Tag Archives: tofu

Chicken, egg, tofu

What’s In My Husband’s Bento Box?

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The biggest meal of the day for us is lunch. We usually have a very simple and light dinner. And also because sometimes I go back home late after work, I don’t have much time to cook dinner. Normally, my husband and I have lunch together at home having home-cooking food. But he needs to meet with colleagues or professors occasionally, under which circumstance he can’t have lunch at home. So I came up with this idea – putting lunch in his bento box and keep it for his dinner.

This is what inside my husband’s bento box:

Meat and vegetable are must-have dishes.

Chicken leg is a good choice, since he’s never  tired of juicy and tender honey roasted chicken leg. Here is how I cook them:

Honey Roasted Chicken Leg

I also added sweet and sour tofu:

Sweet & Sour Tofu

and scrambled egg with tomato:

Scrambled Egg With Tomatoes

For green vegetables, and fish cake, It’s very simple. Just fry them with a little oil and season with salt.

The bottom layer is brown rice. The sauce from tofu and chicken will go into rice and add more flavor.

I also made some bean soup (including red bean, red kidney bean, black bean, black sesame, barley and red date) .

Healthy Bean Soup

And kept the soup in a monkey bottle.

https://flic.kr/p/RzeJMz

I put them in the fridge. When I come back from work, I can just reheat the bento in microwave. My husband likes cook drink, so cool bean soup is perfect for him.

To me, this bento method is really convenient. Another good thing about bento is that my husband can’t be picky on food. He prefers to have more meat when we have lunch together. With bento, he had no choice but to finish all the vegetables I prepare for him.

Every time he’s quite excited about eating bento. At least I can see his big satisfactory smile when he’s having chicken leg. 🙂

tofu

Sweet & Sour Tofu

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  1. Prepare a pack of firm tofu, around 200 g. cut it into cubes. Put them in a bowl. Season with 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp black pepper and 3 tbsp starch. Gently toss a bit to let tofu roll in starch.
  2. Heat a pan, add in 1 tbsp oil. Fry tofu till golden brown. Then set aside for later use.
  3. In a small bowl, add in 2 tsp light soy sauce, 2 tsp tomato sauce, 1 tsp vinegar, 2 tsp honey. Mix them well.
  4. Heat pan again. Add in 1 tsp oil, saute chopped garlic and ginger till aromatic. Add in vegetables (I used thawed mixed veg including broccoli, cauliflower and carrot). Stir fry for 2 mins.
  5. Add tofu and sauce in. Stir fry evenly and reduce sauce.

https://flic.kr/p/2fjJrPP

https://flic.kr/p/2fjJrQF

Serve with hot rice.

mushroom, tofu, Uncategorized

A Good Way To Consume Leftover Curry

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I cook curry occasionally.

Curry Chicken

One problem is that every time chicken and potato will be eaten but plenty of curry sauce is leftover. Actually, curry sauce is very tasty, I was wondering if I could use the leftover sauce to make a stew or something.

  1. Prepare shiitake mushroom (wash and cut into wedges), tofu (cut into small chunks) and French beans (trim two ends).
  2. Pour the curry into a pot. After chilled in fridge for overnight, it already became paste. Also pour in 1/2 – 1 cup water, depends on how thick your curry paste is.
  3. Add in some extra curry powder if necessary. Just in case water makes the curry flavor lighter. and also add in 1 tablespoon tomato sauce. Stir gently.
  4. When the curry boils, add in shiitake mushroom and tofu pieces. Turn to low heat. Let the mushroom and tofu braise in curry for a while. Let’s say at least 10-15 mins to make the flavor go in.
  5. Put the Frech beans in. You can break the beans into halves if you think they are too long. Simmer for another 5 mins.
  6. Season with salt.

https://flic.kr/p/SmyYbG

Tofu is so juicy and full of curry favor. I really like this way to reform curry and also use it to the utmost.

mushroom, Soup, tofu

Mixed Mushroom & Tofu Soup

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This post is actually connected to the last one (egg stuffed mushroom).

