Vegan Nilaga

I've been craving nilaga (literally means "boiled") since I turned vegetarian.  It's a soup dish that my mom makes on days where she needed to cook something quick and easy.  I love this dish because of the vegetables used - potatoes, cabbage, and bok choy.  I just needed to find a good substitute for the cubes of beef my mom normally uses in her dish.  Unfortunately, I couldn't find beef substitutes that weren't in the form of ground beef or burger patties.  The best thing I could find was meatless meatballs.

Nate's Zesty Italian Meatless Meatballs worked pretty well with this recipe.  I ended up boiling the meatballs a little longer than I should so I changed the recipe to shorten the amount of boiling time.  I bought the meatballs over at Micronesia Mall Pay-Less Supermarket, but I do want to check out Simply Food to see what beef substitutes they have available over there. 

When I was first reading an original beef nilaga recipe, I realized that it called for fish sauce.  I was a little disheartened at first because I was stumped on how to replace fish sauce.  However, several food forums recommended using 2 parts soy sauce and 1 part lime juice as a substitute so I gave that a try for this dish. 

The end results?  Delicious nilaga.  I think I should actually call this dish nilagang meatballs (boiled meatballs) since that's the meat I used.  My family (including my mom!) thought that the dish tasted just like beef nilaga, so I considered this recipe a success.         

Vegan Nilaga

Serves 5

1-1/2 pounds veggie meatballs

2 brown potatoes

1 head pechay (bok choy), separated and cut into pieces

1/4 cabbage, quartered

1/2 onion, diced

1 clove garlic, minced

1 tablespoon fish sauce substitute (2 teaspoon soy sauce, 1 teaspoon lime juice)

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 teaspoon black peppercorns

3-1/2 cups water

1 tablespoon beef substitute broth powder

salt and pepper to taste

In a pot, heat oil and sauté the garlic and onions.  Add 2 cups of water, the meatballs, black peppercorns, and fish sauce substitute.  Cover pot, bring to a boil, then simmer for 15 minutes.  Add the potatoes and 1-1/2 cup of water.  Continue to simmer for 10-15 minutes until potatoes are cooked.  You can tell the potatoes are cooked when you are able to pierce through one easily with a fork.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Add the cabbage and the pechay.  Do not stir the cabbage and pechay, but let them simmer with pot covered for 5 minutes.  Serve steaming hot in a bowl and plain white rice.