The weekend started with a bright beautiful clear morning. It was the perfect day for a walk to the farmer’s market where I got some more vegetables. I’m finding that as I’ve gone through all these salads, I’m buying and eating more vegetables. It’s a great feeling when I go to bed and I don’t feel like I overstuffed myself.
Today was a bit indulgent with meat since it’s a Saturday. I treated myself with some comfort food. In this case, dumplings. But instead of rolling the dough, which takes forever, I opted for cabbage as the base with some vermicelli (bean curd) noodles.
Ingredient
- 1/2 cabbage head, chopped
- 1/4 cup vermicelli noodle
- 3/4 cup chives, chopped
- 1/4 lbs ground pork
- 10 medium shrimp, shelled and deveined and chopped
- 1 egg
- 1 tbsp vinegar
- 2 tbsp tamari-lite sauce (or soy sauce)
- 1 tsp salt
- olive oil
For dipping sauce
- 4 tbsp tamari-lite sauce (or soy sauce)
- 1 tbsp vinegar
- 1 tbsp Sriracha
- 1 garlic clove, chopped
1. Soften vermicelli in warm water for 10 minutes before putting it in hot water. Cook for about 5 minutes in hot water. Take out and set atop a bed of chopped cabbage.
2. Mix chives, ground pork, chopped shrimp, egg, vinegar, tamari sauce, and salt.
3. Heat a wok on medium high and spray olive oil. When heated, use a spoon to scoop a handful of mixture and flatten onto the wok. You should be able to fit 4 if you have a large wok.
4. Close lid and lower heat a little. Cook for about 5 minutes before turning the pattie, flatten with spatula to press out excess water.
5. Once both sides are nice and brownish gold, take out and let it dry on a paper towel. This will absorb any excess oil.
6. Serve dumpling patties on noodle and cabbage with dipping sauce on the side.
This recipe serves 2. We barely scratched the dipping sauce. But the dipping sauce helps to give the cabbage a lot more flavor.
If you love dumplings but hate to make the dough or hate to spend time making the dumplings, this was so much quicker to make! And it was just as delicious, if not a bit healthier.