Eggplant with Tofu - Chinese

This year I planted eggplant in my small vegetable patch. It amazingly survived 3 super hot summer weeks without water and produced a decent number of fruit. Not enough for our normal consumption but enough to enjoy.
I also had a cabbage plant that did not do well at all. It grew tall and flowered. The blooms were really pretty so I just let it be. Turns out that the seeds from the cabbage dropped all over my vegetable patch and late in the summer I had literally hundreds of tiny cabbage plants. I had to thin them out because there was no way that any would survive at that density.
So there I was with a couple of eggplants and heaps of very young green cabbage and dinner to cook! I figured I'd try and put them together Chinese style because I also happened to have a pack of tofu in the fridge.

Served over udon noodles

The resulting experiment was very well received, which led to me having to jump up from the dinning table and grab a pen and paper before I forgot what I had put in to it. It took me a while to revisit the recipe, but that is exactly what I did last night. I didn't have any homegrown produce so I thought it might not taste as good. This didn't seem to be a problem. My teenager stuffed her face and could not keep saying how good the food was! This is not the normal reaction I get these days. Normally I get "oh, not that AGAIN!". So I figured I better post this recipe before I loose my notes!

Preparation time: 1.5 hours ; serves 8 (together with a couple other dishes) 

Ingredients:

800 g	Eggplant
1 bunch	Any type of greens (mustard, leafy green cabbage, etc.)
1 pack	Firm tofu
8 tbsp.	Oil
1 tbsp.	Minced garlic
1 tbsp.	Minced ginger
Sauce
1 1/2 tsp.	Bulion powder or 1 veggie cube
250 ml	Water
4 tsp.	Soya sauce
1 tbsp.	Hoisin sauce
1/2	Lemon, juice of
1 tbsp.	honey (substitute maple syrup if vegan)
1 tsp.	Sirachara sauce

Method:
First of all let me say that the amount of eggplant and greens that you use is not that precise. I used 2 eggplants and I am pretty sure they were much smaller the first time around. If you eat a large amount of tofu you could use 2 packs instead of one. And I really can't tell you what a "bunch" is!! Chopped up I had a cereal bowl full (how big is your cereal bowl?). Sorry that I forgot to weigh the greens :(

Start by cutting the tofu into this slices about 5 mm thick. Lay the slices out on a paper towel, cover with a second paper towel and leave them to allow the water to be absorbed. While your tofu is drying cut the eggplant into 1 cm dice (fancy way to say 1 cm cubes) and wash and roughly chop your greens. You can really use any greens that you like. First time around I used a bowl full of young cabbage plants, the second time around I just picked up some nice looking green stuff from the local Turkish store. I don't even know what they were, but they looked mighty like kale. It might be a good idea to try greens that won't loose too much water when you cook them.

Heat 2 tablespoons of your oil in a frying pan, over medium high heat and add a layer of tofu rectangles. You need to make sure there is no overlap. Fry each side until slightly brown and then flip them over and do the other side. Drain them on paper towels. I had to do three batches. The best type  of pan to use is of course a cast iron pan. I happened to use a heavy bottomed non-stick skillet this time around and it worked fine.
If you're pan runs dry of oil add another tablespoon. If there is not enough oil your tofu won't become golden brown and will dry out before giving you any colour.

Once the tofu is done add 4 tablespoons of the oil and fry the eggplant. Give it a good stir at the beginning so that all the pieces are coated with oil. Fry the eggplant until cooked through and possible browning. You'll need to stir it once every minute or so to make sure it browns evenly, and doesn't stick or burn. While you're doing this you can mix the sauce together. Just get a large enough bowl and mix all the "sauce" ingredients. You can also get your ginger and garlic ready. There should be plenty of time! Eggplant takes a while. Once the eggplant is cooked tip it out into a bowl and return the pan to the cooker.

If you are preparing other dishes and want this to go to the table piping hot you can stop right now. The rest will take you about 10 minutes to put together.

 Add another tablespoon of oil to the pan and tip in the ginger and garlic. Saute for 5 seconds. Don't let them burn, although browning is okay. Add the sauce, mix well and bring to the boil. Then add the tofu to the pan and bring it back to the boil. Use a slotted spoon to remove the tofu and arrange on a serving dish.

Add the eggplant to the pan and toss in the sauce. Bring to the boil and then using a slotted spoon spoon out and place on top of the tofu.

Finally add the greens to what is left of the sauce. Saute until cooked (i.e. the greens are limp) and tip the greens together with the remaining sauce onto the eggplant.

Serve steaming hot with jasmine rice or with udon noodles.

