Vegan Pot Sticker

My family loves dumplings and we would prepare a whole dumpling dinner/meal from time to time when the urge comes although it is traditionally eaten during Chinese New Year or Mid Autumn. I would usually opt for the traditional filling of minced pork with cabbage and Koo chives. Although there are already hundreds of dumpling recipes (even vegan ones) out there on the internet, this Vegan Pot Sticker recipe that I have developed is simple, easy to prepare, tasty and most importantly, has a "secret" ingredient that will forever change the way vegan dumplings are prepared!

This dumpling recipe does not have eggs in it but I have found a "secret" ingredient that provides the following properties to my dumpling filling:

1) This ingredient is perfect binding agent
2) Does not cause the dumpling filling to have a lumpy texture similar to those that uses flour;
3) Gives the dumpling filling a smooth texture; and
4) Provides a subtle sweetness to the dumpling filling.

OK! Enough of the mystery already! Read on for the "secret" ingredient that will slowly but surely changes the way vegans eat their dumplings. Remember that you read about this "secret" here first :)

Happy cooking, eating and eating well!

Ingredients
1 cup of hard tofu
5 Napa cabbage leaves
5 dried shiitake mushroom soaked and finely sliced
1 clove of garlic minced
1 spring onion chopped
100g Jicama grated
*Secret Ingredient*-->Tororo made from 50g of Chinese/Japanese yam
1/2 teaspoon Ginger powder
1 Tablespoon Soy Sauce
2 teaspoon Miso Paste
2 teaspoon of white sesame seed oil
1 teaspoon Sugar
Ground black pepper
Salt
1 Tablespoon of plain flour
Peanut Oil

Direction:

1. Slice the napa cabbage thinly. Place them in a bowl and add 3 Tablespoon of salt. Mix well and set aside for 5 minutes to let the salt drain the water out from the cabbages.
2. Place the hard tofu in a big mixing bowl. Roughly crush the hard tofu with the back of a spoon.
3. Heat up a pan. Add peanut oil, the sliced shiitake mushroom and the minced garlic into the pan and stir fry for 3-5 minutes. Season with a dash of soy sauce and pepper 
4. Use your hand and squeeze out the liquid from the cabbage and add them into the mixing bowl together with the spring onions, shiitake mushroom, grated Jicama, ginger powder, soy sauce, sesame oil, sugar and mix well.
5. Incorporate a teaspoon of water into the miso paste and add into the mixing bowl. Season the filling with salt and pepper and mix again.
6. Use a handheld grater and grate the Chinese Yam into a small bowl. The yam will turn into a sticky paste (tororo) similar to egg white. Spoon the yam into the mixing bowl one Tablespoon at a time and incorporate them in. Its OK to not use all of the tororo.
7. Cover the bowl and place in the refrigerator for 15 minutes to firm up. 
8. I buy store made dumpling skin as they are of good quality and it saves a lot of time!
9. To pan fry the pot sticker, heat up a non-stick pan. Add a Tablespoon of peanut oil and arrange the dumplings into the pan, careful to leave some space so the dumplings would not stick together.
10. Let the dumplings sear for 3 minutes.
11. Mix 1 Tablespoon of plain flour and 4 Tablespoon of water in a small bowl. 
12. Add a Tablespoon of flour solution into the pan and cover with a lid to let the steam cook the dumpling. When the flour solution has dried up, open the lid and add another Tablespoon of flour solution into the pan. You should do this 4 times in total.
13. Remove Pot sticker from the pan and serve with black vinegar & julienne ginger, chili oil or Szechuan hot sauce.

You may find this oxymoron as I do myself, but I find it hard to show how easy it is to make this recipe through words alone! Nevermind, I will try to make a video on this someday so that you can benefit directly from this recipe. Stay tuned!

NOTE:

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