.

Heikki wiped the wok with a piece of paper towel after he had fried the tofu, and then he heated a little more oil in the pan until it was really hot. First, he fried the onions for a few minutes, then added the carrots and fried them for a minute or so, and last he added the bell peppers and the broccoli, and kept on frying for a minute, not more, all the time tossing everything around in the wok with two wooden spatulas.

Slightly Sweet and Sour Stir-Fry Sauce:

• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon brown rice vinegar
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 2 tablespoons water
• 1 teaspoon potato starch

While Heikki was stir-frying, I mixed the sauce ingredients together, and when the veggies were done, I stirred the sauce to mix in the starch that always sinks to the bottom, and poured the sauce in the wok. Heikki tossed the veggies to coat them in the sauce, and heated it for 15 seconds or so to thicken.

Now, we ladled the rice and the veggies in warmed serving bowls, and immediately enjoyed our New Year’s dinner.

Another reason I prefer hard-cover cookbooks: perfect for tofu pressing!

This is what we used (makes enough for two):

• 100 g rice noodles
• 200 g carrots, scrubbed and cut into thin strips
• 300 g cabbage, cut into thin strips
• 1 dl cashew nuts
• 250 g firm tofu, pressed and cubed
• 1 slice of ginger, about 1 cm thick, crushed
• about 3 tablespoons canola oil for frying

For the sauce:

• 3 cloves of garlic, crushed
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon dried, crushed chili in oil (We used Lao gan ma brand)
• 2-3 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon agave syrup
• 2 teaspoons brown rice vinegar
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil

First, I put the noodles in a boiling pot of water. While they were cooking, Anni was slicing the vegetables. I pressed the tofu with cheese cloth for a couple of minutes, and cut it into cubes. I tasted the noodles now, and yes, they were already beyond al dente, so I poured them into a colander, and rinsed them in plenty of cold water, so that they wouldn’t get stuck into each other.

Then I heated about 2 tablespoons oil in a wok over high heat, and fried the tofu cubes until they were slightly browned, about 3 to 4 minutes. I poured the tofu out of the wok to a plate, and put rest of the oil in the wok, and waited a while for the oil to heat up. Now it was time to fry the veggies.

I put the ginger in the wok first, and stirred it around for maybe 20 seconds, and then added the carrots. Stirring continuously, I fried the carrots for about half a minute, and then added the cabbage, and fried them for about 2 minutes more. Whatever vegetables you are using, put the hardest vegetables in first, so they have more time to cook, but don’t fry them for too long! It’s nice if they still have some crunch, I think.

Next, I added the noodles. I put them in a bit at a time, mixing them with the vegetables. If you add all the noodles at once, it’s easy to end up with one big lump of noodles, all the veggies around it, which is, well, unsatisfactory.

While I was frying, Anni prepared the sauce. It’s easy to make, just combine all the ingredients in a cup, and stir. This time we used garlic, lemon juice, chili oil, soy sauce, agave syrup, brown rice vinegar and sesame oil. Yummy!

Once I had fried the noodle-veggie-mix for a couple of minutes, stirring continuously, I added the tofu back in, stirred for a few seconds more, and then poured in the sauce. Once it was mixed in, the noodles were ready to eat!

Variations

One thing to take into consideration with this dish is that the tofu tastes a bit mild when prepared this way. We don’t mind, I think it creates a nice contrast to the otherwise strong flavours of this dish, but there are a couple of easy ways to season the tofu.

One variation of the dish would be to marinate the tofu beforehand and otherwise prepare it exactly the same way, or alternatively, use unmarinated tofu, but once you have fried the tofu, pour in part of the sauce on top of them, stir until the tofu cubes have absorbed the sauce, and then remove them from the wok, and prepare the rest of the dish as explained above.

The secret of this recipe, well, there’s no secret really: like pretty much always with marinades, the longer you marinate, the better the result. (I guess there’s an upper time limit somewhere, but trust me, you will eat the tofu before that.) A good rule of thumb is that the less time you have to marinate, the more thoroughly it makes sense to dry and press the tofu first.

