Every Asian culture celebrates some aspect of the Lunar new year; and being that I'm from Taiwan, we follow Chinese traditions and celebrate 2 weeks of new year until lantern festival rounds up the festivities. Food and family as always, is a huge theme, usually tens of dishes are served on the table along side snacks and fruits.
This year I had the pleasure of hosting New Year's eve dinner at my house (though a little cramped) we made some awesomely delicious vegan offerings and mom made her famous pork and Ben bought some really delicate fish (we're so happy that Santa Monica Seafood opened a shop down the street!). Next time I will convince everyone of an entirely vegan meal! As always, I veganized someof my favorite Chinese dishes and tried a few new ones- The favorite by far was the 3 cup mushroom dish or 三杯菇 traditionally made with fried frog legs and a ton of basil- We used fried shitake and king oyster mushrooms instead and the results were fantastic!
more yumminess& 3 Cup Mushroom recipe after the jump!
I also wanted to experiment with making my own mock fish, or as I like to call it really yummy tofu skin wrapped in seaweed. Tofu skin is probably the flakiest of all soy bean products and combined with the right ingredients resemble our friends from the sea! This this turned out wonderful as well, although a little labor intensive. I will definitely be making this dish again!
What I really wanted to accomplish this CNY was Taiwanese style pineapple tarts- which I haven't had in 8 years, since they're never vegan- I thought I'd make my own when our oven broke half way through- such a night mare. I took them to my lovely friend Alex's house and finished them off, even though they look awful and some got burnt due to the broken over. They tasted yummy, and maybe after some trial and errors I'll have recipes for this as well!
and without further ado, the recipe for "3 Cup Mushroom" And a goofy picture of yours truly:
Ingredients:
- 1-1 1/2 Lbs of King Oysters/ Shitakes mushrooms (remove stems from shitakes and save for stock) quartered or cut into bite sized pieces
- 2 Tbsp fresh ginger slice thin
- Thai chillies slice at a diagonal
- 1 bunch basil stems removed
- 4 Tbsp + 1 Tbsp cooking oil
- 1 Tbsp Sesame oil
- 3 Tbsp Vegetarian oyster sauce (sub with soy sauce if unavailable)
- 3 Tbsp Sugar
- 2 Tbsp Taiwanese rice wine or sake
- Broad Bean paste (optional)
Procedure:
- In a wok or pan, fry the mushrooms in 4 Tbsp of oil on medium high heat for 3-5 minutes or until golden. Then place on paper towels and set aside(You may have to do this in batches depending on your cooking surface, be careful not to over crowd the pan.)
- Back in the wok, heat up 1 Tbsp of cooking oil on medium high heat and sauté ginger and thai chilies until fragrant, add the rice wine and reduce, then add the sesame oil, oyster sauce, sugar, and broad bean past and mix throughly then add mushrooms until heated through about 3-5 minutes.
- Combine with basil and voila !
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