Beet Rangoon with Nut Cheese (Vegan Crab Rangoon)

For a vegan potluck the other day, I made a Raw Beet Ravioli with Nut Cheese from an Epicurious recipe:

It was delicious, but I used up all my nice big beet slices and had a cup each of the "cheese" and cream sauce leftover.  Soliciting help from my Facebook friends, I came up with this recipe, using the leftover nut cheese, some bits of beet (which had come from my wonderful CSA), and scallions from my garden.  Thanks especially to my childhood friend E, who has grown up to be a chef, and who came up with the idea and suggested using beets as a sweet substitute for the crab.  The wrappers are homemade - a rare attempt on my part to make dough from scratch - drawing from another vegan crab Rangoon recipe on the Purple Carrot blog.

Filling:

Pine Nut "Goat Cheese"

• 1/2 cup raw pine nuts
• 1/2 cup raw cashews
• 2 Tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 small shallot, peeled and diced
• 1/4 teaspoon lemon
• 2 Tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon nutritional yeast
• pinch of sea salt
• dash of black pepper
• 1 Tablespoon chopped beets (1/8-in pieces), cold and dry
• 1 -2 scallion, cut into 1/8-in pieces.

Soak nuts in fresh water overnight or at least 3 hours.  Mix all ingredients except beets and scallions in a food processor until smooth.  Mix in beets and scallions.

 

Wrappers (makes double recipe)

• 2 cups whole wheat bread flour
• 1 egg substitute, mixed (I used Ener-G)
• 3/4 teaspoon sea salt
• 3/4 cup water

Put flour in a bowl and make a well in the center.  Mix 1/3 cup water with the egg replacer and pour it into the center well in the flour.  Mix well with hands and then add the rest of the water, bit by bit, until it forms a dough.  Knead for 5 minutes and let sit  under a cloth for 30-60 minutes.

Assembling and Cooking Rangoons

Separate dough into two and set one ball aside for another recipe (can be frozen, best wrapped in plastic).  Take the other lump of dough and roll it out as thin as possible.  In order to get the dough thin enough, I cut 2-3-in squares and continued to roll them out individually, ending with 3-1/2-in squares.  If they're too rounded or uneven, just gently push or pull the dough with your fingers.

Drop about 1-1/2 tablespoons of filling onto squares, wet edges using a finger dipped in water, fold, and press into triangles.  I used triangles instead of the traditional Crab Rangoon shapes so that less oil would cover them for frying.

Heat coconut oil (or your preferred oil) in a wok and drop the Rangoons into the oil, frying at high heat until crispy on both sides.

Makes about ten, but I only made five tonight because they're really best eaten immediately, and five is about all I can handle.

Yeah.  That's some fried goodness.