Mix together your flours, corn starch, tamari, ginger, scallion paste (ground up in a mini food processor), white pepper and water. You want a thick batter, like pakora batter or a slightly thick pancake batter.

Immerse your cauliflower in boiling water, rinsing with cold water when they are crisp tender and then spinning dry in a salad spinner (or pat dry in a kitchen towel).

Cover a cookie sheet with a sheet of wax paper and then put a cooling rack on top of the cookie sheet for cooling your fried cauliflower.
Heat several inches of canola or other high smoke point oil to medium high in your favorite deep frying pan. I use a soup pot, but you could use a wok if you prefer. Dip dry cauliflower florets in your batter and pull out by the stem, trying to keep covered with batter. Drop carefully (watch out for splattering!) into your hot frying oil. Just put a couple in at a time, so that they don’t get crowded and stick together. Turn if needed to get both sides equally browned. When both sides are golden brown, carefully remove with a slotted spoon or mesh ladle and place on your cooling rack. Sprinkle with salt and continue until you have fried all of your cauliflower.

This fried cauliflower makes a delicious snack. Baby Yum loved stealing it from the rack and kept saying “more, more”. That girl loves her cauliflower!

If you want to really amp it up, prepare a sauce for the full Gobi Manchurian experience.

Whisk together liquid ingredients (water, ketchup, srirachi sauce, tamari) along with sugar and salt in a bowl.

Heat your 3 sesame oil in a wok. Add your garlic clove and let it brown, flavoring the oil. Turn once. When both sides are brown, remove the garlic from the oil. Add your grated ginger, and saute for a few seconds. Then add the chopped onions, and the white parts of the scallions. When the onion becomes translucent, add your liquid ingredients in the bowl to the wok. At medium heat simmer for about 3 minutes.

Whisk the corn starch with the water to make a cornstarch slurry and add to the pan, stirring in and letting the sauce begin to thicken. Toss in your fried cauliflower and fold into the sauce until each floret is coated in yummy sauce. To serve, sprinkle with the green onions and enjoy with rice or quinoa!

Whisk together sauce ingredients and prep your veggies.

Heat wok on high. Add 2 tbsp of oil and heat until you see white smoke. Add slices of ginger and halved scallion. Let them turn brown and then remove from pan since they’ve flavored the oil. Toss in diced ginger (reserving a little) and quickly add your onion, carrots, and peas and stir fry until they soften slightly. Then add your broccoli. Toss a few times until broccoli has lost its bite… then pour on most of the sauce, reserving a little. Let sauce and veggies simmer for a minute or so and then remove from heat. Put veggies in a dish and reserve.

Heat wok again and add a little oil. If you like you can do half of the quinoa at a time… you’ll have better flavor. Add your little bit of reserved diced ginger and then toss half of your quinoa into the wok. Spread it around the wok and let it brown, and then stir it up. Brown a little more and then add half of your sauteed veggies and sauce, mixing in. Add a little leftover sauce and heat thoroughly.

Remove to a pretty serving dish and repeat.

Enjoy!

Rinse bok choy and slice in half horizonally, rinsing again. Soak in water if needed- dirt can really get into the leaves! Cut one slice of peeled ginger and reserve. Use a microplane or grater to grate small shreds of ginger. Place half in a medium sized bowl and reserve the rest. Add your sauce ingredients into the medium bowl with the grated ginger, starting with the broth, salt, sweetener and vinegar. At the end, whisk in your potato or corn starch so it completely dissolves.

Heat your wok to high and add your oil. When a whisk of white smoke rises off the oil, add the slice of ginger, and then the salt. Brown the ginger on both sides and then remove the ginger slice from the oil. Add the reserved grated ginger and toss your baby bok choy into the wok. Move the bok choy around the pan with your cooking chopsticks. When it looks close to done, with the leaves wilting but stalk still tender crisp, make a well in the center and pour in your sauce. Let it begin to thicken, folding the bok choy in. When done to taste, remove from pan and enjoy!

Heat wok on high and add szechuan peppercorns, toasting lightly. Add oil and let it heat until a white wisp of smoke curls off of it, and then add your minced ginger. When ginger turns brown, strain peppercorns and ginger out of the oil and leave oil in pan. Let oil heat again and add salt to it. When oil is curling up in smoke again, add your cubed jicama and stir fry for a few minutes or until it is lightly seared on multiple sides. Add the green beans and fry for another minute, moving around pan occasionally. Add green onions and let them soften slightly before adding cashew halves and finally zucchini cubes.

Combine veg broth and mirin (or other GF alcohol of choice) in a small bowl and whisk in sesame oil and sprinkle in some white pepper. Add some of the sauce to the vegetables in the pan and let it heat. Add cornstarch to the remaining sauce, whisk in thoroughly, and then add to the pan. Combine so vegetables are evenly coated in sauce. Let thicken to taste and remove from pan. Add thai basil and serve with rice or rice noodles.

Heat or otherwise prepare grill or grill pan. (charcoal or propane grill is best) Cut zucchini lengthwise 1/4 inch thick, baste in 1 tbsp olive oil and sprinkle fresh thyme until evenly coated.

