When people decide to switch to a vegan diet, they always worry about not getting enough protein. This is primarily because we have been educated from a young age that animal proteins are the only source of protein we can get; people don’t even realize that most plants also contain protein.

The good thing about animal protein (if we ignore the animals suffering and dying) is that it’s complete, so you don’t need to take amino acids from various other foods. The bad thing is that animal protein is laden with fat, cholesterol, residues of hormones and a concentration of pesticides and antibiotics, and all these bad characteristics overwrite the good ones. It also contributes to acidifying of our body, which results in calcium leaking from our bones in an attempt to balance the body’s Ph value. An acidic environment is believed to be one of the causes of cancers. Another reason for avioding excess protein is it makes our kidneys overwork to process it.

On a lighter note, while most plants don’t have a complete protein profile, by eating various foods your body automatically takes bits from each resource to satisfy its needs. And the good news is that you don’t have to eat them all in one meal. Your body is clever enough to do its own job by combining them. Not to mention, there are certainly some foods available with complete protein, such as soybeans and quinoa. Of course, you don’t have to eat them every day, like I said, just try to combine various plant foods, your body will do its job. ;-) Here is a dish that contains tofu and its more “meaty” counterparts for the new, wannabe vegans to try.

A while ago I read a story from my friend Jackie’s blog. She was very young and one rainy day, she encountered a very young chick. It was shivering in the chilly rain. She took the baby chick home, tried to warm it and fed it, but it wouldn’t eat anything, it just trembled. My friend’s mom told her she couldn’t have it at home, there was no space, plus there was nobody to take care of it. So my friend had to take it to the nearest hen she could find, but the hen refused to accept the baby chicken. In the end, my friend had to take the baby chicken back home and try to help it. But her efforts were in vein, and she had to watch it die.

After many years she still remembers this incident. Even though she is not a vegetarian, this prompts her to ponder the meaning of life and its fairness. She said this becomes the scream of the lamb in her heart, I think you know what she means, if you have seen the movie The Silence of the Lambs.

Today I am gonna work out a dish from the Chinese dining table that usually features lamb. For people who love animals but also love meat, this is an excellent compromise. It’s chewy and tasty, and not a drop of blood is shed. Maybe there will always be the scream of the lambs as long as human beings exist. But as more and more of us hear it, the world will become a better place. I hope I am not the only one dreaming. ;-)

 

The first time I ever tasted okras was when I was traveling in Vietnam. I think I might have been in Nha Trang, a small sea side city, and I was wandering around the city on my bike. The advantage of having a bike is that you can visit places other tourists wouldn’t go to; the disadvantage of visiting such places is that there might be no English language service. Previously in another town I had already encountered some problems. I was hungry and went to a small restaurant by the road side. I point to the “I am a vegetarian” sentence in my copy of the Lonely Planet, but the owner couldn’t read. I tried to pronounce it but she ended up giving me a bowl of rice noodles with a piece of each kind of meat she had in her store! Oh la la!

Remembering this, I decided to select my own vegetables and ask them to cook them for me. So this time, I looked to see what they had there when I spotted this strange thing that I was curious to try. They cooked the okra for me with a little garlic and it was delicious!

I had always wanted to eat it again, but I seldom saw okras in Chinese markets, until the other day when I spotted fresh ones available. Compared to other vegetables it’s a bit pricey, but I bought some anyway. It only took me a few minutes to make sautéed crispy okras.

 

In most Chinese restaurant, they usually offer at least one vegetable stir-fry. This is usually the only option for vegetarians as the majority of the dishes have meat. Even if the restaurant doesn’t offer a stir-fry specifically on the menu, you can still make a special request. I did this in the past when I was traveling with a group of people. A typical Chinese group will usually order more than ten dishes to share and almost all of them containing meat. When this happens, as it did last time when I was out with my friends, I simply ask the restaurant to make a vegetable and tofu stir-fry without MSG just for myself and I eat it with rice. In this way I get to share the same table with my friends without compromising my principles. This is especially important nowadays as eating meat also makes me sick.

Cabbage stir-fry is one of these simple and quick restaurant dishes. It’s very easy to make and tastes really good. The trick is to tear the leaves one by one. It might take a little time, but it’s fun to peel the leaves layer by layer, observing the color changing from light green to tender yellow when you get to the core. You can also avoid the firm stem if you don’t feel like eating it. Most restaurants also remove this part to make the dish more palatable. ;-)

 

In English speaking cultures, people say “cheese” to get a nice smile in a photograph, in Chinese we say “qiezi”, 茄子, which means eggplant. I always wondered if this is based on the English tradition. ;-)

My mom doesn’t like eggplant so she doesn’t cook it often. I think one of the reasons might be that eggplant takes a long time to cook, and it absorbs a lot of oil. Most eggplant dishes I have had in Chinese restaurants are so greasy that I could almost feel the pimples popping out right after the meal. >.< No wonder, in most restaurants they deep-fry eggplants first, then cook it again.

I wanted to cook a healthier version of an eggplant dish. So I decided to soften the eggplant by steaming it first then lightly braising it in garlic and soy sauce. It might lose a bit of shape, but at least I am not eating excessive amounts of oil. ;-)

Dry fried green beans, or 干煸四季豆, is a common dish on the Chinese menu. You can get it at most restaurants in China. It is the one dish that I always order when I got out to dinner with my friends. The traditional cooking method is not very healthy unfortunately, as it requires a lot of oil to deep fry the green beans first, then they are dry fried in a wok, together with other ingredients.

