Recipes: How to Create a Chinese & Asian-inspired Dinner for Two – Vegan Style!

After my boyfriend ended up footing a rather hefty dinner bill recently (which admittedly, should have been my treat!), I promised to cook him a special dinner in return. Especially since a) he hadn't enjoyed the meal at all (it was a new restaurant we were trying out for size), and b) I was supposed to have been paying (I pulled a right old trick there!).

So, since one of my bf's favourite cuisines is Chinese, mainly for all the sweet sauces (even though he has type 1 diabetes and shouldn't be eating them!), that's the menu I decided to create. And this is what it looked like:

Seitan Skewers with Peanut Satay Sauce and a Japanese Cucumber Salad

Tangerine-Glazed Tempeh

Vegan 'Egg' Fried Rice

Sesame Stir-Fried Vegetables

I have to say, it's relatively easy to think up a Chinese or Asian influenced vegan menu, with all the tofu and tempeh and so forth that you can use. And seitan, which is also known as 'wheat meat' or 'mock duck,' is of Chinese origin too. You find it in a lot of dishes in the Buddhist and vegetarian restaurants in Hong Kong. It is very meaty, for sure.

And the tempeh – well, I've been meaning to give it go for ages, and I had a packet in the freezer to use. With my other half's love of citrus-sweet tastes, and a bowl full of tangerines waiting to be eaten at home, I experimented with making a marinade for it, using the fruit. This turned out very, very well indeed!

(Okay - I'll admit. I didn't like the tempeh itself so much, but I loved my own marinade!).

I've become a bit of a dab-hand at cooking a delicious tofu scramble too, so this was naturally going to be the 'egg substitute' in the fried rice.

If you want to have a go at making any of these dishes yourself, then I'm including all my recipes in this post. Also, I will tell you in which order I created everything, and give some tips for getting the best results.



To note – this menu can be adapted for a gluten-free diet, but you will need to leave out the seitan as this is literally just the gluten (protein) from wheat. You could substitute this for deep-fried tofu, and make the same Peanut Satay Sauce.

You will also need to ensure you buy a special gluten-free soy sauce – as standard soy sauce has wheat in. Do not forgot this if you are cooking for a gluten intolerant or Coeliac friend. You can buy a gluten free Tamari in place.

Preparation (what you can do in advance):

There are two things you can do the night before.

One is pretty much essential for the best results unless you have time in the morning of the day of your dinner, and that is marinading the tempeh (which doesn't take much time anyway).

You do need to give the tempeh a long time basking in the marinade to soak up the flavours, though if you find yourself running around at last minute, then at the very least, give it in an hour. I made my marinade in the morning.

The other thing you can do is make the seitan, as it stores well for up to ten days in the fridge in its broth (you can buy seitan from Chinese supermarkets or health food shops too). When you use the seitan, lightly fry it before adding it to whatever recipe you are cooking up.

When you start making the full dinner, you should have the tempeh marinaded for several hours and the seitan ready.

I also find it helps to have the rice for the main course almost ready, and the vegetables for the stir-fry chopped (since they can be cooked while the tempeh is cooking).



So, let's begin with the Tangerine-Glazed Tempeh:

1 250g pack tempeh (*check if gluten free if necessary)

Juice of five tangerines (satsumas or mandarins would work too)

A few rind peels of 1 tangerine

1 tbsp of tangerine pulp (take the remains from your juicer, make sure no pips)

2 gloves minced garlic

1 tsp ginger powder

¼ tsp all-spice

2 tbsp rice vinegar

2 tbsp sweet chilli sauce

1 tbsp sweet soy sauce (or gluten-free substitute)

1 tbsp dark soy sauce (or gluten-free substitute)

1 tbsp canola oil (rapeseed oil)

1. As I mentioned, try to marinade in the morning or the night vefore, or at a push, for an absolute minimum of one hour.