Here is a printable version

Bi Bim Bap

Frequently the weather dictates what should  be cooked for dinner. And as it grows cold, grey and wet there is nothing better than a hot, hot bibimbap. This Korean dish is the great for warming the soul. Plus you can make it chili hot too.

It's pretty easy to put together but it's really tough to get all the ingredients hot onto the table. What I really like is when it is served in a stone bowl which has been pre-heated. Unfortunately I've never been able to get my hands on 4 such bowls :( So we just use regular serving bowls. It's also time sensitive so you've got to know when everyone is going to be there (if you want it hot, that is). This is usually hard for us to achieve on a week night but we still try. And if you really need your meat fix, you can make this with meat too.

I'm never quite sure how many people this recipe serves. I think my kids might eat a full adult serving but then again, maybe they don't. To be on the safe side I'd say it serves 4 but you might find it serves 6.

Ingredients:

	2 cups	Rice
Marinade
	2 cloves	Garlic, minced
	2	Green onions, chopped
	5 tbsp.	Soya sauce
	2 tbsp.	Sugar
	2 tbsp.	Vegetable oil
	1 tsp.	Sesame seeds, roasted
	1 tbsp.	Sesame oil
	1/8 tsp.	Black pepper, ground
Meat!
	500 g	Tofu
Vegetables:
	300 g	Carrots
	300 g	Frozen spinach
	1 tbsp.	Sesame oil
	1 tsp.	Sesame seeds, roasted
	2 cup	Mung bean sprouts
	4	Eggs
		Kimchee

Method:

The first thing to do is get the rice ready. I use sushi rice but you can use any type of Korean rice. You just need to be careful and make sure that you soak the rice ahead of time else it will not taste good. So wash your rice as usual and then add an equal amount of water as rice and let it sit for at least 30 minutes. Longer is better. And then cook it.

Put together the marinade for the tofu (you can substitute for any type of meat or fish) well in advance so that the tofu has time to absorb the flavour. You probably know that tofu is pretty bland, so you've really got to let the sauce get into it. The best way to do this is to squeeze the water out of the tofu by wrapping it in paper towels and putting a weight on top of it. Place it so that the water can drain out and leave it for around 30 minutes. Then when you put the tofu in the sauce it will have plenty of space to absorb marinade. Of course I don't always do this, because as you all know I'm ALWAYS short on time. Once you've drained the tofu cut it into bite sized cubes (1 - 2 cm dice).

The marinade is pretty easy to make. Just make sure you slice the spring onion finely and mash, crush the garlic well.

Mix all the marinade ingredients together until the sugar has dissolved.

And then put in the tofu and carefully mix it all up.

Leave this to sit for at least half an hour (or as long as it takes you to chop up the rest of the ingredients).

Next take the carrots and cut them in to matchsticks. This is about as tough as it gets with this recipe. It takes a while to cut them up. I'm sure you can buy some type of gadget to do the cutting for you. I cut mine to be about 2 inches (5 cm) long and then set them aside.

If you are using fresh spinach it will have to be cooked. Fresh spinach tastes much better than frozen but it takes a considerable amount of effort to prepare it. For fresh spinach, put it in a large pan, without water, put the lid on and heat until the spinach becomes limp (a couple of minutes). Then drain the water and chop. If you are using frozen spinach defrost it (I use the microwave) and drain the water. You don't need to get paranoid about draining the water. Just get out what you can. No need to squeeze it or anything fancy like that.

Next wash your bean sprouts and get a pot of water ready to boil them in. So as I said before everything has to be hot when it goes into the bowl so a cooking frenzy is about to start in the kitchen. Get everyone out of the way and boil yourself a kettle of water. Pour the boiling water into the bowls you are going to use to eat the bibimbap to heat them up.

What I do next is lay the table! There are three essentials (and one non-essential). You need to have Sirachara sauce (the one with the chicken on the bottle is the original and the best, it's made in california!), Hoisin sauce and Kimchee. You could make your own Kimchee but I haven't tried it myself. I buy fresh stuff from the local Asian store. You can also get packets that come from Korea. As you can see, Kimchee is hot but it is delicious. My daughter has been whacking it since she was 3 years old. Don't forget to lay the table with small side dishes to put the Kimchee in.

The non-essential item is some type of Korean tea. Green or Jasmine would do although in Korean places you usually get a barley tea. Make sure you have plenty of water at the table for all those who underestimate the strength of the Sirachara sauce!!

Now time to go back and cook. Ideally you would have 5 burners going at the same time. C'est un petit probleme ... most cookers only have 4. I acutally only use 3 burners because I don't have enough woks to cook everything in. I start by putting a pan full of water on the stove for the bean sprouts. I'm not too picky if they are a bit cold! Then I stir fry the carrots in a small wok. I sprinkle them with salt while they are frying. I've found that I have to keep turning them otherwise they will burn, so it's a bit labour intensive. They get fried until they turn limp i.e. are no longer crunchy.

