Friday, November 16, 2007

Sweet & Sour TVP

Sweet & Sour TVP

Sweet and sour TVP with broccoli, onions, garlic, ginger, tomatoes and red pepper. I sprinkled hot chili flakes / red pepper flakes on mine.

I've been trying to actually use my 60+ cookbooks here. I almost never use them so I am trying to make at least one recipe from one cookbook each week... starting this week. The base recipe is from Bryanna Clark Grogan's book Authentic Chinese Cuisine.

I soaked the TVP chunks in her suggested broth (soy, ketchup, water, nutritional yeast) instead of my usual plain vegetable stock and I think it added to the yummy flavour.

The dish wasn't too sweet (she has two recipes in there for sweet and sour, this is the first one) and pretty authentic — nothing like the crappy (overly) sweet & sour you normally get from restaurants. I also TRIPLED the sauce because I like a lot of sauce and because my chosen vegetables and amount of TVP I made far exceeded what she called for in the book.

My addition of tomatoes also really reminded me of my mom's tomato stirfry dish she used to make us so I think that was a good decision on my part.

Anyway, it was delicious!

8 comments:

LizNoVeggieGirl said...

mmm this dish looks delicious indeed!! I've never had TVP before though - does it taste similar to seitan?

Peggy said...

Mmmm, just that picture alone has convinced me to go out and buy that book! Looks delicious!

ms. veganorama said...

Thanks guys! It really was good and trust me on that it is authentic tasting. It's nothing like the flourescent red sweet and sour that most restaurants dole out.

veggiegirl, TVP is a bit different than seitan though you can certainly make this dish with seitan as well (she even offers that option in her book). I guess it's different texture-wise and because it plain soy, it has no flavour of its own so you need to rehydrate it in broth. I usually also dust with seasoned flour and fry it. I use the chunks most frequently which I get here: http://www.healthy-eating.com/ because I can't find it in stores here. I also use the TVP "crumbles" for things like tacos or bolognese sauce.

Sorry, that really wasn't a great description!

LizNoVeggieGirl said...

thank you for the description! is WAS great, because it definitely provided the explanation that I needed :0)

Anardana said...

You take great pictures!

ms. veganorama said...

Thanks Anardana! :)

Anonymous said...

Sweet looking! My only question is how do I cook it? It looked so scrummy that I wanna make it! Do I fry the TVP and do I need to bread it?

I love TVP and recently made sweet curry-flavored veggie burgers with it. A bit spicey (from the curry), but good with cheese (either soy or dairy). Also good ripped up and used in curry. :)

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ms. veganorama said...

@ dorothy: The way I like to make TVP chunks is to rehydrate it in broth, then toss with seasoned flour and then fry it. I generally don't email people I don't know or who don't have a blog so I'm just putting my reply here.

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