This marinade is adapted from a recipe at Epicurious, but it’s a classic Chinese combination of garlic, soy sauce and sesame seed oil:

• 500 g tofu
• 1 dl soy sauce (or less, if the sauce is very salty)
• 2 tablespoons sesame seed oil
• 3 teaspoons grated ginger
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 green chili pepper (or dried chili or Sambal Oelek, for example)
• 3 tablespoons canola oil
• 3 teaspoons raw cane sugar
• 1-2 teaspoons of lime juice

First, I drain and press the tofu. I usually do it like this: I cut the tofu into slices 1-2 cm thick, then wrap a kitchen towel between the slices, and then put a weight on top of the slices, or press them with my hands. I specifically take care not to use too much strength, so that the texture of the tofu stays intact. Once the towel is wet, I replace it, and repeat the procedure a couple of times. This dramatically improves the ability of tofu to absorb tastes, so I almost always do this, unless I’m super hungry or in a hurry.

The next step is to cut the tofu into pleasing shapes. I usually end up with tofu cubes, but you don’t have to be so boring. Now, I place the tofu in a container with a tightly sealable lid.

Next I just cut, grate or crush the ginger, garlic and chili into tiny pieces, and combine them with the rest of the ingredients. I pour the marinade over the tofu, close the container, and shake it thoroughly. Then, I place it in the refrigerator, ideally overnight, but at least for a couple of hours, shaking it every now and then.

Tofu prepared this way is great for grilling or frying. We’ve used it in grilled kabobs, spreading the rest of the marinade on the vegetables before barbecuing, or in stir-fries. In the photo above the tofu was just fried in a pan, on high heat, until browned.

What I used:

• 1,2 kg potatoes
• 3 onions

Coating:

• 1/2-3/4 dl olive oil
• 1 tablespoon lime juice
• 2 teaspoons corn starch
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1 tablespoon toasted & crushed sesame seeds
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1 teaspoon red paprika powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 2 teaspoons soy sauce

First, I set the oven at 225 degrees Celsius. Then I brushed the potatoes, and cut them in thin wedges.

Next, I peeled the onions and cut them in half, and cut each half in three wedges.

Now, I just mixed all the coating ingredients, and mixed this with the potato wedges in a large bowl. I spread the potatoes on a baking sheet lined with baking parchment, and placed the onion wedges on top of the potatoes.

I placed the baking sheet in the upper part of the oven for 15 minutes. Now, the onions had started to brown, so I lowered the oven temperature to 200 degrees Celsius. I tossed the potatoes and the onions around to coat them evenly with the spicy sauce, and placed the sheet in the middle section of the oven. Every 15 minutes, I tossed the potatoes around. After one hour, they were nicely browned, and none of the coating liquid was left.

This is a basic Chinese stir-fry recipe and really easy to make. With proper ingredients – fresh leek and fresh tofu – it tastes delicious! I’ve adapted this from a meat dish in the Finnish book Syödään kuten Kiinassa.

This is what I used:

• 200 g leek (about 3 small leeks)
• 250 g tofu
• 1 tablespoon dry sherry or rice wine
• 3 tablespoons oil for frying (or less, according to taste)

For the thickening:

• ½ tablespoon corn starch
• 1 teaspoon soy sauce
• 3 tablespoons water

For the marinade:

• 2 tablespoons dry sherry or rice wine
• 4 tablespoons soy sauce

I began by putting the rice in the cooker. I then dried and pressed the tofu. We were really hungry, so I didn’t do it as carefully as I usually want to do it. I’ve found that using a thin cloth or tissue to absorb some of the water from the tofu really makes a difference in the taste. This time I just wrapped the chunk of tofu in some paper tissue and put a weight on top of it for a few minutes. After cutting the tofu into small cubes, I mixed it with the marinade in a box with a lid. While finishing the rest of the preparations, I shook the box every couple of minutes to make sure the marinade was evenly distributed among the tofu cubes.

I mixed the thickening ingredients and set them aside. Then, I cut the leeks in half lengthwise and rinsed them carefully to get rid of all the grit hidden between the layers. Anni was finished preparing the cabbage salad by now, and she cut the leeks in tiny matchstick-like pieces.

It was time to fry the food. I heated the oil in a wok until it was really hot, and tossed in the tofu along with the remnants of the marinade. I fried the tofu for a couple of minutes, stirring continuously with two wooden spatulas. Next I added the sherry, and stirred again, until it was dissolved.

