scrambled tofu from vegan with a vengeance

I got home late on Thursday night, not finishing up at work until after 2100. The work was interesting, we're running a series of community education workshops, and it's great that we've got all these people interested in sustainable living and whatnot, but after a pretty busy week it was slightly vexing to be at work early and not on the train home until late. The train home was pretty exciting though, lots of people and interesting conversations to overhear and I was reading a really odd book (Londonstani by Gautam Malkani).



By the time I got home, though it wasn't that far on the train, I was tired and didn't feel like cooking, just eating. Fortunately, D was in the kitchen, poised to try cooking scrambled tofu, inspired by our awesome tofu experiences in Sydney last week.

D used the recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance. We still haven't found any nutritional yeast, so we had to omit that from the recipe. I felt like the recipe could do with some more spicy, and also perhaps we should have added a little more water. Overall it was tasty, though, and I look forward to more experiments in scrambled tofu, now I've overcome my aversion.

mushroom jiaozi

Flush with delicious victory after our visit to Bodhi, on Tuesday D thought that some sort of mushroom dumpling should be attempted. We were pushed for time, as Tuesday evenings see us swing dancing, so we needed to have finished eating early. This made dumpling making a delightful time-based challenge, though did sort of take the fun out of what is usually a leisurely thing to make.



mushroom jiaozi

This recipe is for jiaozi only, you can serve them any way you like. I like to add half a dozen, along with some rice noodles, bok choi and spring onions, into a lightly spiced ginger broth.

ingredients
one cup champignon mushrooms
handful fresh enoki mushrooms
one half square of firm tofu
dumpling wrappers
three shakes of dark soy sauce
dash of ground pepper
one clove of garlic
some spring onions
half a cup of water chestnuts

method
Dice mushrooms and garlic finely. Fry in a little peanut oil for two or three minutes. Meanwhile, finely chop the water chestnuts, and add to wok, as well as dark soy and ground pepper. Drop in a shake of water, and put lid on wok. Leave to steam for two or three minutes, then add chopped spring onions and chopped enoki.

Mash tofu. Combine well with mushroom mixture, and leave to cool. When the mushroom mixture is mostly cool or room temperature, take one dumpling sheet at a time and put a teaspoon of mixture in the centre. Run a damp finger (have a little bowl of water handy for this) around the edge, like an envelope, then fold one side over to meet the other, and press to seal. You should have a semi-circle of deliciousness. Repeat until mixture is used up, or you get bored.

I like to steam my jiaozi, which I do by laying a sheet of baking paper across a bamboo steamer, and set out as many jiaozi as will fit without smushing together. Fill the wok with two or so cups of water, and when it is boiling put the covered steamer in the wok, and cover with wok lid. Leave to steam for about twelve minutes.

Alternatively, you can boil them, until the jiaozi are floating.

mother chu's vegetarian restaurant

This is the last of my Sydney reviews. Thank you so much to everyone who left suggestions for me, they were greatly appreciated!

We arrived in Sydney just after midday, and having deposited our luggage at the hotel (Medina Central, fantastic location, awesome rooms, don't accidentally steal from the mini bar like I did) we wandered down George St to sate my desire to throw myself into the loving book shelves of Kinokuniya. We weren't there long, however, before we started getting really, really hungry. C and N wandered off, claiming vego food would not sustain them,* whilst D, E and I went in search of Mother Chu's Vegetarian Restaurant.

Mother Chu's is a tiny restaurant on Pitt Street. The menu is filled with delights and their mock fish comes out in the shape of a fish. The items on the menu are reasonably priced, with each of our mains costing about $10.

D opted for the chili noodle claypot, which was spicy but delicious. E accidentally ordered too much food, ending up with the avocado and corn soup, which was odd but tasty, and a cashew rice made with brown rice, which was awesomely flavoursome.

I ordered the wonton noodle soup, which was just the right amount of noodle, vegetable and wonton and I ate the whole thing, and then proceeded to roll out of there, committing to a stately waddle back in to town, on our pilgrimage to the Apple store.