The other ingredients are yacai and minced pork. Yacai is a Sichuan speciality made from cabbage or other Chinese greens and usually shredded, dried, then pickled with other spices and sauces. It comes in airtight bags and is usually already minced and ready to use. As for the minced pork, it is used sparingly to add a little flavor to the green beans. In some restaurants those little bits of pork are considered to be unimportant and on the menu it is listed within the vegetarian dishes and has been one of the nightmares of many vegetarians who try to order vegetarian food in China. :P

The dish that I created is based on the version with pork, however, I used soy protein crumbles instead. Of course you can avoid it completely and simply cook it with yacai on its own. In order to avoid the heavy oil and deep-drying, I steam the green beans first so they are soft and easier to cook. I admit it doesn’t taste exactly the same, but it’s close and much healthier.

 

The first time I heard of seitan, I was reading a Western recipe book. Seitan is the Japanese name for wheat-gluten. Wheat-gluten originates from China and is an elastic mass made by kneading wheat flour dough then washing it with water to remove the starch. It is commonly used as an alternative to soy-based meat substitutes.

Deep-fried seitan balls, also called 油面筋, are widely available in markets in Shanghai and surrounding areas. It is made by rolling the seitan dough into small balls then deep-frying in hot oil. At the market I have seen people fill the balls with minced meat so I guess that’s how it is eaten here. Since I am a vegan, I will just eat them plain and cook a stir-fry dish with it them.

These seitan balls are far too oily, so I highly recommend boiling them first to remove the excess oil. I also use truffle and porcini powder; this was given to me by a friend and I don’t think this ingredient is widely available, so it’s OK to omit it. I use it to enhance the mushroom flavor, but without it, this dish already has enough flavor to please you. ;)

It’s such a great companion to a bowl of brown rice!

 

In professional Chinese cuisine emphasis is placed on knife skills. Armed with just a chopping board and a cleaver, chefs can create various shapes out of the same ingredients, a skill which I admire. I haven’t been trained to use knives to that extent, so I rely heavily on kitchen gadgets. Of course there is nothing wrong with this, one downside though is storing all those tools, not an easy task in the Chinese kitchen. :P

The other day I read a friend’s blog describing how to cut this dragon-like shape from vegetables. At the beginning I thought it was complicated, but after I tried it a few times I found it fairly easy. The trick is to use a sharp knife and take care not to cut it all the way through each time. This method of cutting has the added advantage of letting the sauce soak into the pieces; distributing the flavor evenly over the dish. Just try it, I am sure you will have some fun creating a dragon out of a cucumber. ;-)

I had a lot of fun eating this cucumber dragon, ha ha!

 

Konjac is native to Asian countries such as China, Japan, Korea and India. Its Chinese name is 魔芋, literally “devil’s taro”, it has nothing to do with devil though. Perhaps its high fibre and low calorie content will help you attain a “devil’s shape” (魔鬼身材), in Chinese it means your have a really slim and curvy body. ;-)

Commonly made into jellies, konjac is also widely used to mimic the fat of meat or some white seafood, such as the “konjac mock squid rolls”. To be honest I have no idea how squid tastes, but I imagine it to smell fishy with a gelatin-like texture. However, the vegan counterpart doesn’t smell like anything from the sea, but the texture is indeed gelatin-like. Another ingredient that I use in this dish is the Manchurian wild rice stem, called 高笋 (gaosun) or 茭白 (jiaobai). Unfortunately it is not available in the States due to the concern of fungus contamination, as this crop is cultivated with smut fungus. So if you can’t find it, use bamboo shoots to substitute or omit it.

 

A while ago I watched a documentary called Forks Over Knives. It is a really interesting programme presenting scientific research on the connection between diet, nutrition and diseases. It offers a personal perspective from the point of view of a couple of patients’ showing the viewer what changes they have been through after they switched their diet from a meat-based to a plant-based one. Dr. Colin Campbell, the author of The China Study took part in the documentary. As a vegan I had heard of the China study a long time ago and it’s on my to-read list. So it’s interesting to watch and see how it was carried out.

In the China study, they collected the statistics from rural areas in China, where meat was not widely available and people mostly stuck to a plant-based diet. Actually, in the past, Chinese cuisine was not heavily centered around meat. Most meat dishes contain “shredded meat”, instead of big chunks as in the Western dishes, the small pieces of meat are scattered between vegetables, so everybody can have a little. Unfortunately the tradition is changing now. The meat still remains shredded, but the portion has increased, as well as the frequency of appearance. This has become a nightmare for ordering dishes as a vegetarian, as it’s almost unavoidable to get meat in everything. At the same time, the rates of cancers, heart diseases, diabetes and obesity are increasing in China. This is really worrying.

I understand that once people are used to eating a lot of meat, it is really hard for them to give up meat immediately. That’s why I found “mock meats” particularly helpful. Even though they don’t taste exactly like real meat, they are very close. I cooked this dish for my meat-eating parents and they had no trouble eating it at all. It’s equally tasty and familiar, just like the common dish that they usually cook which features shredded pork.