Egg Stuffed Mushroom

Because I Scratched off the black gills of portoballo mushroom. Didn’t want to throw them away. So I came up with this soup.

  1. heat a pan. Saute 1 chopped garlic.
  2. add in black gills. The whole kitchen will smell great.
  3. add in shiitake mushroom slices. Stir fry a bit.
  4. pour in 1 cup stock. Also add in brown mushroom. Bring to boil then turn to low heat and simmer for 5 mins.
  5. cut in tofu cubes. Simmer for  another 5-8 mins.
  6. season with salt and garnish with chopped spring onion.

Very easy and nice soup.

food hunting, Uncategorized

Probably the Best Yong Tau Foo I’ve Ever Had

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Yong Tau Foo is a Hakka Chinese cuisine. Yet, I have never tried it in China before. Yong Tau Foo stall is quite similar to Chinese spicy hot pot (malatang). All the meat, vegetables and seafood are displayed on shelves. Customers can choose whatever they want to add in their Yong Tau Foo. The main difference I guess lies in cooking method. Malatang (麻辣烫） includes 3 Chinese words. 麻 （ma）means numb, it refers to the feeling caused by pungent spices like Sichuan pepper corn. 辣（la）means spicy, it refers to chili, chili powder and chili oil. 烫（tang）means hot. Because malatang is always served very hot. I still remember when I had social linguistic class, my teacher taught us malatang could be translated as “3 hots”: hot, hot, hot. 🙂

I have tried Yong Tau Foo several times after I came here. Since I really missed malatang and I couldn’t find it here in Singapore ( now I can find some). And also because I can choose my favorite vegetables to make my unique Yong Tau Foo.

Today, out of some reasons, my husband took me to Rochor. We have a habit. Whenever we go to some place we don’t often go to, we search good food there. And we call it “food hunting”. Google map told us there is a good hawker center “Albert Center”. How we decide which stall to try is very simple. We just observe which stall has a long queuing line. And this stall definitely has the longest line in front of it.

There is only “百年” (a hundred years old) on the signboard. We were very curious and found it a Yong Tau Foo stall. Why are so many people waiting there? We wanted to figure it out. And my husband queued, I went to find a seat. And wait, and wait and wait……

And here finally comes the Yong Tau Foo.

This one is different from the ones I had before. This stall doesn’t have shelves with meat and vegetables on it. Their set contains soup, glass noodles, tofu, fish cake, shrimp, meatball and bitter gourd. The first sip of soup really amazed me.

Soup is light, but also tastes a bit sweet. Tofu is so fatty and juicy. Both my husband and I couldn’t resist the soup.

And fried chicken is also included in the set.

Crispy shell, tender and juicy meat.

Whole set is S$5.80. Totally worth it.

My husband told me Rochor is famous for beancurd  dessert. Since we don’t come here often, we definitely need to try the beancurd.

We chose this stall. My favorite is red bean. too bad, red bean is sold out. So we tried Lotus ginko beancurd.

We loved it!!!

tofu, Uncategorized

Teriyaki Tofu Recipe

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When my husband took the first bite, he screamed “Ah~”. I got a shock, and wondered what happened. But he then said: “This is so nice!” 🙂

I chose to use Japanese egg tofu in this dish, because they are soft and smooth.

1. Cut tofu into small cubes. Place them on a kitchen towel for a little while. The kitchen towel will absorb the water.

2. In a small bowl, add in 20g flour, 20g corn starch, 1/2 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp black pepper.

3. Dip tofu in flour mixture and shake off the excessive.

4. Fry tofu in oil till golden brown. The flour shell becomes hard and not easy to be broken.

5. Heat the pan, add in 1 tsp oil. Sauté 1 chopped garlic clove. Add in 1 Tablespoon sweet cooking wine, 2 tsp light soy sauce, 2 tsp sugar and 1 tsp honey. Mix them well.

