Locally sourced mushrooms kick Vegan Potstickers up a notch

There’s more to mushrooms than just shiitake and portobello — take it from Kyle Beaver.

The owner of Ten Mile Mushrooms, based out of Bloomsburg, is passionate about the fungi. While the business offers grow kits and dried mushrooms on its website, growmushmore.com, Ten Mile Mushrooms also belongs to the South Side Farmer’s Market, 601 Cedar Ave., Scranton, and can be found selling its products there every Saturday from 10 a.m. to noon.

Mushrooms are dynamic ingredients in food since they capture a unique texture and flavor and even resemble meat in many ways, Beaver said. They also offer unique health benefits and can easily kick up any dish. To help people get more mushrooms in their diets, Ten Mile Mushrooms shares dozens of recipes to help cooks experiment with different varieties, including Vegan Potstickers with Oyster Mushrooms. That dish earned United Neighborhood Centers of Northeast Pennsylvania, which organizes the farmer’s market, a $50 gift card to Riccardo’s Market, 1219 Wheeler Ave., Dunmore.

The recipe is easy, Beaver said, and was inspired by plant-based food blogger Lazy Cat Kitchen. The potstickers, which resemble dumplings but are crispy on the outside, have shiitake and oyster mushrooms for a filling. The latter variety is known for its delicate texture and mild, savory flavor, which pairs perfectly with the sweet, spicy and sour dipping sauce that accompanies the potstickers.

Beaver said mushrooms make a great addition to any dish because they are naturally low in cholesterol and don’t contain any fats. Also, many species of mushrooms have been found to carry medicinal uses, such as improvement of cognitive function and immunity-boosting abilities, he added. With products grown on the shores of Ten Mile Run in Bloomsburg, the specialty mushrooms are hyperlocal.

“These mushrooms do not travel well and are unable to hold their value after a few days or weeks,” Beaver said. “This makes them a great candidate for regional niche markets and really is something special and new in the agricultural community.”

Beaver stressed his commitment to bringing fresh, local food directly to the consumer, and the farmer’s market believes in this, too. It consists of vendors who aim to provide the community with access to healthy, fresh and locally sourced food. The market features everything from fresh produce, meat and bread to baked goods and body products, and it also aims to help revitalize South Scranton.

To make it available to everyone, the farmer’s market accepts SNAP benefits, too, noted Holly Yorkonis, UNC’s community revitalization coordinator. Also, UNC offers “Double Dollars” when shoppers use their SNAP/EBT benefits, which means the organization contributes an additional $20 per week, per family, in Double Dollar Produce Bucks for clients to spend on fresh produce.

This commitment to accessibility and wellness is why Ten Mile Mushrooms and the farmer’s market go hand in hand.

“‘Bring mushrooms to the people’ is kind of our go-to quote,” Beaver said.

 

Vegan Potstickers with Oyster Mushrooms

For the dough:

• 2 cups plain flour
• 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
• Approximately 1/2 cup plus 2 teaspoons hot water
• 1 tablespoon plant oil

For the filling:

• 1 to 2 tablespoons peanut (or other vegetable) oil, plus more for frying
• 4 spring onions, white part finely chopped
• 3 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 2 heaping tablespoons ginger, finely chopped
• 10 ounces oyster mushrooms
• 3 dried shiitake mushrooms, soaked in boiling water
• 10 ounces spinach, chopped finely
• 1/4 teaspoons Chinese five spice (adjust to taste)
• 1/8 teaspoons white pepper
• 1/4 teaspoons hot chili flakes (adjust to taste)
• 2 to 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
• 2 teaspoons mirin
• Approximately 2 tablespoons panko (or regular) breadcrumbs (optional)

For dipping sauce:

• 2 tablespoons dark soy sauce
• 1 1/2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
• 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
• Fresh chili, finely sliced (or pinch of chili flakes)
• 1 teaspoon sesame seeds
• 1-inch finely sliced spring onion

In a mixing bowl, combine flour and salt. Add 1/2 cup of hot water and 1 tablespoon oil. Once combined roughly with a wooden spoon, start combining the dough with your hands. Add water in gradually, teaspoon by teaspoon. Knead for a few minutes with hands then set aside for 30 minutes under a clean kitchen towel or pierced cling film.

Heat olive oil in pan. Fry spring onions, garlic and ginger. Keep stirring to make sure they don’t burn.

Chop soaked shiitake and oyster mushrooms into a fine dice. Add to onion, garlic and ginger mixture together with chopped spinach, five spice, white pepper and chili. Let the excess moisture from the mushrooms and spinach cook out.

Season with soy sauce, rice vinegar and mirin. Continue frying the filling until excess water evaporates. (Mixture should clump together easily.)

Divide dough into four even portions and roll the first portion into a thick snake shape and then divide it into 8 even pieces.

Roll the first piece into a ball by hand then place on the table and flatten it into a thick disc. Hold the disc with your right hand and a rolling pin in your left hand (make sure the rolling pin makes contact with the bottom of the dough disc). Keep rotating the disc a few degrees with your right hand while rolling the rolling pin back and forth over the disc in order to create a large, flat circle of dough.

Place a heaping teaspoon of mixture in center of the flattened circle and seal dough over filling at the top. Go over each dumpling twice to make sure everything is sealed completely. Place finished dumplings on a lightly floured surface.

Heat peanut oil in a lidded frying pan. Once oil is hot, place as many potstickers as possible on pan without them touching. Fry for 2 minutes, then add a splash of water to pan and put the lid on. Let dumplings cook in their own steam for about 6 tp 8 minutes. Once all water has cooked out, take off lid and leave the potstickers on heat for another minute or two so that the bottom is nice and crispy.

Mix all dipping sauce ingredients in a bowl. Serve potstickers immediately with the dipping sauce on the side.