Combine diced tomato cubes, garlic, olives, capers, and red wine vinegar in a bowl and put aside.

Salt and pepper zucchini or squash rounds and grill until marked with grill stripes (3 minutes or less depending on heat). Place on serving platter when done, spread tomato olive mixture on top and season with salt and pepper. sprinkle with pine nuts and attractively cut basil and serve.

Combine sauce ingredients in a small bowl and whisk together.

Heat 2 tsp- 1 tbsp. peanut oil in a wok and add chopped ginger to flavor oil, removing ginger with slotted spoon when it is brown, and leaving oil in pan. Stir fry carrots for a minute or two and add peas and pineapple. Add enough of the sauce to cover the ingredients in the wok (no more than half) and simmer for a minute or so. Remove from pan. Heat another 2 tsp in the wok and add your whisked egg, stirring with cooking chopsticks, and as it begins to set then add your rice, mixing together. Add reserved veggie stir fry with sauce to rice, stir, and then stir in remaining sauce. Fry until brown rice is done to your preferred level of crispiness (it can take a lot of wok time!) and then add sesame seeds and white pepper. You can also add extra salt if you like a Chinese restaurant, salty experience. If people like it, they can add nori strips as a garnish. Enjoy!

Combine marinade ingredients and whisk together. Taste and adjust seasonings to your taste. Cover drained tofu in marinade sauce and reserve while you prepare the rest of the ingredients. I like to prepare all my veggies and place them on a big plate, separated into type, so they are easy to add to the wok. Get all your spices and seasonings ready and measured. Combine sauce ingredients in a small prep bowl. Taste and adjust seasonings to your taste.

To make fried rice:
1.First, prepare the tofu.
Heat a tablespoon or so canola oil in your wok. When it begins to smoke add a pinch of salt and coarse ground szechuan pepper. Add a teaspoon of your diced ginger and as it begins to brown, throw in your marinated tofu, reserving the marinade liquid for later. Brown tofu on both sides and then add the marinade liquid after it is is nicely browned. Let tofu simmer in marinade and absorb the marinade. Then take off heat and return your tofu to your marinade dish, reserving.

2. Second, prepare your veggies. Heat two teaspoons or so canola oil in your wok. When it begins to smoke add a pinch of salt and coarse ground szechuan pepper. Add a teaspoon of your diced ginger and as it begins to brown, add your onions and grated ginger. Let it start to cook and then add carrots and green beans. Stir a little until they start to soften. Throw in your green peas (preferably defrosted, but I won’t tell if they are straight from the freezer.) Add all but a few teaspoons of your sauce to the center of the wok along with your diced sweet pepper and combine, letting simmer. When veggies seem done (slightly al dente is good), remove veggies (and sauce) from wok and reserve (with sauce) on your veggie prep dish.

3. Make the eggs.
Combine eggs and green onion tops in a bowl. Heat a little oil in your wok, season with a pinch of salt and szechuan pepper and throw in your whisked eggs and green onions. As it starts to cook, immediately add in your cold rice, with each grain as separate as possible, and stir so eggs are mixed in evenly with the rice. If it is too dry, you can add a teaspoon or two of sesame oil to the middle of the pan and mix in. Let egg cook for a minute or two and then add prepared tofu. You can just use half of the tofu if you like, and use the rest of the tofu in another recipe. After another minute or so, you can add the prepared veggies WITH sauce. Fold into rice until evenly distributed, and then add any remaining sauce. When flavors are distributed and warm throughout, sprinkle with sesame seeds and serve. Enjoy!

Slice tofu and cut into rectangles or cubes (to taste). Press between kitchen towels for 30 minutes. Dust with cornstarch. Heat 2-3 inches of peanut oil in deep fryer or small/medium pot (preferably one with tall sides) and deep fry tofu in small batches in the pot, turning occasionally with a all metal slotted spoon or tongs. When tofu is evenly golden brown remove it to a wire rack and let cool, continuing to deep fry remaining tofu.

Heat a wok or cast iron pan to medium or medium high and add a small amount of peanut or canola oil, swirling it around the pan. When it is hot, add a single layer of sliced mushrooms. Add salt and pepper and let mushrooms brown nicely on one side and then turn them. Do NOT move them around on the pan. After all mushrooms have been cooked (probably in multiple batches) remove them to a bowl and add a little more peanut or canola oil to the pan. Toss on your onion slices and let them brown slowly and start to caramelize. You may want to lower the heat slightly.

Meanwhile, combine your veg stock, sake, chili garlic sauce, tamari, sesame oil and maple syrup in a small bowl. Whisk and then whisk in cornstarch.

When onions seem to have softened and caramelized slightly, toss in the mushrooms and let them cook a few more minutes. Add your drained deep fried tofu to the pan. Whisk your sauce one more time and pour into the pan over the tofu, reserving a little sauce. Raise the heat slightly and let it start to bubble. If it hasn’t thickened enough, add a little more cornstarch to your reserved sauce, whisk it in and then add to your pan. Let the mixture bubble and thicken to your taste and then serve.

I served mine on short grain white rice (but brown would be good too) and sprinkled it with sesame seeds and pickled ginger strips.

It was soooo good. Just what I wanted.