6. When the sauce reduces a bit. Add fried tofu in. Gently flip Tofu to let them be coated with sauce.

7. Serve hot and garnish with spring onion shreds.

Soup, tofu

Clams & Tofu Soup

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A very nice and easy soup.

1. Wash clams clean in water.

2. Place clams in a pot. Add in ginger slices and a little salt and water. Boil till all the shells open. Skim the stock. Take all the clams out in a bowl. And set stock aside.

3. Cut bacon into small pieces. Heat a pan. Stir fry bacon till aromatic.

4. Pour the stock in. Bring boil.

5. Add in tofu chunks. Boil for 3-5 mins, depending on the size of tofu.

6. Add the clams in. Bring to boil again. Season with salt.

Serve hot.

Top with chopped spring onion.

tofu

Oyster Sauced Tofu

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I still remember when I was very little, my family still lived in our first home. We moved several times after that one. At that time, there is a roasted goose shop (if I remember correctly) across the street. My father was very busy and he’s on business trip almost everyday. I could only see him when it’s Chinese New Year or less than 10 days in a year probably. Cos my memory about him was almost blank before I went to primary school (not because I was too little. I still keep the memory about other people, so…..) Later, he didn’t have to travel around to do business. He stayed in my hometown and opened a small factory. My mom became busy too. They worked together to run that factory.

I grew up with my sister. That’s why my sister and I are very close.

According to my vague memory, my father or mother used to cook tofu for us as breakfast when they had time and not rush to work. At that time, tofu sellers rode their bikes and went through the streets to sell their hot and freshly-made tofu. My parents would buy a small piece. Cut it into slices. Fry a bit with green chili. Season with salt. And that’s our very simple breakfast. Well, that’s the story came to my mind when I see tofu.

Back to my dish. Tofu is a very convenient food. It can be steamed, fried, boiled and roasted. This is a very simple dish to cook.

1. Cut tofu into medium slices. Fry them with a little oil in the pan till golden brown on both sides. After frying, tofu will be more hard and not easy to be broken during cook.

2. Heat the pan again. Sauté a little chopped garlic and ginger till aromatic.

3. Add in black fungus, stir fry for 2 mins.

4. Add in 1/2 tablespoon light soy sauce, 1/2 tablespoon oyster sauce and 1 tablespoon water. Stir well.

5. Put fried tofu back in the pan. Simmer for 2 mins. Let the flavor in.

6. Reduce the sauce with high heat. Add in a little chopped green chili. Fry a bit.

7. Add in a little corn starch water. Stir fry evenly. Season with salt if you need.

Serve hot.

Fish

Steamed Greasy Grouper

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1. Sprinkle salt evenly over and inside the grouper.

2. Place several ginger slices in a plate. Then put the grouper over them.

3. Put several tofu pieces in the plate too. It’s optional, if you don’t like tofu, just skip this step.

4. In a small bowl, add in 1 tablespoon cooking wine and 2 tsp oyster sauce. Mix well then pour the sauce over fish.

5. Put plate with fish on steaming rack. In hot water and steam for 12 mins. My grouper is a small one. More time will be needed if the fish is bigger.

6. Take the plate out after steaming. Sprinkle ginger and spring onion shreds over fish.

7. Heat a pan. Add in 1 tablespoon oil and 1 tablespoon sesame oil. When the oil is very very hot, pour it over the ginger, spring onion and the fish. Enjoy the sizzling.

Chinese, tofu, Uncategorized

Guo Ta Tofu

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This dish belongs to Shandong cuisine.

1. Cut tofu into slices. Tofu should be firm one so it won’t fall apart during cooking. Silk tofu or egg tofu are too fragile.

2. Dust tofu with flour. Then dip tofu in beaten egg.

3. Heat oil in the pan. Fry tofu till golden color.

4. Add in 1 tsp sweet cooking wine, 1 tsp light soy sauce and 1/4 cup warm water or stock. Simmer for a while or till the water reduces.

5. Season with salt and drizzle a little sesame oil.

6. Garnish with chopped spring onion and serve hot.

https://flic.kr/p/24152cP