*they went to HJ's instead

Mother Chu's Vegetarian Restaurant
367 Pitt Street
Sydney
Open 1200-1500 (mon-fri) and 1700-2200 (some other days...)

green palace, newtown (sydney)

Late Friday night, after shenanigans with plumbers, we headed on out to Newtown (woo!) to Green Palace, which Alysia had found in the Good Eats Guide. We decided a Thai vegan restaurant was a possibility for a gluten-free meal, and I haven't heard from either B or Alysia that there was gluten-related illness afterwards, so yay! (Also the internet tells me explicitly that Green Palace does cater for gluten-free)



We were incredibly indecisive, unsure of what to order and uncharacteristically unable to come to a decision, so we started with the delightful and familiar, spring rolls, which were crispy and tasty, perfectly serviceable spring rolls.



B, D and I shared a panang curry and a pad see eu. It was the best pad see eu I've ever had, for serious. It had just the right amount of sauce, and wide, thick noodles and perfectly cooked vegetables and I loved it. Alysia ordered another one of the curries, allegedly most of their curries are gluten free.



We rounded out the meal with a couple of serves of fried banana and icecream (with sprinkles!). The icecream was not great, with that watery aftertaste, but the fried banana was pretty tasty.



Splitting the bill came to about $25 per person, which is not bad for a Friday night out.

Green Palace
182 King St
Newtown

Bodhi in the Park, Sydney

It has been years since I last went to yum cha. Similarly it has also been years for D, whose attempts at yum cha in Tassie two weeks ago were foiled by a closed yum cha restaurant, so it was with not a small amount of excitement that we ventured forth to Bodhi in the Park.



It was slightly difficult to find, located as it was underneath where I thought College Park was located, and lacking any useful signs. Wander down the stairs, away from College St, towards the smell of chlorine and the splashes, and turn left. It is hidden there amongst the trees and under the walkways.

The menu is extensive, though not as extensive as I had hoped it would be, lacking my very favourite type of dim sum, chee cheong fun (and the related cha siu chee cheong fun). It is also expensive, coming to a total of about $65.00 for the two of us. The food was however quite tasty.



We started with a deep fried spinach roll, not exactly traditional dim sum but still pretty good. The spinach was complimented by I think almond flakes and tofu. We followed this with a curry bun, a new taste sensation for D, who has not had much experience with the squishy sugary bun and savoury filling phenomenon so common through Malaysia, and easily experienced (by non-vegans) at a range of chain bakeries such as bread top, bread box, etc (which I notice has moved in to Sydney).



The curry bun was excellent. This was followed by deep fried sweet potato squishy things, which were delicious but gooey and I could feel my arteries clogging, as it were. The sticky rice was okay, and being served on a tomato quarter was a nice touch, but nothing spectacular.



The cha siu bao, another of my favoured treats, was tasty. We rounded it off with some spicy noodles, which were good but definitely far, far too much on top of everything else.

As we sat there, unable to move, we picked up a little fruit bowl, as we hadn’t had any fruit all weekend, and in the hopes it would help us feel better after all of that deliciousness.



Eventually we stirred and went for a wander through the Botanical Gardens, walking very slowly and spending a lot of time sitting around, trying to force our bodies to metabolise faster.



I love the Chinese style, tiny dishes one by one, elongating the meal and picking and picking. Yum cha is that style taken to its optimum, the tiniest dishes ever and oh deliciousness. We have another dim sum excursion scheduled in March, when we will be venturing to Box Hill, and I am absolutely looking forward to it (and have high hopes for chee cheong fun). In the meantime, though, I am considering a dim sum party in my home. Om nom nom.


Bodhi in the Park
Cook and Phillip Park
(beneath the forecourt of St Mary’s Cathedral)
College Street
Sydney

naked espresso, newtown (sydney)

Wandering back from Green Palace the previous night, D spotted the Basil Pizza / Naked Espresso sign, and on Saturday morning, after an excellent sleep in, we walked up to Naked Espresso to partake of vegan breakfast. It was amazing, I cannot recommend Naked Espresso highly enough. The food was fantastic. The service was excellent. The owner(?) Charles was delightful, chatty and friendly and helpful, weaving the King St traffic to show us across to Vegan Choice (a delicatessen with tofu icecream and vegan cheesecake, which I was sadly too full to consume) and making us try the delicious soy milk Naked Espresso uses in their coffee machine.

