Tag Archives: gluten free

Vegan, GF 担担面: Mala Sichuan Sesame Noodles

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Since I was a little kid, 担担面 (dan dan noodles) have been a staple when my family orders at Chinese restaurants. The first time I went back to visit Chengdu, my hometown, I’d beg my mom to let me eat them every day. My flavor of choice for most Chinese foods is 麻辣 (mala), the quintessential numb-spicy taste ubiquitous in Sichuan cuisine. In major cities in Sichuan (such as Chongqing, where most of my family lives), dan dan mian is street food, served for 15RMB and scarfed down as a quick lunch on a workday. Despite originating in Sichuan, most dan dan main variations in the rest of the world tend towards a sweet peanut sauce. If you’re looking for that variation, you’re in the wrong place. I like my dan dan mian with a formidable mala kick.

Something else that Chinese food is known for is including gluten and meat in everything. Even veggie dishes are often cooked in animal stock or lard, resulting in a fattier, richer umami taste. Dan dan mian is typically not gluten-free because it contains soy sauce and noodles. In this recipe, we swap out soy sauce for coconut aminos, and wheat noodles for buckwheat noodles, both of which are great gluten-free substitutes. The minced topping in dan dan mian is made from minced mushroom instead!

Ingredients (serves 2)

Minced Mushroom Topping:

  • 蘑菇 100g mushrooms, minced*
  • 姜 1 tbsp ginger, minced
  • 胡椒 2 tbsp Sichuan peppercorns, ground**
  • 辣椒 2 dried chili peppers, ground**
  • 椰子酱油 3 tbsp coconut aminos
  • 醋 1 tbsp vinegar (I used rice wine vinegar)
  • 芽菜 2 tbsp preserved vegetable**

Sesame Sauce:

  • 芝麻酱 2 tbsp tahini
  • 芝麻油 1 tbsp sesame oil
  • 辣油 1 tbsp chili oil

Other:

  • 荞麦面条 100g buckwheat noodles
  • 小白菜 2 baby bok choy bundles
  • 香葱 1 tbsp thinly sliced scallions

Directions:

  1. In a food processor, grind the ginger, peppercorns, and chili peppers. I like to roughly chop the ginger before putting it in the food processor.
  2. In a pan that can handle high heat (a wok works best, but stainless steel worked great in my case), heat a copious amount of oil with a high smoke point (I used avocado oil) until it’s hot. What we’re trying to replicate is the hot flash cooking method typically used with a wok. You’ll want to use a generous amount of oil so the mushrooms are properly fried.
  3. Add the mixture of spices from the food processor and let them sizzle until you can smell the aroma (about a minute).
  4. Add the minced mushrooms and cook for about two minutes. The oil should coat the mushrooms.
  5. Add the preserved vegetable, along with soy sauce, chili oil, and vinegar, tweaking the ratio of the three by tasting and adding a splash more of whatever you feel is missing.
  6. For the sesame sauce, mix the tahini, sesame oil, and chili oil in small bowl, adjusting the ratio of the three until it fits your liking. I like my sauce a little runnier, so I also mixed in a few tablespoons of water until the consistency was right.
  7. For the noodles, bring a pot of water to a boil. Add the noodles and the boy choy leaves and turn the heat down to medium, cooking for 5 minutes. Drain the water.
  8. Portion out the noodles and bok choy into two bowls. Pour the sauce over the noodles, add as much of the minced topping as you’d like, and garnish with scallions. Toss immediately to prevent the noodles from drying out and clumping together, and enjoy!

Notes:
* Shiitake mushrooms have worked best for me.
** Amazon sells 芽菜 (preserved vegetable), dried chilis, and Sichuan peppercorns, but these ingredients can also be purchased at most Asian supermarkets.
*** The key to all cooking is to continuously test as you go along! This is definitely true for both the mince and the sauce.

Gado Gado with Spicy Almond Sauce

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About a month ago, I happened upon this delicious hole-in-the-wall Indonesian restaurant in LA called Borneo Kalimantan Cuisine. I tried gado gado for the first time, which is one of Indonesia’s five national dishes. It’s essentially a light stir-fry served with peanut sauce, and I loved the depth of the dish–namely, the delicious sauce accompanying it. I had tons of veggies in my fridge that I wanted to use before they went bad, so stir-fry seemed like the perfect option to make use of everything. My favorite thing about this recipe is how customizable it is; it’s a solid way to use up veggies that you don’t want to throw out, but that you may not find another dish to incorporate into.

