Tofu dim sum with coconut buns

Since Jamie Oliver has started to offer quite a few vegan recipes on his website, I've been getting more interested in him lately. Recently I was browsing his 15 Minute Meals cookbook and came across this recipe, which intrigued me. 

Originally it had chicken, but veganising it was pretty easy,  as every other ingredient was vegan. What I really liked about it though was the genius idea of two-ingredient coconut buns. This reminded me of a great tip someone offered on one of my Facebook food groups for the easiest vegan cake ever: tin of coconut milk, packet of vanilla cake mix, sliced apricots (or other fruit) on top, baked. 

This was super delicious (although it didn't take fifteen minutes of course) and I'll be making the coconut buns again, possibly with a filling next time. 

I've included the modified recipe below. 

For the Coconut Buns

1 x 400ml tin of coconut milk

2 heaped coconut milk tins (500g) of self raising flour, plus extra for dusting

For the tofu, pickle & garnishes

400g tofu (I used puffed tofu pieces)

140g mixed mushrooms

3 tbsp hoi sin sauce, plus extra to serve

2 limes

200g tenderstem broccoli (I used bok choi and red cabbage instead)

1 cucumber

1 Tbsp soy sauce

1 Tbsp rice or white wine vinegar

½ a bunch of fresh coriander

3 Tbsp sesame seeds

Pickled ginger

1 – 2 fresh red chilies

Pour the coconut milk into a food processor with 2 heaped tins worth of self-raising flour and a good pinch of salt, whiz to a dough, then tip on to a flour dusted work surface. Roll the dough into a sausage shape, cut into 8 even sized pieces, then place each one into a double-layered muffin case, and squeeze those into one layer of the steamer. Pour 5 cm of boiling water into a large wok or on top of a medium saucepan. Put the basket of buns on top with the lid on and leave to steam until firm. 

Toss the tofu in a bowl with the roughly torn mushrooms, hoi sin sauce, juice of ½ lime and a pinch of salt. Mix with your hands.

Tip the tofu and mushroom mixture into the second steamer basket along with the trimmed broccoli and pop underneath the tray of buns for 5 minutes until cooked through. (I cooked the tofu and vegies in a wok as I don't have two steamers)

Peel the cucumber into ribbons (I used a vegetable peeler), toss into a bowl with the soy sauce, vinegar and a few torn coriander leaves, then with clean hands squeeze and scrunch everything together to make a pickle.

Toast the sesame seeds in the frying pan on a low heat until golden, then tip into a little bowl, cut the remaining 1 ½ limes into wedges, and serve with the pickled ginger and extra hoi sin sauce in little bowls.

Serve the buns and tofu scattered with the remaining coriander leaves and finely sliced chilli.

Serves 4

Week 3: Take a Bao

So after not feeling well for the past few days, a big steaming bowl of spicy Pho was just what I felt like last night. I've always adored BBQ buns, so I wanted to try my hand at them too, though I knew it wouldn't be easy. Both of this week's offerings are from Terry Hope Romero's Vegan Eats World.

Vegan Eats World

Terry Hope Romero

BBQ Seitan Buns

These were just as involved as I'd imagined, and the only way I was able to get them done last night, sick and tired, was because I'd made the seitan ahead of time, earlier in the week. 

After some quick conversion from ounces to grams, and staring in consternation at the 35g packet of yeast ("Surely she doesn't expect you to use all five sachets? The box says only one is needed to make a Tea Bun..."), I decided to just follow what the recipe said. I ran into a minor snafu early on, when the dough was not 'tacky' and moist as described in the book, but decidedly dry, with quite a bit of flour sitting around it. I added an extra half a cup of water and tablespoon of oil, and it seemed to start behaving better.

After letting it sit for an hour and then 'punching down' the dough (I've always loved that instruction, I have a photo of one time I made bread, where I've left an actual fist mark in the dough. :-D), I rolled and cut it into small balls:

In the meantime, I cut up the pre-prepared seitan and baked it with the marinade while the sauce thickened on the stove. When they were combined, then came the fun part, shaping the bao:

(Quite a bit of the seitan mixture may have made it into my mouth rather than the bao, sooo yummy.)

After fiddling around in different batches whether to steam with the lid on or off, I decided to leave it on, reasoning that slightly wet bao were better than half-cooked ones.

And voila, the finished product! Om nom nom. They did taste a little more... yeasty I'm going to call it, than store bought bao I've tasted, but still yummy.

 "Did she really make fresh Bao? Quaint!"

Sizzling tofu Pho soup

This was a lot more involved than I expected it to be, with a lot of simmering time and cooling time and several different parts all to be assembled, so I may have taken some shortcuts. I used a packet of pre-marinated tofu instead of making more seitan from scratch, and fried it in a pan. The broth was by far the most complex part, with a lot of different spices (some of which I had to substitute, will try again another time when I have all of them to see the difference). After frying the onion and ginger, I added the shitaake mushrooms and other sauces and simmered for 45 minutes, after which you are supposed to strain the veggies out and add soy and vinegar, but I forgot to do this until it was already in the bowl so I added some in there.

The best part was assembling the bowl in layers, first the noodles, then chopped bok choy and carrot, then tofu and the broth poured on top. Definitely not a weeknight meal though, unless you'd made some of the parts ahead of time, but I will definitely be making it again!

Spicy and sour and delicious.