virtual vegan potluck: edamame and me

I really enjoyed participating in my first virtual potluck last year, so I’m thrilled to be back for another edition. I’m back for appetisers, mostly because I love making tiny impractical food.

Before I go to my dish, if you would like to travel through from the start of the potluck, click here. To see the lovely sweet potato dish from helen at eatpraybake before me, click here.

Today, for appetisers, I’ve brought an asian veggie and edameme puree on a glutenous rice pancake. I love this because it packs a punch of ginger and chilli, tossed with freshly blanched veggies and topped off with the nutritional goodness of edamame (young soya beans). Plus, not so nutritional, but deep fried dough is always a gastronomic winner…

For the veggies: 

Cut into one inch pieces and blanche some snake beans, kale, and broccolini stalks. This ensure they keep their beautifully vibrant colour and a bit of crunch.Then dress and toss them in a combination of  2 tbs soy, 1 tbs mirin, 1 cm of ginger grated, 1 tbs fresh coriander, and one fresh chilli.

For the pancake:

I love glutenous rice flour for its wonderful chewy texture. I’ve made tong yuan previously, as a dessert, but never used this type of flour for savoury cooking before. The dough was a bit of guess work. To make:  Pop a cup of glutenous rice flour in with half a cup of water and one mashed potato (you add the potato to give it a nice golden colour, and also to stop it exploding — the science of this is beyond me). The dough should have the consistency of playdough. Roll out between two sheets of baking paper to prevent sticking, and cut into little pancake circles (I used an egg ring to do this, you could use a circle cookie cutter).

These could/should be deep fried in a high-temp oil like peanut. I’m scared of deep frying, so I shallow fried mine for two to three minutes, until nice and golden and slightly puffed. Try to resist eating them as soon as they are made.. it will be tough..

For the edamame puree: 

I bought frozen pods of edamame that had to be boiled in water for 6 minutes and shelled. From here, puree a cup of the cooked pods in a food processor with a little salt and pepper, and one small clove of garlic, a nib of grated ginger, and a dash of sesame oil, until smooth.

Bringing it all together..

To finish this off, place the pancakes on a plat, smear with edamame, top with the veggies and then with some toasted sesame seeds. I also added some crushed roasted garlic, and some tatsoi microherbs for extra deliciousness. You will want to eat these nice and hot before the dough becomes soggy.

I hope you’ve enjoyed your time with me, click to go onwards to the next dish…