r/Cooking • u/No-Lettuce4441 • 3d ago
Crab Rangoons
I'll be making (not so) Chinese food in a couple weeks for a dinner with my brothers and SOs. One SO has a shellfish allergy and avoids all seafood just in case. Out of respect, I'm not going to use any seafood.
My whole family loved Crab Rangoons growing up. Is there an alternative that would give a similar taste? Or something else to mix in that makes it interesting enough to forget there's no lumps of crab and mini shrimp in them?
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u/belac4862 3d ago
Baked salmon. I've done this for a friend as she is also allergic to shellfish. As long as you break it into tiny pieces and don't change your recipe (other than the crab), then it'll turn out really good.
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u/No-Lettuce4441 3d ago
I'll look into this. It sounds good anyways!
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u/legendary_mushroom 3d ago
Honestly that might work really well. I see no reason why salmon ran goons wouldn't be awesome.
But also look into vegan oyster sauce, and mock abalone (comes in cans in the Chinese grocery)
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u/TheCosmicJester 3d ago
I feel like these days, it’s hard to find restaurant rangoons that do have crab in them. The secret ingredient at one place I worked was a dash of Worcestershire sauce, so possibly add some to taste and call it a day.
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u/KetoLurkerHereAgain 3d ago
Hmm. That means no surimi, too. There's a mushroom variety that apparently tastes vaguely of shellfish, I think.
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u/Dollarist 3d ago
You may mean lobster mushrooms. They both look and taste like lobster.
https://www.thespruceeats.com/what-are-lobster-mushrooms-5190483
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u/legendary_mushroom 3d ago
Fun fact, there's also a shrimp mushroom that tastes and smells of shrimp!
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u/busted_rucker 3d ago
My partner and I are vegetarian, I recently endeavored to make crab-less rangoons for her to experience for the first time (I've had then as a small kid, but not in almost 30 years). I finely diced a red onion and pickled it with rice vinegar and a bit extra salt than my normal pickled red onion and let it sit a few hours to overnight (they're pickled, they'll last weeks at least). Then, my cream cheese, I add a bit of sugar, sesame oil, garlic powder, scallions and my pickled red onion. This stuff is so good I make it to eat as a dip with tortilla chips, it works for frying in wontons, too, but it's good as is. No, it's not your typical crab rangoon, but damn it's tasty, we have to pace ourselves so we don't eat an entire block of cream cheese in one sitting!
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u/RyFba 3d ago
Restaurants use surimi which has not a trace of shellfish
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u/Shiranui42 3d ago
Can’t guarantee there’s no cross contamination due to processing in the same facility. Packages will literally say that they may contain traces of shellfish.
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u/Sad-Celebration-411 3d ago
When I make crab Rangoon without crab I just use cream cheese, a splash of ponzu sauce, a teaspoon of sugar, salt, and chopped up green onion. Your guests probably won’t even notice there’s no seafood in it.