JUICY Asian Cabbage Rolls 🥬 (TRENDING plant-based dish, NO STEAMER)

Hi guys, LookitChu here, and this is Eat Your Vegetables. A series dedicated to all things veggies. And for some reason, cabbage rolls, okay, are trending all over social media. So I guess that's what all the hip and cool kids are eating nowadays. And as a cool kid myself, Today we'll be making cabbage rolls Asian style. And guess what? What? These savory juicy cabbage rolls are steamer free. And you know what else is steamer free? Miku. And she wants you guys to get this video to 150 likes, so she can get rewarded with a giant leaf of cabbage for next video. Not the cabbage is her weakness. Now let's rock and cabbage roll. So I'm browsing through Miku's toy store. And huh? You're selling a head of cabbage? It's our last one. A classic toy from the 80s. Hmm, five bucks? I can have that for dinner. I'll take it. Oh my gosh, is that a cabbage patch kid? Oh this thing? It's just cabbage. No, I'll buy it off you. Oh well, actually this is super rare and not for sale. How about 50 bucks? Peace. And with the 50 dollars, I bought many heads of cabbage. Napa cabbage. And if you want your rolls a vibrant green, try to find a slightly greener cabbage. I spent 10 minutes digging through a mountain of yellow ones to find this greenish looking one. Measuring around 9 by 5 inches for all my precise stands. Let's pop them into the jacuzzi for exactly 20 seconds. They don't want to be jacuzzied for too long. We're just blanching them until they become barely soft and vibrant green. After the jacuzzi, immediately slide them into cold water. How cold? Ice cold! This helps prevent further cooking, retains the tender texture, and oh, look how vibrant green they are now. Pitta patta them dry with a single reusable towel. Because planet Earth is too hot to be using single-use paper towels, okay? It's now blizzarding in March. Let's prepare the filling. And Asian cabbage rolls, you can consider them as dumplings. But instead of that gluten-filled wheat wrapper you used, we're gonna use nature's wrapper, aka cabbage. And if you remember my rice paper dumpling video, okay? We're gonna use a filling very similar to it. That is a snowman nose, shiitake mushrooms dried, green onion, and oh so lovely, tofu. So it's suitable for all my plant-based besties out there. I see you. But you can use any type of protein you fancy. Let's peel, slice, and dice up a whole medium-sized carrot into smallish cubes. And speaking of carrots, I saw this TikTok of a girl saying that her carrot chips recipe is better than potato chips. Keep lying to yourself. Next up, for mushrooms, shiitake style. And oh, these mushrooms are looking a little dry. So let's give them a little plump by plopping them into hot water for around 20 minutes to let them rehydrate back. Now that they're nice and plump, we're gonna unjuice them by squeezing out all the juice. And you're left with the forbidden juice, umami. Oh, and some pretty nice looking rehydrated mushrooms, shiitake style. Let's dice them as you would the carrots. For some reason, rehydrated shiitake mushrooms are just so satisfying to cut. I could chop a hundred of them all Friday night long. Uh, which I don't do because that's weird and I have a life. Anyways, the diced carrots and mushrooms should be around the size of your left pinky nail. As for our aromatics, let's slice two stalks of green onions and mince three cloves of garlic. Now since we're not steaming these rolls like a traditional cabbage roll, we'll need to stir fry the filling a little or else we'll be eating a cold salad. So to a wok on medium heat, drizzle in some olive oil and toss in our mincey minced garlic and beautifully sliced green onions. Saute it for around 30 seconds, you know, just to get the juices flowing. And let's toss in our carrots and our mushrooms shiitake style. Now since they're diced fairly small, it should take around two minutes for the carrots to tenderize. And while the veggies are cooking, let's grab our protein of choice, firm tofu, not extra firm or soft, okay? A firm firm. Drain and crumble the entire tofu pack, around 454 grams, into the wok. No worries if it's not perfectly crumbled in your fingers, okay? Because that's what our wooden spoon is for, besides using it to discipline your children. Uh, I mean, the spoon, we use it to crumble the uncrumbled tofu bits. After a minute, the tofu is nice and crumbly, but fairly loose. So let's whip up a cornstarch slurry. So to a small bowl, mix in two tablespoons of mushroom water, one tablespoon of soy sauce, and one tablespoon of cornstarch. Do a little mixy mix until dissolved and oh! Pour the sauce into the sauteed carrots, mushroom, and tofu, stirring it in for around 10 seconds or so until it's well absorbed. And last but not least, the final step to our filling, steamed rice. It can be a day old rice or fresh rice. Plop one cup of it into the wokaroo and do the final wok dance for around 30 seconds, making sure the rice is well meshed with all the other party goers. Now the reason why we didn't add the rice in the beginning is because if we did, okay, then by the time we kept doing our mixy mix, the rice would turn into mochi, aka mush. And if you're on a low carb keto diet, then I doubt you'd be watching me because have you seen my videos? But hypothetically, if you are, then you can skip the rice and oh! Turn the heat off and I like to mix in one teaspoon of roasted sesame oil just for a hint of nuttiness. But you must add it when the heat is off, okay? Because if you cook sesame oil, the flavor will go poof! The more you know. Anyways, grab a pitter pattish leaf of dry cabbage and chip chop around two inches off the bottom hard stem of the napa to make it easier to roll. You can give these scraps to your dog. Grab two tablespoons of our gorgeous filling and plop it onto the cabbage leaf around two inches above the base of the cabbage and mold it into a more compact shape so the filling won't spill out everywhere once you roll. Roll the bottom portion of the cabbage up and over the filling and keep on rolling. It should take around one to two revolutions until you reach the green leafy head of hair. Now grab the right side of the leaf and bring it to the left and the left side to the right. Roll it up once more and bam! You have a gorgeous roll cabbage style! I'm just gonna keep repeating the process until all the fillings are used up and by the end of this, I promise you'll be so cabbaged out you'll need a napa. Huh? Get it? Napa cabbage? Take a nap from the cabbage rolling? No? Okay. Anyways, I ended up making around 20 pretty cabbage dresses and let's whip up a quick umami sauce as accompaniment. To a saucepan with a heat O-F-F, add in a cup of our umami mushroom water, a quarter cup of soy sauce, two teaspoons of white granulated sugar, half a teaspoon of garlic powder, and two tablespoons of cornstarch. Do a little whisky whisk until the cornstarch is dissolved and then turn the heat O-N to medium high, whisking constantly until it gets nice and thick. After around 10 minutes of constantly whisking, we have beautiful lip gloss. And what I like to do to make it prettier is to add a teaspoon of sesame seeds. It's optional but it makes the sauce cute, just like you. Pour it on or dip the cabbage rolls in it. You could also sear the rolls on a hot pan for a couple of seconds but I think it ruins the beautiful green color. And there we have it, cabbage rolls Asian style. And before the rolls get cold, let's dig in. Alright, so this is the finished product and I'm super excited. Let's do a little dippy dip. Oh, look at that. When you first take a bite, you get hit with that oh so juicy cabbage exterior. Then you chew a little and you reach that nice and umami and savory filling inside. Has a nice chewy texture from the rice and tofu and a nice crunchiness from the bits of carrot. The sauce has a nice mushroomy flavor. Very, very umami. Just soy sauce so it's nice and savory. Has a hint of sweetness from the sugar but it makes the cabbage rolls more succulent. Alright, so this gets LookatChew's stamp of approval. And if you like this video, please give it a thumbs up and please subscribe to my YouTube channel. I post once a week and I'll see you guys next time. Eat. Look at that. All done. And if you're still here, comment, Miku is a cabbage head to confuse everyone.