This recipe is gluten-free, paleo, keto, and can be made vegan (see modifications below).

Ingredients:

Stir Fry:

  • 3 tsp avocado oil
  • 6 cloves of garlic, minced
  • 1 small nub of ginger, minced
  • 2 medium red onions, diced
  • 2 cups shredded chicken breast
  • 2 medium bell peppers, sliced
  • 2 cups of green beans
  • 3 stalks of celery, sliced long
  • 3 tsp chili sauce
  • 4 tbsp coconut aminos

Sauce (whisk all of these ingredients together):

  • 1/4 cup nut butter (I used almond butter)
  • juice from 1 lemon or lime wedge
  • 1 tbsp coconut aminos
  • 1 tsp sriracha hot sauce
  • 1/2 tsp coconut sugar

Garnish (optional):

  • Lemon or lime wedge
  • Fresh cilantro
  • Fried shallots
  • Crushed peanuts

Directions:

  1. In a large pan, heat the avocado oil on high heat, and saute the garlic, ginger, and onions. This helps create some nice aromatics for the rest of the ingredients.
  2. Add shredded chicken breast, then remove these two from heat and set aside.
  3. Add the rest of your vegetables, tossing and sauteing frequently to make sure everything is cooked through.
  4. After about 5 minutes of cooking, reincorporate the chicken mixture that you set aside earlier.
  5. Add the coconut aminos and hot sauce to the pan, stirring to combine everything. Keep tasting, salting, and adding coconut aminos and hot sauce little by little to get the flavor you want!
  6. Serve over rice, drizzling a few spoonfuls of the spicy peanut sauce over the dish, and garnishing with some fresh cilantro, fried shallots, and crushed peanuts.

Modifications:

  • To make this dish vegan, simply omit the chicken. Tofu also works if you still want some protein in the dish.
  • You can essentially use any vegetables that would work well in a stir-fry; ones that have lower water content and cook quickly. I would suggest: bean sprouts, cabbage, or bok choy

Charred Shishito Peppers (GF, Vegan, Paleo)

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Some days I feel painfully lazy when it comes to cooking dinner. Though I usually see the kitchen as as place of solace, and my time to relax, there are evenings where I’m either working late, or want to do something else, which prompts me to look for a quick, easy recipe.

Shishito peppers are incredibly versatile, and there are so many ways they can be prepared. The form that most people will be familiar with encountering them in is also their simplest–charred, salted, and a bit deflated. A common way to serve shishito peppers at Japanese restaurants is to lightly dress them in soy sauce, but they taste just as delicious when the soy sauce is swapped out for its gluten-free replacement, coconut aminos. Shishito peppers can be found at Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, and Asian supermarkets, and they are relatively affordable.

With this method of cooking shishito peppers, you can leave the peppers on the pan while you’re reading a book, working away, or watching TV. If your pan’s sounds are within earshot, you’ll hear a satisfying pop from the peppers are they char and deflate, which is exactly what you want to achieve that blistered, smoky texture.

Beautifully blistered peppers

Ingredients:

  • Shishito peppers (I emptied a whole bag from Trader Joe’s into my skillet)
  • Coconut aminos
  • Apple Cider Vinegar
  • Coconut sugar
  • Olive Oil
  • Coarse sea salt (I swear by Maldon)

Directions

  1. Drizzle the pan with olive oil, and heat it over medium heat. I recommend using a cast iron skillet for these peppers, as it tends to flavor and cook the peppers more thoroughly due to cast iron’s heat retention capabilities.
  2. Once the oil is hot, but not yet smoking, add the peppers to the pan. Make sure they are spread evenly, with each pepper making some contact with the surface of the pan. The trick here is to refrain from touching the peppers until they are ready to be turned.
  3. The peppers will cook slowly, and will expand, pop, steam, and deflate. Once they begin doing this (around 5-7 minutes), use a pair of tongs or chopsticks to turn them, one at a time. They should be significantly charred on one side, and flipping them will introduce the same lovely color on another side.
  4. Sprinkle some sea salt over the peppers.
  5. Let the peppers sit in the pan for another 4-5 minutes, until they are deflated. I like to take the chopsticks or the tongs and help pop the peppers that haven’t been able to deflate on their own.
  6. Transfer the peppers to a plate covered with a paper towel to soak up excess oil.
  7. While the peppers are cooling, combine a few tablespoons of coconut aminos, a dash of apple cider vinegar, and a few pinches of coconut sugar. I taste test as I go, and tweak ratios when creating this marinade.
  8. Remove the paper towel from the plate, drizzle your marinade over the peppers and toss them lightly to combine.

