Vietnamese vegetarian kabob recipes?!
*The ethnic expo is in Columbus, Indiana.
*A lady working at the Japanese grocery store told me the booth was run by a Vietnamese Buddhist restaurant based in Indianapolis. I looked up the expo booth info and it was listed as Vietnamese American Buddhist Association.
*They are probably soy, soy bean or tofu based.
*Apparently they are balls that are skewed and grilled.
Any help would be appreciated as I have no knowledge of Vietnamese food & the webpages I'm looking at aren't really helping. Maybe someone might even know the restaurant I'm referring to?
Answers:
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I haven't been able to find exactly what you're looking for, but I did find some good starting places for recipes! Here is a great looking recipe for tempeh skewers:
http://www.veggienumnum.com/2010/11/pepp…
And then I found several recipes for Vietnamese meat balls, which you could veganize by substituting crumbled tofu or tempeh instead of the ground pork. I suspect that what your boyfriend had was something similar to one of these. The recipes feel fairly authentic Vietnamese.
Just crumble up tofu instead of using ground pork, and use Bragg's liquid aminos instead of fish sauce to give it depth of flavor.
In the photos for this one, they form the meat mixture into kind of a long shape on the skewer, but you could as easily shape in balls. It seems very authentic, easy, and delicious!
http://foodforfour.com/2010/05/nem-n%C6%…
This next one includes lemongrass and cilantro (a.k.a. coriander leaves) and a dipping sauce:
http://uktv.co.uk/food/recipe/aid/573260
This one is somewhat different, with a peanut dipping sauce:
http://vietnamese.kumain.com/grilled-mea…
Maybe you and he could look at the recipes together and try to figure out which sounds most similar to what he had, and veganize it from there. You could even try making the "meat" mixture from one, and a dipping sauce from a different one, based on how he remembers the flavors.
Good luck!