Vegan gnocchi and mushroom stir-fry
When you get home after a stressful day, you rarely feel like cooking a long, complicated meal. The refrigerated section of the supermarket now offers several vegan lifesavers for just such evenings: vegan dough for potato pancakes, ravioli, tarte flambée bases, gnocchi, even vegan Maultaschen (Swabian ravioli).
- For the potato dumplings:
- 450 g floury potatoes
- 100 g wheat flour (type 405)
- 1 tbsp cornstarch
- 2 EL vegane Butter
- 2 tbsp soy flour
- Salt
- Pfeffer
- Nutmeg
- For the mushroom pan:
- 15 g dried porcini mushrooms (or shiitake mushrooms)
- 250 ml hot water
- 750g mixed fresh mushrooms
- 1 onion
- 1 clove of garlic
- 100 ml vegan cooking cream
- 5 sprigs of thyme
- Salt
- Pfeffer
- Nutmeg
- neutral vegetable oil for frying
- To serve:
- fresh parsley
- Place dried mushrooms in 250 milliliters of hot water and let them soak for about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, for the gnocchi, cover the unpeeled potatoes with cold water in a pot, add salt, and cook for about 20 minutes, or until tender. Drain, let stand for a few minutes, and peel once they are lukewarm.
- While the potatoes are cooking and steaming, start on the remaining sauce. Finely chop the fresh mushrooms, peel and finely dice the onion and garlic. Heat vegetable oil in a pan and sauté the diced onion over low heat for 3-4 minutes, until translucent. Add the garlic and sauté for another minute. Now add the fresh mushrooms, increase the heat, and sauté the mushrooms over medium heat for about 10 minutes, until they begin to brown.
- Drain the dried mushrooms, reserving the soaking liquid. Finely chop the soaked mushrooms and add them to the pan. Sauté everything together for another 10 minutes. Then add the reserved mushroom liquid, vegan cream, and thyme leaves. Simmer the mushroom mixture over low heat until the gnocchi are cooked. Season with salt and pepper.
- Mash the peeled potatoes in a bowl with flour, cornstarch, softened vegan butter, and soy flour using a potato masher or fork until you have a smooth, lump-free mixture. Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg. If the mixture is too sticky, add a little more flour. Divide the dough into four portions and roll each into a log. Cut these logs into approximately 5-centimeter-long pieces and shape them into gnocchi, tapering to a point at both ends.
- Bring salted water to a boil in a large pot and cook the gnocchi in batches for about 3 minutes. The water should not boil at any time.
- As soon as the first gnocchi are in the water, heat some vegetable oil in a well-coated frying pan. Remove the cooked gnocchi from the water, let them drain briefly, and then add them directly to the pan and fry in batches.
- Serve the fried potato dumplings with the mushroom sauce and top with fresh parsley.
But how lucky for us all that it's not at all difficult to make vegan potato dumplings! Basically, you just need to thicken mashed potatoes with a little flour and starch so they can be shaped into thick dumplings. Incidentally, it looks more complicated than it is – it's actually really fun and brings out the perfectionist in you. In this recipe, soy flour and vegan margarine also serve as egg substitutes, ensuring that the dough holds together and doesn't become too dry.
Potato dumplings can be served wonderfully sweet or savory; here you'll find our recipe for sweet poppy seed dumplings with plum sauce. For the mushroom sauce in today's recipe, you can use any kind of dried mushroom. We particularly like using them because the soaking liquid can be used directly as a sauce base. If you don't have dried mushrooms on hand, you can simply use fresh mushrooms and vegetable broth instead of the mushroom stock.
If you're not in the mood for mushroom sauce, simply enjoy the classic with sauerkraut. Sauté finely diced onions in vegan butter, warm the sauerkraut in it, and season with apple cider vinegar, salt, caraway seeds, and pepper. As a bacon alternative, you could use diced smoked tofu, which you can fry until crispy in a pan.