Naked Espresso shares premises with Basil Pizza, making it vegan breakfast bar by morning, and vegan-friendly pizza bar by night. I wish I'd had an opportunity to try the pizza, if the delights of the morning were anything to go by.



Tempted by the pancakes, I was nonetheless swayed by the scrambled tofu, simply because I've never before tried scrambled tofu. It was delicious, slightly curried and served with a hashbrown, a tomato, baked beans and two slices of sour dough bread. The tofu wasn't great cold but it was fantastic hot, and I cleaned up my whole plate. D ordered the vegan Aussie brekkie (mushies, tomatoes, baked tofu, spinach, hashbrowns, baked beans and sourdough toast), not even noticing that the entire menu was vegan!



Later, incredibly stuffed but happy to sit around, we chatted with Charles' five year old daughter ("What are you made of?" "I'm made of vegetables!") and overheard very interesting vegan-related things, like why we might have to stop drinking Vitasoy and the availability of vegan marshmallows.



Finally, we purchased two pies, the outer shells of which were definitely not gluten-free but whose insides apparently were, even though they were made from fake meat. We ate these much later in the day, after going to see Top Gear, and they were delicious.

The menu prices were average for breakfast (at least average for a Perth breakfast!), $10-$15 for a serve. Several gluten-free items were on the menu. Definitely A++ would nom again (and I recommend it to all of your friends) - if it had been closer to the hotel, I would have nommed again before we left. Thanks to everyone who mentioned Naked Espresso, it was totally worth the walk. ZB also reviewed it on a visit in January here, if you need more convincing.



Naked Espresso
126 King Street
Newtown

fundraiser bbq for the victorian bushfire relief effort

I have many Sydney related things to talk about, but first (and still food related):

There is going to be a bbq event this Saturday evening (the 14th) to raise funds for the relief effort for the bushfires in Victoria.

It will be at the picnic area at the South end of the South Perth Esplanade (access from Ray or Mends street and turn right), 1600 onwards. Non-alcoholic beverages will be provided. Please bring your own food (I suspect everyone else will be loading up with meat :o( ), and a donation. Contacts are Jaunita Landéesse (0439354992 / transcendancing@gmail.com) or Grant Watson (0430223604 / fanboy@gmail.com)

All funds will be donated to the Red Cross 2009 Victorian bushfire Fund.

You can find more details on the fires and the things that you can do, if you are so inclined, here and here.

Yee Sang at Lotus

In further CNY news, went to Lotus last night where we finally had Yee Sang, it being our last opportunity for this CNY. Yee Sang has a funny taste when you're eating but the most delicious aftertaste, and it's crunchy and delicious. And tossing it is pretty fun.



Yee Sang is made on the table, a large plate of shredded vegetables (and, traditionally, shredded fish) in the centre as a variety of sauces and condiments are poured over the top. Everyone then uses their chopsticks (the use of chopsticks is non-optional, no hands, no forks) to toss the salad together. It is customary to toss as high as possible, because the higher you toss, the greater your fortunes will be, as you court abundance.



Following the yee sang we had some char kuay teow (hardly a CNY noodle) and an array of delicious mock meats, cha siew and kapitan and the Sichuan chicken, which had cashews and was quite tasty. D's new favourite appears to be the chicken satay entree, which we discovered last Saturday when we tried the small banquet, and D insisted on ordering again just four days later.


Lotus Vegetarian Restaurant
Unit 1, 220 James St
Northbridge

tak chee house, northbridge

Tak Chee House is all delicious Penang hawker style, from the plastic furniture to the muggy, tiny interior, and the menus using Hokkien and English. The menu is a mixture of hawker rice and noodles favourites; mee goreng, ha mee, kuay teow, rices, etc. My mum was so excited, the first thing she declared was that she'd be ordering ice kachang, and it was massive and allegedly delicious (and she would like to recommend it to all your non-vegan friends on these warm summer days). I would like to recommend the fresh lemon ice tea for these warm summer days, which is vegan and pretty cool (hah!).