2. First, cut the tempeh into 4 triangles by cutting in half widthways, and then cutting diagonally across each piece. Boil some water in a shallow pan and add the tempeh. Cook for 10 minutes, turning over half way.

3. Remove the tempeh from the pan of water and place in sieve, Allow to drain and cool.

4. Make the marinade. In a bowl, add the minced garlic, tangerine juice, spices, soy sauces, vinegar, oil, tangerine juice and pulp, and whisk with a fork.

 5. In order to marinade the tempeh, the most ideal container would be one which fits the tempeh snugly so that the marinade fully coats it. I used a rectangular take-out container with a lid (see image above).

6. Leave the tempeh in its marinade in the fridge overnight, or for several hours if possible (certainly no less than 1 hour).



Cooking instructions:

When it comes to cooking it a few hours later, you first need to strain the marinade so you do not have the fruit peel and pulp floating around.

Then, in a heavy-bottomed non-stick frying pan on a medium heat (and possibly a small amount of oil sprayed into the pan), cook the tempeh pieces with some of the marinade.

Turn after about 7 minutes, and cook the other side, spooning over more marinade. When it comes to plating up, make sure you scrape all the marinade from the pan and spoon over, so the tempeh has a glaze.

How to make seitan:

Okay. So now for making the seitan (though you can make this whenever suits, as long as you give it enough time to braise – the seitan itself can keep in a refrigerator in a sealed container with its broth for up to ten days, or be frozen).



I do have a fairly simple recipe I use in a hurry, but this home-made seitan one from PPK is much better so try this one for size (though you can omit the nutritional yeast flakes without much detriment to the recipe if you don't have them in the cupboard).

If you live in the UK, you can buy wheat gluten flour at a reasonable price from The Flourbin – I use quite a lot of it so buy in bulk.

* Remember though, this is NOT a gluten-free option! Use deep-fried tofu if you need gluten-free.

So, to start on the rice, here we go...

Vegan 'Egg' Fried Rice

1 (dry) cup brown rice, cooked and cooled

200g (1½ cup) firm tofu, crumbled

3 spring oinions, cut into thin strips

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp sesame oil

½ tsp yellow curry powder

¼ tsp turmeric

¼ tsp salt

2 tsp soy sauce (optional)

1. In advance, cook the brown rice so that it has a chance to cool.

2. To make perfect rice, bring a large pan of water to the boil and only put the rice in when boiling. DO NOT stir! Turn the heat down to a simmer and cook for 20 minutes.

3. When cooked, drain in a sieve and leave to cool until cold, if possible.

To make the vegan egg:

4. In a heavy-bottomed frying pan or wok, heat the olive oil and add the spices and salt. Crumble in the tofu and stir around, until the tofu has soaked up all the colour and turned yellow.

5. Place in another dish for now. You will add to the rice once it's been fried.



To complete the dish:

6. In the same wok with the 'egg' removed, heat the sesame oil. Add the spring onion and fry for around a minute or so.

7. Add the cooled, cooked, brown rice, letting it fry a little in the oil.

8. Add in the tofu egg, and ensure all the rice, onion and tofu egg is well-mixed.

9. If you like, you can add the optional soy sauce now but I chose not to, since there is a lot of soy sauce in other parts of the menu.

You can leave the tofu and rice uncombined until the last minute, when it comes to serving up the tempeh, if you like.

If you choose to make it all now, you can keep it warm in the oven in a covered casserole dish.



Seitan Skewers with Peanut Satay Sauce & Cucumber Salad

* The gluten-free option here would be to use deep-fried tofu, instead of seitan!

Firstly, make the cucumber salad so that the cucumber has a little time to soak in the vinegar.

Quite simply, I took about a third of a large cucumber and cut it into Julienne strips.

I then put in a bowl, sprinkled over a couple of tablespoons of rice vinegar (mirin would work well) and some sesame seeds, as well as a tiny sprinkle of sugar, stirred together and left in the fridge until needed.