Now I added the leek, and fried it for a few minutes, tossing the tofu and the leek around the pan frivolously. Finally I added the thickening, and stirred for a short while until the thickening started to boil. Now it was time to eat!

This is a great recipe if you want something delicious really quick.

What I used:

• 400 g white cabbage

Sauce:

• 2 tablespoons sesame oil
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1½ teaspoons cane sugar

I cut the cabbage in squares, and then boiled a big pot pot of water. The cabbage was cooked for 2 minutes, so it softened just a little bit, and then drained in a colander.

Then I just mixed the sauce ingredients in a glass and put the cabbage in a serving dish. It’s important not to mix the cabbage and the sauce before everything else is ready to be served. In the table, I just poured the sauce in the salad and tossed it to coat every piece of cabbage evenly.

This salad was served with Stir-Fried Tofu and Leek and white jasmine rice:

Presumably the more skillful the cook, the bigger the lions’ heads are. I had some qualms whether my vegan lions stay together or not, so I played it safe and made my Lions’ heads a bit smaller. The original recipe (using pork) is from a Finnish cookbook “Syödään kuten Kiinassa” by Marja Kaikkonen, but I modified it quite a bit.

It took me almost an hour and a half to cook this dish, but for a quicker cook (like Anni) this would only take about an hour, I think. Together with some boiled rice, this portion would be enough for three. We managed to eat only 6 balls, and we barely ate any rice!

This is what I used:

• about 5 tablespoons canola oil for frying
• 500 g Chinese cabbage
• 5 dl vegetable stock
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon corn starch diluted in 2 tablespoons of water

For the Lions’ heads:

• 100 g cashew nuts
• 100 g textured soy protein bits (about 2.1 dl or 3/4 cup)
• 1 slim leek
• 2 tablespoons crushed ginger
• 1 teaspoon egg replacer (substitutes 1 egg)
• 2 tablespoons dry sherry
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 4 dl vegetable stock
• 1 tablespoon corn starch

First I roasted the cashew nuts, and ground them smoothly in the food processor. I mixed the boiling vegetable stock with the textured soy protein in a bowl and covered it. While the soy bits were soaking up, I crushed the leek and ginger in the food processor, and mixed them with the rest of the Lions’ heads ingredients. Before adding the soy protein bits, I drained and pressed them to get rid of extra water. What I had in the dough mix so far was: textured soy protein (soaked in vegetable stock), leek, ginger, egg replacer, sherry, soy sauce, and corn starch.

Now, at this point, I forgot that I had the cashew nut powder, and I got almost desperate, since the mix I had so far was not sticky enough to be made into balls. I tried to add a bit of canola oil, but that didn’t help. After realizing that I forgot to add the cashew powder, I combined it with the rest of the ingredients, and that did the trick!

Before starting to fry the Lions’ heads, I cut the Chinese cabbage into thinnish strips, and put them in a separate bowl.

I rolled 8 balls out of the dough, about 2 inches diameter each, heated up the oil in a frying pan, and carefully fried them until they had a nice brown color. While frying the balls, I heated up the vegetable stock into a boil in a separate kettle, and a couple of minutes before I was finished with the frying, I threw the shredded cabbage into the kettle along with the sugar. Because I already had used one vegetable stock cube for the dough, I was somewhat concerned that the balls would be too salty, so I only used half of a stock cube for the sauce.

After frying the balls, it was time to boil them in the stock. I wasn’t sure whether it would affect the taste, but I wanted to follow the original recipe.

I put the Lions’ heads into the kettle carefully, even though their consistency was much firmer after the frying. They settled on top of the boiling cabbage only partially submerged, but I thought that’s ok, and let them simmer for about 15 minutes. After deciding they were ready (for no particular reason, we were just getting hungry), I carefully spooned the balls out of the kettle, spread the cabbage on a serving platter, and put the Lions’ heads on top. I poured the corn starch mixed with water in the remaining sauce, and brought it to boil, after which I poured the sauce on top of the Lions’ heads.

I’ve been wanting to cook these things for a long time, and I’m glad I finally got around making them. They turned out to be delicious! Anni thought they tasted great, too.