D and I decided to order and share a char kuay teow and mee goreng.

The char kuay teow was fantastic! The wok hei was so tasty, and there were lots of fresh vegetables, the noodles were freshly cooked and it was really tasty. Sometimes when you order 'noodle dish x, strict vegetarian' you can get some pretty boring noodles, but this one they replaced all the meat with a multitude of delicious vegetables, and it had a really great flavour. A++ will definitely order again (and my mum was coveting it).



The mee goreng had that classic tomato flavour, and I loved the addition of baby corn. I would probably order this again, it was pretty tasty.

Service was okay, our waitress was a bit bored disaffected youth, but that didn't stop the meals from coming out very quickly, piping hot and prompt. By the time we left there was a queue of people waiting for a free table. Dishes were about ten dollars. Not gluten-free friendly, but you can take your meat eating aunties and parents and whatever and they will love what they have but be jealous of what you have.


Tak Chee House
1364 William St
Northbridge

Closed on Mondays

recs for sydney

Next weekend I am returning to the town of my birth for a flying, 48 hour visit
(and to go see Top Gear). I'll be staying in Haymarket. Does anyone have any restaurants and artisan/craft markets to recommend? I already have plans to go to Bodhi, and I loooove Iku.

ETA: OH ALSO great op shop recommendations

Single Penguin Food – Days Five to Seven

On Thursday I had to brave the hordes going late night shopping, as I tried to find new clothes for Chinese New Year. My parents have been known to be some of those hordes, so I met up with them and my sister for dinner at Chatters restaurant, just outside Morley Galleria. It was standard pan-Asian food, leaning slightly towards Thai but still with that Malaysian-Chinese bent that is so common in Perth’s Asian restaurants.





We ordered a char kuay teow, slightly oily and not quite enough vegies for my preference, but still pretty tasty. The waitress assured us that the sauce for the satay vegetables was shrimp and fish oil free, so we ordered that. There was a wide array of delicious vegetables involved, baby corn and bok choy and bamboo and carrot and lots of my favourite things, and that was pretty tasty. We also ordered a claypot vegetables (a little cornstarchy but overall okay) and some spring rolls. The spring rolls were not my thing, very OTT with the pepper filling, but my sister seemed to quite like them.



On Friday I tried this mushroom masala recipe, and added some gailan in soy sauce as a side. I was so intrigued, it sounded like a great combination, but ultimately the flavour was too rich for me, and I had to cover it with my gailan in order to disguise the strong flavour. I’m not sure what created this, perhaps the addition of tahini. At least my roti was very delicious, as always.



On Saturday I ventured Very North to A Curry Affair, an Indian restaurant in Malaga. All the vegetarian curries they had on for the evening were vegan, so we tried the dhal, a potato curry and, at their insistence, the vegetable sambal. The dhal was okay, the potato was pretty good and sambal was awesome. Price was okay, but it was in Malaga.

Single Penguin Food – days one to four

D was away in Tasmania last week for lca, so I had seven days of Single Penguin Food. I had the best intentions of lots of new to me things, and I managed to pretty much stick to this, but I also had the best intentions of no take out or restaurants. This last was not so strictly adhered to, as I was distracted by family members, pizza with C + E, curry with my sister, noodles with my parents.



I spent Sunday curled up on the couch, mainlining Merlin. What a ridiculous show! I ventured out of the house at the last minute, as I realised I had no noodles suitable for claypot (which I blogged about in detail here).



Monday night I tried this Moroccan cauliflower recipe. It was not great. The steamed cauliflower was okay, but the flavour wasn't as strong as I'd thought it was, and in the end it was just some steamed cauliflower with a bit of cumin. I added a side of aloo muttar, because I'd been worried the cauliflower wouldn't be sufficient, and I was glad I added it. Mixing the potatoes together with the cauliflower made dinner pretty tasty.



