Spicy Vegan Teriyaki Stir Fry

Teriyaki vegetables over Chinese wheat noodles

 

This is a recipe from a stir-fry-sauce zine I was working on awhile back. The idea was that you can stir fry whatever you want or like or happen to have around. What people usually have trouble with is coming up with a good sauce. I did lots of experimentation, and this spicy teriyaki was one of my favorites.

First, prepare the fire oil.

Red pepper flakes heating in canola oil.

You can add some slow-zip to your recipe by making chili, or fire oil. I find that heat added in this way is more evenly distributed and comes on slower than simply spicing a dish with cayenne or fresh peppers. If you don't have time though, you can certainly skip it.

1.5 tsp red pepper flakes

1/4 cup canola oil

Heat and pepper flakes in a small pan over low heat (2 on my oven), for about 20 minutes.

Remove from heat and cool for five minutes.

Strain then set aside.

WARNING: You're not supposed to store oil prepared in this way, you could get botulism, which is only sort of like getting a botox injection.  Just make what you need for the recipe you're working on. 

Strained fire oil.

Second, prepare your teriyaki sauce.

Liquid ingredients of the teriyaki sauce.

 2 TBS fire oil

1 tsp garlic, minced

2 tsp ginger, minced

2 tsp sriracha

1 TBS brown sugar

1/2 cup water

1/4 cup soy sauce

1.5 tsp corn starch dissolved in 1.5 TBS water

Lightly saute the garlic and ginger with the oil in a small sauce pan.

Mix together and add the liquid ingredients.

Bring to a simmer

Add the corn starch mixture, continue to simmer until the sauce starts to thicken.

Remove from heat.

Third, stir fry your veggies.

You could also add tofu, carrots, or anything else you want.

2 TBS fire oil

1/2 cup almond slivers

Veggies (you can do whatever you want, but I'll list what I had)

1/2 cup white onion, diced

3/4 cup red cabbage, cut in strips

1/2 cup broccoli, chopped

1/2 orange bell pepper, cut in strips

1 small zucchini, chopped

Left over garlic and ginger

1/2 cup cilantro, chopped

Saute the vegetables in the oil over medium heat. This was my order/timing:

 Almond slivers, about 3 minutes

Then add onions for 2 minutes 

Then add cabbage, pepper and broccoli for 3 more minutes

(upon adding cabbage, pepper and broccoli, I add a few TBS water, and cover to hasten softening)

Zucchini for about 1 more minute

Around zucchini time, add about half your sauce, cilantro and any left over garlic and ginger.

Reduce heat and lightly simmer.

Fourth, cook your noodles. Rice would work too.

I used these wheat noodles with poorly translated instructions.

Cook and rinse noodles according to instructions. Mine boiled about 3 minutes.

Fifth, add the noodles to the veggies.

Combine cooked noodles and vegetables.

Add about 1/2 the remaining sauce (1/4 of all the sauce).

Cover, and heat on low for about 2 minutes.

Serve with left over sauce, and a fresh lime if desired.

You're done!

Vegan Sticky Rice with Bean Sauce

Sticky Rice Balls with Refried Black Beans

Sticky rice made right shouldn't stick to your hands at all. Mine was slightly overcooked.

1 cup uncooked sticky rice

1 TBS oil

1/2 can refried black beans

1 tsp sriracha

1 tsp lime juice

1 clove garlic, minced

1/3 - 1/2 cup water

Okay, super short entry on the lunch I had the other day.  Had some left over canned, refried black beans from Trader Joe's.  I made sticky rice, and heated up the beans in a sauce pan with the other listed ingredients to make a simple sauce.

To make sticky rice, you soak the rice for at least an hour, then steam it, covered, for 10 minutes, stir, and steam, covered, for another 3 to 5 minutes.  When perfectly cooked, you should be able to eat it with your hands, without getting messy.  Although long winded, there is a great video explanation of the proper technique here.

Vegan Cashew Chicken!

Savory Vegan Cashew Chicken

Plated cashew chicken over jasmine rice.

Cashew chicken used to be one of my favorite dishes commonly available in Chinese restaurants. This vegan version turned out great, all the ingredients blended together perfectly.  Now, I use MSG in this recipe; gasp! I don't think it's too big of a deal, but you can learn more about it here. Here's what you do:

First, marinade the tofu.

Pressed, marinaded and repressed tofu!

Okay, so I'm sure it's been done before, but I'm going to take credit for this method of cooking tofu, because I didn't read about it anywhere else and it worked out great.

Press the tofu
Marinade the tofu in the fridge
Re-press the tofu

Tofu Marinade

3-4 TBS soy sauce

 1 TBS rice vinegar

2 tsp ginger, minced

2 tsp dried onion flakes

1/4 tsp MSG

Second, stir fry the cashews

Heat 2 TBS oil in a large pan or wok.

Add the cashews, saute until golden brown.

Remove cashews from the pan and set aside.

Third, cut and saute the tofu.

If you stir constantly, your tofu will never brown.  Leave it alone for a bit.

Fourth, cut the veggies while you saute the tofu.

You can use whatever veggies you want, snap peas would be a great addition.

1/2 yellow pepper, chopped 

1 cup broccoli, chopped

1 cup crimini mushrooms, chopped

1 small yellow summer squash, chopped

Fifth, add the broccoli and yellow pepper, saute for 3 or 4 minutes.
Sixth, add the mushrooms and summer squash, continue to saute.

Seventh, mix up and add the sauce.

The sauce

2 TBS hoisin

1 generous tsp sriracha 

1 TBS soy sauce

Veggies, combined with sauce and tofu.

After mixing the sauce with the veggies, add the cashews.

Now, thicken with 1 tsp corn starch dissolved in 1 TBS water.

Stir in, simmer for a few minutes.

Add MSG to taste.

Serve over rice.

Garnish with a few fresh cashew pieces.

You're done!

Vegan Fish Sauce!

Okay, a quick entry here - I'd been working on crafting a vegan version of fish sauce, the pungent  flavoring used in a lot of Asian cooking. The idea was to create something pungently umami flavored, but without animal ingredients.  Fish sauce is a crucial ingredient in pad thai, and although my pad thai was ultimately a failure, I'm happy with how my fish sauce turned out, and I would make it the same way again.

Here's what you do:

1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup dried shiitake mushrooms, chopped
1 TBS nutritional yeast
1 tsp brown sugar
1 tsp lime juice

Heat all the ingredients in a small sauce pan until just simmering.  Cover, remove from heat, and let stand for about ten minutes.  Remove or strain out the mushroom pieces and you're done.    

Vegan Pad Thai Fail

Vegan pad thai - Looks good, tastes alright, isn't pad thai!

Okay - I need to do a quick entry on my attempt at vegan pad thai.  Despite past failures, I went in with a ton of confidence. I had created a vegan fish sauce I was happy with, I finally had tamarind paste, I had fresh bean sprouts, chives and lime - everything seemed ready to go. 

Unfortunately, although I created a noodle dish that tasted okay, it did not taste like pad thai.  I debated whether it would be useful to post the recipe, as a lesson in what not to do, or maybe readers could tell me where I went wrong, but ultimately I decided to leave it out but try again later. 

I hereby vow to return to vegan pad thai until I get it right, but for now, I'm moving on.