Spiced Persimmon and Fig Muffins (GF, NF, Paleo)

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Fall is in full swing, and it’s my favorite season for several reasons. Not only do the leaves change color and introduce stunning shades of yellow, orange, and red to the scenery outside, but the produce available in supermarkets now includes fun, seasonable items: different types of squashes, pumpkin, and fall fruits inspiring bursts of creativity in my kitchen.

Of all the fall goodies to feel excited about, persimmons are my absolute favorite. I grew up eating both types of persimmons (Fuyu and Hachiya), and my dad is very enthusiastic about drying persimmons to snack on. It’s fairly common to see dried Fuyu persimmons topped with powdered sugar eaten as a snack in China, and I certainly had my fill of sugar highs from indulging in one too many per sitting when I was younger. Yep, I’ve had portion-control problems since 1991.

There are two distinctly different types of persimmons. Fuyu persimmons are shaped like beefsteak tomatoes, and textured like apples. They have a slight crunch to them, and are mildly sweet. Hachiya persimmons are teardrop-shaped; when they’re ripe, they’re incredibly sweet and juicy, which makes them perfect for baking. It’s best to avoid eating these before they’re fully ripened, as their sharp taste usually causes an extremely dry mouth as a side effect. When using Hachiya persimmons in recipes, make sure that they’re soft; the persimmon should feel like a water balloon about to burst. To ripen them faster, place them in a brown bag with a banana for a day or two.

I’ve had a craving for muffins lately, and thought it’d be fun to incorporate persimmons into an easy recipe. I am also a huge fan of dried figs (as a snack, or as an ingredient in baking) because they bring a toffee, caramelized flavor when used in baking. For this recipe, I actually experimented with three variations, pairing the batter with Turkish figs, white mulberries, and cranberries. Though all three combinations turned out well, I thought the fig and persimmons pairing was the most delicious by far, so that’s the one I’ll be sharing, but honestly—get creative and replace the dried figs with whatever fruit you want! The beauty of this recipe is that there is room to experiment. The two magical ingredients in this recipe are Fuyu persimmon chunks, and dried figs. While Hachiya persimmons are better for incorporating into batter because they’re juicier and softer, biting into chunks of Fuyu persimmon in the finished muffin is absolutely divine. Dried figs, on the other hand, add a gooey layer of caramelized sweetness to the muffin.

 

Ingredients:

  • 2 1/2 cups gluten-free flour
  • 2 ripe Hachiya persimmons
  • 1/2 Fuyu persimmon, chopped into small pieces
  • 5 dried figs, chopped into small pieces
  • 1/4 cup honey, agave nectar, or rice malt syrup
  • 1/4 cup coconut oil
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 tsp pink salt
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  1. Preheat the oven to 350F.
  2. Microwave the Hachiya persimmons, honey, and coconut oil together in a bowl for 30 seconds on high.
  3. In a large bowl, mix together the microwaved mixture, vanilla extract, pink salt, cinnamon, baking powder. You can use a hand mixer to mix this, or manually mix by hand if you want an arm workout.
  4. Let the mixture cool to room temperature before mixing in the eggs, so the heat from the mixture does not cook the eggs. Popping the mixture in the fridge for 5-10 minutes can speed up the cooling process.
  5. Taste test your mixture, adding coconut sugar or stevia to sweeten as necessary. I wouldn’t sweeten with a syrup such as honey or agave here, as the mixture will already be extremely moist. As a rule of thumb, batters always taste sweeter than the finished product.
  6. Add the chopped Fuyu persimmon pieces, and 4 of the 5 figs, to the mixture by hand to preserve their shape and texture.
  7. Pour the mixture into baking cups, and top with the remaining fig pieces.
  8. Bake for 50-60 minutes.

When your muffins are finished baking, they will likely be very moist and slightly soggy in the center, so make sure to let them cool for at least 30 minutes. The juices from the Fuyu persimmon pieces seep through the muffin when warm, and it makes for glorious, gooey bites. When eating these muffins after they’ve completely cooled, take the taste to the next level by heating them in the microwave for 10 seconds prior to devouring.