Tuesday night I hung out with D's brother C, his partner E, and E's brother and brother's girlfriend. We played my new favourite game, and had pizza from East End Pizza, in East Perth. East End lets you make your own pizza, and on Tuesday nights all MYO large pizzas are $12, and that was pretty awesome. I had eggplant, chili flakes, sun-dried tomatoes, pine nuts, and spinach. The flavour was fantastic, though a little dry, and I wish I had added normal tomatoes. It was pretty great though!



Wednesday night I was suffering from cramps and feeling sulky, so I had my #1 comfort food, noodle soup. It is the best, easy and it has been my favourite since I was a child, it brings me such delight and comfort.


Stay tuned for days five through seven!

public service announcement

don't pick up a jar of sundried tomatoes by the lid. the lid will fall off, scattering oil, glass and smelly tomatoes all over your floor, and it will be all your fault. and also you will have to mop your floor in the middle of chinese new year, and that's not good.

chinese new year treats

Part of the joy of Chinese New Year is the treats we get, once a year sweets that are sugary and floury and coveted and difficult to make. I tried to make some kuih for the first time this year, they were a bit average but I've still got twelve days to go so that's plenty of time to try again.

A lot of kuih is vegan, except for that critical last second when an egg wash is used to give it that gloss. This year I discovered my very favourite lollies contain egg whites (no!), and all the great looking peanut cookies had an egg wash. The pineapple tarts were egg free, though, and delicious as always.



Love letters are my very favourite Chinese New Year treat. A batter is poured into hot iron moulds, they're difficult to make but the end result is a crispy wafer treat. I'm no where near ready to try making these kuih kapit, so it's a good thing they're readily available at Chinese New Year.



Kuih bangkit are a chalky coconut biscuit that disintegrates in your mouth. My mum usually buys the white ones, as a child they used to be shaped like birds with a little red dot for the eyes, and as a result my sister and I used to refer to them as death biscuits. I love their deliciousness, but they make your mouth stick together and I do wish they weren't quite so chalky!

I love this time of year, all the delicious treats and so much food. I wish some of these treats were available all year around!

lamington cupcakes

Not only was yesterday the first day of Chinese New Year (YAY), but it was also Australia Day. I mostly did CNY things, but I did also bake some lamington cupcakes, because lamingtons are one of my favourite snacks ever, and one I've not had in years. I used to love buying them from the local bakery on the way to school every morning, if I was very lucky they'd have the ones with the chocolate sponge, they were fantastic. I also used to love the fundraising drives, where you'd order a box or five of delicious, soft lamingtons, and mum would always put at least a box in the freezer, to save for darker, less delicious days when there were no fresh lamingtons to be had.

I baked these as cupcakes because I wasn't sure how the recipe would hold up as a sponge cake, especially as I saw several vegan sponge recipes that were all "it will fall apart!" And it seemed to work for Carla a few weeks ago. They were satisfying, but I think I'm ready to give proper lamingtons a go, because they really do need to be six sides of deliciousness.




Lamington Cupcakes

ingredients
2 cup SR flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 cup castor sugar
3 chinese soup spoons applesauce
50gm or so of nuttelex
¾ish cup of milk

method
Cream together the sugar, applesauce and butter. Combine with sifted flourand baking powder. Slowly mix in the milk.

Divide in to twelve cupcakes, and bake at 180C for 17 minutes.

Leave to mostly cool. Whilst cupcakes are mostly warm but heading towards cooled, dip in chocolate mixture (leave to soak for thirty seconds to a minute), and coat in desiccated coconut. You may need to cool in the fridge for half an hour to solidify the chocolate, depending on the ambient temperature. In Perth yesterday it was pretty warm!

chocolate mixture
1 cup icing sugar
¼ish cup of boiling water
2 tbl cocoa powder

Mix together until suitably runny.


NOTE regarding the Chinese soup spoons: these are perfect for egg substitution, I tend to use one overflowing spoon of applesauce per egg in a biscuit and cake recipies. They're something like a dollar from your local Chinese grocer, or use a soupspoon:tablespoon with a ratio of 1:1.5