白玉蔬菜包 Jade Veggie Buns

This lovely jade veggie buns are made with cabbage leaves wrapped with tofu, black and Enoki mushrooms, shreds of cabbage and carrot, and glass noodles. I like to prepare them whenever I feel like to have a light meal. Tofu and mushrooms gives the veggie buns a hearty flavor that provide satisfaction. The flavor of the fillings come from the combined aroma of stir-fried carrot, black mushroom shreds, and sesame oil.  It is an easy-and-fun-to-make, absolutely low-carb, yet very nutritious, tasty dish.       

Ingredients:

• 1 medium size carrot
• 1 Cabbage
• 1 piece of firm tofu (depend on different brands, here what I have is 250g)
• 1 pack of Enoki mushrooms
• 1 bundle of glass noodles
• 8 dried black mushrooms
• A few Goji berries
• 1 small bundle of Chinese leeks (aka Chinese chives)

The Cooking:

1. Prepare the veggies. Remove each of the cabbage leaf carefully and rinse well to clean. Rinse and clean carrot, chinese leeks, goji berries. Reconstitute dried black mushrooms by soaking them in cold water for about 10 minutes, then use the mushroom water to soak glass noodles.
2. Shred carrot and 2-3 cabbage leaves. Mince todu. Slice black mushrooms and chop Enoki mushrooms into short sections.
3. Bring water to boil, add in cabbage leaves one by one. The amount of leaves to boil is up to how many buns you want to make per time. Here I boiled 5 pieces of cabbage leaves for this dish. When the color of the cabbage leaf becomes a little bit transparent, its texture softens, remove from water, set a side to cool down. Boil a few Enoki mushrooms, goji berries separately for garnishing later. Also, boil some Chinese leeks for knotting the cabbage buns. Do not overdo the leeks so it is still firm enough to make a knot.
4. Heat up a pan, drizzle sesame oil then add carrots shreds, black and Enoki mushrooms all together then stir fry in medium heat until aromatic. The key here is to cook until the heat penetrates and break the cells of carrot shreds and mushrooms in order to bring out nicely mixed smell and flavors. Then add in minced tofu, stir until tofu fully absorbed the juice, then add cabbage shreds, continue stirring the mixture until cabbage shreds soften.
5. Drain glass noodles from water, cut short and add into pan with cabbage content. Sprinkle some salt, a teaspoon of soy sauce to stir evenly, then put in a pinch of brown sugar, some white pepper and stir evenly. When you smell the aroma from the mixture, seeing glass noodles are soft and transparent, turn off the heat.
6. Now take 1 cooled cabbage leaf as a wrapper, spoon the stir-fried fillings onto the leaf, wrap up carefully then tie up with Chinese leeks.
7. Scatter boiled Enoki mushrooms, goji berries from step 3 on a plate with veggies buns to decorate as desired. For extra seasoning, pour a sauce mixed with sesame oil, soy sauce, a pinch of white pepper on the plate.