Vegan Dumplings

These delicious vegan dumplings are packed full of nutritious goodies and are so simple to make the family absolutely love to get involved with making them.  You can make them in batches and freeze them so you can pull them out when you have an emergency supper to cook.  

This recipe is an adaptation on a Gwenyth Paltrow recipe, I didn’t have all the ingredients she suggested so I added in what I had in the fridge and they tasted really good.    We try to have a zero waste kitchen as much as possible so I tend to fling whatever veggies I have in the fridge into all my dishes.  For the filling you can use any kind of green veg  – white cabbage, savoy cabbage, cauliflower leaves, courgettes, spinach, kohlrabi. 

Ingredients

1 shallot, chopped small

1 clove of garlic, crushed

1 cups of finely grated courgette

½ cup outer leaves of a cauliflower

2 tbsp chopped chives

½ cup crumbled firm tofu 

½ cup frozen peas

½ cup cooked quinoa – you can buy ready cooked in packets or cook it yourself

1 tbsp Tamari

½ teaspoon toasted Sesame Oil

Premade dumpling wrappers – you can find these at your local health food store, Asian supermarket or make the dough yourself.

Dipping Sauce

3 tbsp tamari 

2 tbsp water

1 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon

1 tsp toasted sesame oil

Method

Place the shallots, garlic, courgette and cauliflower leaves into a blender, blitz until finely chopped.

Heat 2 tbsp of oil (I used olive oil) in a heavy based pan and cook the courgette mixture with a large pinch of sea salt.  Stir the mixture occasionally and cook for 5-6 minutes until it begins to turn brown.

Now add the tofu, quinoa and peas and cook for a further 2-3 minutes until peas are soft

Take off the heat and add the chives, tamari and sesame oil.  Crush the mixture with a potato masher so it comes together. Allow to cool to room temperature.

Lay the dumpling wrappers out and put a tablespoon of mixture into the middle of the wrapper.  

Get a small bowl of water and dip your fingers into it then paint the edges of the wrappers and seal them, pinching the edges together.

To cook either steam them in a bamboo steamer for 4 minutes or pan fry in a non stick frying pan over a high heat with a slick of oil.  Cook for 2 minutes until they are golden on the bottom then add ½ cup of water (stand back because it will give off a lot of steam) pop a lid on and let it steam for a further 2 mins

Just before the dumplings are ready, combine all the dipping sauce ingredients in a jam jar and give them a good shake

Serve dumplings on a platter with the dipping sauce.