First Published Nov 29th 2014

My apartment mate in college gave me a box of Chinese recipe cards before we graduated. This dish came from one of the cards and it tastes so good that I have been cooking it regularly since college.

Updated Jun 16h 2020

Its been six years since I last published this post. How time flies! I cooked this again for dinner and it is good as ever. This is one dish that I am sure all vegetarians will love, and even non-vegetarians will crave every once in a while.

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• Prep Time: 30 Minutes
• Cook Time:30 Minutes
• Serves: 5

Ingredients:

(A) Potatoes and Sauce

• 4 small red skin potatoes.
• 1/2 tsp salt for seasoning the cubed potatoes
• 1 can (15 oz) sweet peas, drained
• 1 cup chopped yellow onions
• 5 dried shiitake mushrooms, soaked in water
• 6 Tbsp ketchup
• 1 vegetable bouillon granules dissolved in 1 cup of hot water to make vegetable stock
• 1 tsp sugar
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 Tbsp corn starch dissolved in 2 Tbsp water
• 3 Tbsp oil

(B) Batter

• 1 cup flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 tsp melted butter or oil
• Oil for deep frying

Directions:

1. Sift flour, salt, baking powder, and salt into a bowl.
2. Beat the egg slightly and mix with milk and melted butter or oil. Pour into flour mixture and stir until well mixed. Keep batter in the refrigerator until ready to use.
3. Boil the potatoes, remove skin, and dice into 1/4″ cubes. Season the diced potatoes with 1/2 tsp salt and set aside for 15 minutes. In the mean time, chop the onions. Squeeze and dice the soaked mushrooms.
4. Add the seasoned potatoes to the batter and mix well.
5. Heat the wok with 2 inches of oil over medium high heat. When the oil is hot, drop half a tsp of batter into the oil; if it floats, the oil is ready to use. Drop the potatoes coated with batter by tsp full into the hot oil. Deep fry until the nuggets are golden brown. Remove and drain in a wire mesh basket. Repeat until all the potatoes are fried.
6. Save the oil for deep frying other dishes. Wipe the wok clean with paper towel and add 3 Tbsp of hot oil back into the wok and turn the heat to medium high.
7. Fry the chopped onions and diced mushroom until fragrant.
8. Add ketchup and fry for another minute.
9. Add the vegetable stock, salt and sugar. Stir well and bring to a boil.
10. Add the drained green peas and cook for another minute.
11. Add cornstarch mixture in a slow stream while stirring until the sauce thickens. You may not want to add all the cornstarch mixture. Add enough corn starch mixture so the sauce is just thick enough to coat the potato nuggets.
12. Toss in the golden potato nuggets, mix well.
13. Transfer to serving dish. Yum!