Then I made the satay sauce, which was really easy and so very delicious (and very much for thoese with a sweet-tooth!).

Peanut Satay Sauce:

½ red chilli

2 gloves minced garlic

1 inch cube of minced fresh ginger (or ¼ tsp ginger powder)

¼ tsp all-spice

1 ½ tbsp rice vinegar

2 tbsp peanut butter

1 tbsp soy sauce (or gluten free alternative)

½ tbsp toasted sesame oil

1 tbsp sugar

½ tbsp cornflour

5 tbsp water

1. In a small saucepan, heat the sesame oil on a low-medium heat and fry the chilli, garlic and ginger (if fresh) for 1-2 minutes.

2. Add the other dry spices, stir in quickly, then add the soy sauce, rice vinegar and sugar, and keep stirring until the sugar dissolves.

3. Now combine the peanut butter into the sauce, and stir until melted in (keep the sauce only simmering up until this point).

4. In a small teacup or bowl, mix the cornflour (cornstarch) with the water, then take the saucepan off the heat just to add, stirring in constantly.

5. Put the saucepan back on the heat and turn up until slightly boiling, so it thickens. Keep on a high simmer for a few minutes. If the sauce needs to be a little thicker, add some additional cornflour (try a half tablespoon) by following the step above.

The sauce needs to be a consistency that will allow it to stick to the seitan for the satay skewers.

Preparing the seitan for the skewers:

I used approximately half the above seitan recipe for two people, which made us two small skewers each with 3 pieces on. I used fondue skewers from a set I had!

Using three of the cutlets, chop into 12 pieces, and then fry lightly in a heavy frying pan (with some olive oil) until browned.

Push three pieces of seitan onto each skewer and then place on the serving plate. Pur the satay sauce over the skewers, and then assemble some of the cucumber salad at the side.

There you go – your starter is served!

The Main Event: Preparing the tempeh, fried rice and the vegetables

So – for the main course :)

If you have all the vegetables chopped, the rice cooked, the 'egg' part of the rice ready, and the other ingredients at hand, it should take about fifteen minutes to get dinner to the table after you've eaten your appetizer.

Begin by cooking the tempeh, as per the recipe given above.

While the tempeh is cooking, since it doesn't require constant attention, you can start to stir-fry the vegetables (and hopefully your rice is already prepared and being kept warm in the oven – if not, do that now too!).



For the Sesame Stir-fry Vegetables, I used these veg:

2 carrots, peeled and julienned

½ red bell pepper, cut into thin strips

3-4 florets of broccoli, broken into small pieces

6-7 mushrooms, thinly sliced

1 tbsp lightly toasted sesame seeds

1 tbsp sesame oil

½ tbsp soy sauce

1 clove garlic, minced

1. It's really very simple to make. Just heat the sesame oil in a wok on medium heat then add the garlic and let sizzle for a minute or less.

2. Add all the vegetables and stir-fry until cooked but still crunchy – around 7-9 minutes - about half way adding the soy sauce to the frying process.

3. Throw in the sesame seeds towards the end, and stir thoroughly into the vegetables for serving.

4. Once the vegetables are cooked, arrange on plates with the tempeh and vegan 'egg' fried rice. Yummy!

Now all you have to do is enjoy your vegan Chinese and Asian inspired dinner!

Comments

[Nina]

Looks really good, yum, yum will try and make some of the above foods!!x

[Andrea - Chocolate and Beyond]

Let me have a taste when you do! xx

[The Old Punk]

Just found your blog and am glad I did - lots of creative ideas to try out. Thanks :)

For anyone looking for cheap gluten flour in the UK, the Low Carb Megastore have it for £2.85 a kilo (http://www.lowcarbmegastore.com/ingredients/wheat-gluten-powder-1kg), and only charge £5.49 p&p for up to 30 kilos.

[Andrea - Chocolate and Beyond]

Thanks - I actually bought my first batch of wheat gluten flour from Low Carb Megastore!