Perfect! Paleo Egg Foo Yung. It's not really Chinese food – it was invented by American Chinese cooks in the 1930s and is at least based on a real Chinese dish. A cross between a pancake and an omelet, egg foo yung is usually drowning in sesame oil and served with brown gravy. I cleaned it up!
This is another one of those "purge the fridge" dishes in which you can toss just about any protein and vegetable. To be "authentic" in this completely unauthentic dish, I recommend cabbage and scallions – but feel free to add broccoli, squash, shredded carrots. It would also be totally kickass with mushrooms, and I would have included them if I had them. The recipe below uses salad shrimp, but I've also enjoyed this with leftover pork and chicken.
Paleo Egg Foo Yung
This makes enough for one person around my size, but it's easily doubled/tripled for company or bigger/hungrier people.
Ingredients:
2 eggs
2 oz. cooked protein: shrimp, crab, chicken, and pork all work great
1 cup chopped cabbage
4 scallions, green and white parts sliced thin
1 teaspoon coconut aminos
1/2 teaspoon Chinese five spice powder
coconut oil (or sesame oil or both)
Directions:
1. Put about 1 teaspoon coconut oil in a skillet and heat over medium-high heat. Add cabbage and saute until wilted and slightly brown.
2. Remove cabbage from heat and let cool to the touch. (It gets mixed into the eggs and you don't want the hot cabbage to cook the eggs too soon.)
3. Place protein and vegetables in a large bowl. Scramble the eggs, pour them over the stuff in the bowl, and mix well. Add 1 teaspoon coconut aminos and the Chinese five-spice powder; blend well.
4. Put another 1-2 teaspoons of coconut oil in the skillet and heat over high heat. Get the pan nice and hot, then pour in the egg mixture, spreading it evenly into a flat pancake shape with a spatula. I like my eggs very well done, so I put a lid on the pan and let it cook for about 5 minutes. As you can see from my photo, mine got a tiny bit over-browned, but I like all my food burnt, so I was happy. For normal people, give it 3-4 minutes and lift an edge to check the brownness.
5. When you're happy with the bottom, flip it! This takes a leap of faith and confidence. You can do it!
6. Let it get brown on the other side, slide it onto a plate, and serve alongside another veggie (in the photo above, you can see I had jicama) and maybe some fruit for dessert. For added flavor, drizzle a teaspoon of sesame oil or melted coconut oil over the top. YUM!
Thanks to Kalyn's Kitchen who inspired this successful egg foo yung experiment. Hers was very pretty, but mine is dino-chow-ier!
I'm excited to once again join the punk rock foodies on Fight Back Friday at Food Renegade.
Sounds tasty. Totally going to try this. I just need to go get some cabbage. I think this could be a good breakfast meal too.
ReplyDeleteI have some sad Savoy Cabbage that I forgot about, sitting forlornly in my lower left crisper drawer. This is how it shall fulfill its purpose in life. YAY!
ReplyDeleteHey, ladies! Hope you like it. It *is* excellent for ANY meal -- or make one, cut it into two pieces and eat it for snacks.
ReplyDeleteI might make this for lunch. Looks great. Also, great article. I hope you're on the upward climb from the personal crisis. I admire your approach and candor about dealing with a horrible rough patch.
ReplyDeletei cooked with coconut oil for the first time today - interesting. for sauteeing vegetables, totally works.
ReplyDeletegotta get ahold of those aminos next.
Danni --> Thank you, on both counts. I'm doing mostly OK these days. Definitely healing.
ReplyDeleteMichele --> I found my coconut aminos at Whole Foods -- near the Bragg's Aminos. You can also get them online.
Looks great! Damn, I've missed Egg Foo Yung - what a great faux version! Wondering what the "Chinese five spice powder" is and where I can obtain it? Thanks!
ReplyDeleteHooray! I'm glad you like the recipe. Chinese Five Spice Powder is available at well-stocked grocery stores (Whole Foods, for example) or you can get it online. I get mine from Penzeys. (http://www.penzeys.com/cgi-bin/penzeys/p-penzeyschinese5.html)
ReplyDeleteChinese Five Spice is made from cinnamon, anise, ginger, and cloves, so in a pinch, you can substitue a little cinnamon and cloves with either fresh or dried ginger. The egg foo yung is also good without it, but it has extra zing and Asian flavor with it. Good luck!
Thanks for the heads up on Whole Foods for the Coconut Aminos. I just got around to finally making this tonight, and it was fab! I 4xed the recipe and between hubby and I we snarfed it all. Yes, that is probably a lot of food, but we are big people, and he was very hungry. =-) For the record, I used some leftover ground turkey taco meat for the protein. It was very tasty.
ReplyDeleteBrandy, that sounds yummy! Now *I* want to make it with ground beef or turkey.
ReplyDeleteThat's the first that I've heard of coconut aminos! I love my Tamari, but have eliminated soy from my diet as much as I've been able. Thai fermented fish sauce just doesn't cut it as a replacement, so I'm definitely going to look into this. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteWordVixen, the coconut aminos are a gift from the food gods! They're slightly sweet, but definitely salty like soy sauce... and good for us. YAY! They're a little spendy (about $6) a bottle, but very potent so you need very little to make stir fry, Sunbutter sauce, and egg foo yung taste good. Hope you like them!
ReplyDelete