Viet World Kitchen

How to Make Asian Dumplings without Eggs or Pork

I haven’t had the chance to make a new dumpling to share with you, but I have been fielding email queries from cooks interested in making Asian dumplings. Over the weekend, I received a question that you may either ponder about or have solutions to. This came from Meghan in Indiana:

I was wondering if it is possible to make dumplings, or pot stickers, without egg yolks? I am allergic to egg yolks...and pork actually. That's not a big deal though because I could always add beef or chicken, etc.. but I do need to know about the egg. I'm not allergic to egg whites and it does actually work in most recipes that I've tried. I would really appreciate it if you could let me know. Thanks!

Eggs and pork play marvelous roles in Asian cooking but can you do without them in dumplings? Yes, indeed!

After I wrote back to Meghan, I figured that I’d organize and expand my tips to her in a post. If you have the same allergy or want to avoid eggs for some reasons, these suggestions may help your adventures in dumpling making: (page number references are for the Asian Dumplings cookbook)

The general lowdown & DIY dumpling wrappers
Most Asian dumpling wrappers don’t contain egg. I’ve seen recipes online and elsewhere that incorporate egg into the dough and that’s not necessary for all dumplings, especially popular pot stickers. Just check packaged wrappers sold at a market and read the ingredient label.

Stir-Fried Green Garlic and Chinese Sweet Sausage Recipe

This is one of those dishes that has haunted and taunted my palate for a few years. It’s dead simple, just a handful of ingredients are involved. Unfortunately the main ingredient is a fleeting seasonal vegetable --  garlic scapes that are not often sold in the United States. Slender with a mild sweet garlic flavor, the garlic flower stalks are thinly sliced and then stir-fried with bits of Chinese bacon.

I first had the preparation in October 2009 at the Din Tai Fung at the World Square Shopping Center in Sydney, Australia. It was a great sidekick to an order of xiao long bao Shanghai soup dumplings. The restaurant used the jade colored scapes, which are typically trimmed by farmers to foster bulb growth, per food writer Molly Watson. It was spring in Australia and I took that taste memory back to California, where six months later in 2010, I got to enjoy another spring.

I started looking for garlic scapes at Chinese markets and over the years, have found them a couple of times, once at Ranch 99 in Milpitas, California. The stalks were sold as long thin bundles of 1/4 to 1/3-inch thick green cords. However, I was disappointed by their lackluster flavor. Maybe not enough people buy them or know about them. The ones I’ve found tended to be borderline over the hill. The little stir-fry eluded me.

Tofu, Kimchi and Bacon Taco Recipe

Most of the tofu and kimchi tacos on the food scene are vegetarian but I wanted to turn a classic Korean dish --dubu kimchi (warm tofu with a stir-fry of kimchi and pork belly) -- into a taco filling. The triad of ingredients is wonderful so why not see what it’s like in a corn tortilla? 

I started thinking about the taco filling idea as I was developing the dubu kimchi recipe for the tofu cookbook. I could have squeezed the tofu taco concept into the book as a recipe “Variation,” but there was an inherent brilliance in the original dish (see page 145 in Asian Tofu). I didn’t want to distract from it by cluttering the page with recipe TMI (too much information).

So I saved the idea for the right online moment. In tribute to the 20th anniversary of the 1992 Los Angeles riots and Cinco de Mayo, I tackled my Mexi-Korean taco idea this week. Combining Mexican and Asian flavors has been going on for a long time. Mexi-Asian didn’t start with Roy Choi’s Kogi tacos and David Chang’s Momofuku’s ssam wraps in flour tortillas.

Chinese Fermented Black Bean Magic (plus recipes)

While I’ve cooked with Chinese fermented black beans for years, I didn’t realized how versatile they were until I had about 2 pounds of them on hand, leftover from working on the Asian Market Shopper mobile app and the Asian Tofu cookbook.

The little beans are not the same as what you cook up for a pot of cuban black beans! In fact, they are slightly moist and soft, a preserved seasoning ingredient used in many southern Chinese (Cantonese) kitchens. Expect salty, pungent, and winy qualities from the beans.

Wanting to use them up, I started cooking with them, mining my Chinese cookbook collection for recipes and ideas. When I was through, I had enough information about fermented black beans (dou chi in Mandarin, dul see in Cantonese, dau/tau xi in Vietnamese) and a small collection of delectable recipes.

Food editor Russ Parsons of the Los Angeles Times agreed to an article on the beans. We polished it in March and it was published over the weekend under the title, “Chinese fermented black beans a versatile staple.”

Four recipes were included in the story:

Fried Tofu and Egg Pancake Recipe (Tahu Telur)

There are a number of recipes that didn’t make it into the Asian Tofu cookbook. Why? We just did not have enough space. This remarkably easy and versatile Indonesian treat is among the recipes that I set aside to post online. If you have the book already, add this to your Asia tofu recipe collection. If you don’t, this is a recipe that highlights how tofu can be transformed as well as transformative.

Tahu telur (tahu means tofu and telur means eggs) is like egg foo yung with pieces of fried tofu. In its elemental state, a block tofu is subtle in flavor, a canvas for receiving other ingredients. However, if you fry tofu, it gets a little crunchy and nutty tasting, almost like crisp chicken skin.

For these pancakes, small flattish pieces of tofu (I use Trader Joe's firm) get fried and then mixed with egg. The tofu absorbs some of the egg while lending its fattiness to reinforce that of the egg, as if it's an egg extender. 

Then the mixture is dropped into hot oil. The amoeba-like pancakes develop crisp surfaces and edges. The delicately rich and eggy result gets crowned with crunchy vegetables and savory-sweet-spicy sauce, typically peanut sauce or chile-spiked sweet soy sauce; both sauces are in the photo above. The combination of texture and flavors is amazing.