Taiwanese Meatball Dumplings – Vegan Bawan

Who’s ever watched Spirited Away and not walked away wanting to eat all the food!? Well, I couldn’t resist, I had to try making a vegan version feast! Problem is, there’s no recipes for most of the food in the film. Certainly not vegan either! This is part of a series of recipes I’m developing to make a vegan Spirited Away feast! Here’s my experience creating one of the recipes:

When Chihiro’s dad eats something gelatinous at the beginning of the film, it always stuck out to me as iconic. It is speculated to be Bawan, a type of Taiwanese meat ball dumpling. I definitely wanted to make it, but there are hardly any recipes online, let alone a vegan one! So I put on my chef hat and developed this recipe for you. But it wasn’t without a trial by fire, that’s for sure!

So I have to admit something… even though these dumplings were SO GOOD and 1000% worth a bit of effort to make (amazing texture, exquisite ginger garlic filling)… the process of me making them for the first time without a veganized recipe at hand and never having even eaten them before left me, uh, a little panicky. (Maybe an understatement, as you’ll see, especially in the beginning!)

So what’s up with these dumplings? Why were they so… dangerous? Well, flavor wise, the dough is extremely gelatinous due to the sweet potato starch and the texture has no comparison to anything I’ve eaten before. It’s stunningly delicious! But that amazing dough texture had a dark side, as I discovered.

When I stuck my hands in the bowl of the dough, I wasn’t prepared for my hands to leave several pounds heavier. It looked like I had oven mitts on! Honestly I felt like Cruella in the scene of the 101 Dalmatians live-action movie where she falls in molasses. That’s how dang sticky the dough was!!! Fortunately I corrected course by oiling my hands. That made it super easy to form the patties.

After steaming them, I realized the dumplings were still a bit sticky… So my first few broke when I picked them up. I pondered for a bit and remembered when making Mongolian Buuz a few years back that we had used parchment paper in the steamer, so I fixed the issue by following suit with the same idea for these dumplings.

I’m proud of myself for working around all the potholes of this journey! I’m so glad I didn’t give up even though I definitely experienced a few stumbles along the way. I learned so much during this process and pulled every cooking trick I had out of the bag to make it to the end. Such a satisfying journey, and I can leave you with a super unique recipe to impress your friends with! And they’re easy to make gluten-free too!

Don’t worry, I marked off all the “problem” areas I ran into, so it’ll be smooth sailing for you, at least!

Recipe

Ingredients:

Dough:

1/2 cup rice flour (I have once successfully subbed it with cake flour since I didn’t have rice flour at that time)
3/4 cup sweet potato starch, reserve the rest of the 1 lb. bag
3 and 1/3 cups water

Filling:

Feel free to use veggies you already have for this! The mainstay flavors are the garlic, ginger, mushroom, onion, and meaty bits. I personally find the addition of a celery/carrot/parsnip combo to be an incredible flavor enhancer though, myself. Mirin and Ponzu are stunningly good, don’t miss out on adding those to your filling! I found them at H Mart.

Also typical ingredients found in Bawan filling that I didn’t include: Bamboo shoots, and specific kinds of mushroom (shiitake and black).

2 tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 small onion, minced
1 stalk celery, minced
1 small carrot, minced
1 small parsnip, minced
1/2 cup of mushrooms, minced
1/2 cup of kale, chopped
1/2 package of sliced, fried extra firm tofu, then small diced once cooked
- you can also use another meat substitute! Or thinly sliced dougan if you can find it!
1 small bunch of scallions, minced
1″ piece of fresh ginger, peeled and minced
2 cloves garlic, pressed, peeled, and minced
2 tbsp mirin
3 tbsp ponzu
3 tbsp GF soy sauce
3 tbsp organic brown sugar

Garnishes:

Cilantro, chopped
GF soy sauce
Sweet chili sauce
Cabbage, kale, or banana leaves

Specialty equipment:

Oil baster
Parchment paper (or you can try using the leaves in the steamer directly)
Tiered steamer

Making the dough

In a large pot, whisk together the flour, 3/4 cup of sweet potato starch, and water.
Cook at high heat, stirring constantly with a spatula. Scrape the bottom and sides to keep from burning.
After it becomes a stretchy, sticky blob, remove from heat and let cool to the point where you can use your hands to work the dough.
Oil a spatula thoroughly. Add reserved sweet potato starch a little at a time, mixing with oiled spatula until all has been dispensed and it forms dough. It may be a little bit lumpy, but that’s okay. If it’s sticky, keep adding more potato starch until it’s kind of lumpy but isn’t as sticky.

Making the filling

Heat nonstick pan at high heat and add the vegetable oil.
When oil is hot, add onions. Stir fry the onions until they brown on the edges.
Add carrot, celery, and parsnip, continue stir frying until they brown slightly.
Add mushrooms, and stir fry for a other minute or two. Use a heavy skillet or pot to press down the mushrooms into the pan while it cooks. Add more oil as needed to keep pieces from sticking.
Add kale, lower heat to medium, stir and then cover the pot for another two minutes or so until fully cooked.
Take off lid, add minced fried tofu, scallions, ginger, garlic, mirin, ponzu, soy sauce, brown sugar. Stir, coating everything thoroughly, and cook for another minute or two until garlic smells fragrant. Set aside to cool a bit while you put the bawan together.
Start boiling some water on the bottom steamer, fill it almost to the top (But not to the point where it would boil over).

Assembling the bawan

Warning, this dough is extremely sticky! Set up your work station before you touch it: have some oil in a bowl with an oil baster. Set up pieces of the parchment paper or leaves for the assembled bawan to sit on before you transfer them to the steamer. Have the lid and the steamer ready to go. Once everything is set up, you’re ready to work the dough.

TIP: this video covers a non-vegan version of Bawan, and I found watching how they assembled the dumpling together to be helpful.

Oil your hands and all sides of your fingers with the baster. Throughout the entire process, if your hands are not fully lubricated, take the time to add more oil before continuing with any action. Gently grab some dough and form a ball about the size of a golf ball. The oil on your hands will smooth out the lumpiness of the dough, and then you can flatten it into a disc with your palms. You’ll end up with palm sized roughly shaped circles in your hand, 1/2″ thick. In this case, a thicker “pancake” is better than too thin. Lay the circle on the leaf until you’re ready to add filling.
- TIP: This dough is extremely forgiving so if you accidentally make it too thin in places, you can add oil to your fingers, pinch off some from one area and press it to the thinned out section (sometimes grabbing more oil helps here too). It will easily mold with light pressure.
Add more oil to your fingers and hands before going on to the next bawan. Continue until you’re out of dough.
Continue oiling hands. Add a spoonful or two of filling to each circle. Bring up the sides over the filling until they connect, then repair any seams by grabbing some oil on your finger, and pinching gently. Once everything is connected, you can roll it around in your palms to form a more solid ball. Inspect closely for holes anywhere and patch them up with the dough if there are any.
Lay the finished bawan on parchment paper pieces or leaves and set in the steamer tray.
Put on the lid and steam them for 10 minutes.

TIP: If you don’t have a multi-layer steamer, it might take several rounds of steaming the bawan before you finish cooking them all. Make sure to periodically check that the water for steaming below is still there, it’s easy to forget!

If you try this recipe, let me know in the comments how it went for ya! Yaaay challenges!