I had a major craving for Mushu, so we picked up a small head of green cabbage, shiitakes, some carrots, and we had some tempeh in the freezer. Also purchased some of 'the ginger people's' plum ginger sauce. I consulted the Joy of cooking (yes, the modern version does have vegetarian & vegan recipes), and found they had a mushu tempeh recipe. I didn't follow the recipe exactly, but their reccomendation was equal parts sherry & soy sauce, and some sugar to flavor the veggies & tempeh. That's pretty much what I did, except I used Agave since I didn't want to worry about making sure the sugar was totally dissolved. Basic recipe:
1 small head green cabbage, sliced finely by your handy food processor
4 carrots, thinly sliced also by the food processor (I didn't shred them, b/c texture wise it would have been wrong).
equal parts sherry & soy sauce
4 tsp. chopped ginger
Agave or sugar to taste
1 bunch chopped scallions
tempeh cut into little short strips
shiitakes cut into thin strips
toasted sesame oil
I fried up the tempeh & shrooms & scallions & ginger separately and flavored them separately.
Put some soy sauce & sherry on the cabbage & carrots, but ultimately poured off much of that b/c it had gotten so diluted from the cabbage juice. Then after cooking, I made more sauce separately with the agave, sherry & soy sauce and poured that over the cabbage & carrots. Then I mixed in the mushrooms & tempeh.
We used white flour tortillas; not as good as chinese pancakes, but a time saver, and good enough. J. liked the ginger people plum sauce and I was like 'this doesn't taste like plum sauce'. I was sad about that. It tasted like watery tamarind paste. Very sour in a tamarindy way. Next time, real plum sauce. But I figured we could use the 'plum' sauce from the ginger people as a tofu marinade in the future, for some asian style dish. My mushu craving was indeed satisfied, plus you just gotta feel good about eating that much green stuff and it tasting good. Yeah, sugar, oil and salt, I know, its loaded, but probably a ton less oil than a chinese restaurant would have put in.
Next up: Peanutty/Coconutty/Spicy Chili Saucy Seitan in lettuce wraps. Yum!
I forgot to take a photo, I'm sorry. But you know, as good as it tasted, everything was kind of brown looking from the sauce, so how good would it have looked anyhow?
