A recent failed attempt to eat at Selam (an Ethiopian restaurant that we’ve been wanting to try) resulted in a scramble for lunch plan B. Happily, we landed at Bobo Noodle House, where I discovered their vegetable dumpling pho.
Perfect little flavor-packed dumplings floating in a rich, salty broth along with shitake mushrooms, tofu, and mung bean sprouts. Mmm, I would happily have a bowl of this daily. Despite being pretty reasonably priced, I cannot eat lunch at Bobo every day, so I set out to recreate the dish.
I had most everything on hand other than the dumpling wrappers, which required a stop by the freezer case of an international grocer. I bought the wrappers, despite a couple of somewhat sketchy ingredients, including propylene glycol. (When I mentioned to Matthew that propylene glycol sounded sketchy as a “food ingredient,” he replied that it’s what they use in antifreeze — yum!)
I based the seasoning for my dumpling filling off of this recipe, which I tossed in the food processor with the following:
- Most of a block of extra firm tofu
- Chopped carrots and bok choy, lightly steamed
- Sauteed mushrooms
Warning: Each dumpling wrapper (mine were round and ~4 inches in diameter) will hold only a TINY amount of filling. The above recipe will fill about 50 wrappers. Just saying.
Before assembling my little dumples, I prepared a simple soup with veggie broth, dried shitake mushrooms, soy sauce, and more of the bok choy. With that simmering on the stove, we worked together to assemble the dumplings. The dumplings cooked in the soup for 2-3 minutes, and then we sat down to enjoy my creation.
A few notes:
- The dumplings are best fresh. We cooked eight for each of us. I made up the other 30-some dumplings and froze them for later.
- If you don’t want soup, you can steam the dumplings, or make potstickers.
Her Green Life 