By the time the carrots are done the water for the bean sprouts is boiling so I throw them in. Then I put on the frying pan to fry the eggs. While that oil is heating up I fry the spinach. For this I use a tablespoon or so of sesame oil and add salt, pepper and sesame seeds. Then I fry it all up until it's nice and dry because, remember, the spinach is already cooked. By now the bean sprouts are done (boiling for 2-3 minutes) so I turn them out into a colander.

Then start frying the eggs. Make sure your egg yolk is soggy, it adds to the taste of the dish. While frying the eggs I finally fry the tofu until it's just cooked. None of this stuff is an exact science. The tofu doesn't need to cook very long but on the other hand you can cook it for longer and it will be fine. Just make sure you don't burn it.

Now once you are done juggling the eggs and the tofu everything is ready. I put the eggs into the bowls in the kitchen and serve the rest in individual bowls. Traditionally the egg should go on top but that would mean I'd have to serve everything in the kitchen and I'm bound to give one too much and the other too little.

At last it is ready to eat! But you have to remember a very, very important step. So first of all serve yourself everything in the required quantity.

Then add the Sirachara and Hoisin sauce to taste and then MIX EVERYTHING TOGETHER!!

And although this might look like a big mess to you, it tastes awesome. There is no other way to eat it so if this grosses you out don't even try making it.
Enjoy your Bibimbap with Kimchee on the side.

Half an Hour Vegetarian Stir Fry (Chinese)

My husband read my previous post and came home expecting a European stir fry (although I'm not quite sure what that would look like!). Unfortunate for him it turned out to be Chinese style :( But it still hit the spot.

So I decided to do this right and I set my kitchen timer to 30 minutes to make sure that it truly took half an hour. I must admit that together with setting things up to be photographed and taking the photographs half an hour is really stressful. But at least this time I managed it!

What I love about stir frying is that the cooking is done really quickly and you can use almost any vegetable you have at home. The down side is that all the chopping and cleaning of the vegetables takes a while. In keeping with my promise to have adequate protein in these meals I went out and bought some fresh tofu. We have this awesome Asian store just down the road from us that sells super fresh tofu. The tofu sits in a big blue basin of water in the fridge and is packed in a little bag for you to take home. The stuff doesn't last more than 3 days but it sure beats the vacuum packed type. And all that for just 1 Euro 10!! My mother-in-law frequently asks me to bring a stack when I go to visit. According to her it's the cheapest tofu around (okay that was when in cost only 90 cents!).

So here goes:

Serves around 8; preparation time: 30 mins!

Ingredients:

??	Jasmine rice
2 tbsp.	Oil
1	Onion
3 cloves	Garlic
6 slices	Ginger
3	Carrots
1 small	European eggplant
250 g	Mushrooms
1 block	Tofu
1 cup	Shitake mushrooms
2 cups	Chopped napa
3 tbsp.	Soya sauce
3 tbsp.	Corn starch
1 cup	Water
1	Vegetable cube
	Salt & Pepper
2 cups	Bean Sprouts

Method:

The very first thing you need to think about is whether you are going to use dried Shitake mushrooms or fresh ones. If you are then you have to soak them ahead of time. Anywhere between 24 hours and 30 minutes would do. Wash them first and then pour boiling water over them. Make sure every one is covered and then forget about them. Of course alternatively you could use fresh Shitake mushrooms but they are way more expensive and harder to get. We use the dried ones for three reasons. The first two are above and the third one is that I don't like the taste of fresh Shitake mushrooms!!

So first of all you need to cook the rice. With a bit of luck you have a rice cooker to do this. So you just have to figure out how much rice your family will eat and then throw it in there. I think we all pretty much know how much will be consumed. My family eats between 1 to 1.5 rice cooker cups of raw rice and they all dislike reheated rice so I try to guess if it's going to be a 1 cup day or a 1.5 cup day.

Once the rice is set to cook it's time to get busy with the washing and the chopping. First peel and cut the onion into 2 cm dice. Yes, I like the onions in my stir fry to be big just like in the tacky Chinese restaurants! Then peel and mince the garlic and slice the ginger. I slice my ginger very, very thin.

Next up are the carrots which have to be washed, peeled and then sliced. The thinner the slices the quicker it will cook and the longer it will take to chop. It's a bit of a trade off. 5 mm is probably optimum. Next wash and dice (1.5 cm) the eggplant. I'm in Germany, so I get Italian eggplant. It's large and fluffy and that's why I say use a small one. If I were to use a Chinese, Japanese or Sri Lankan eggplant I would just use a regular sized one.

Finally, wash and quarter the mushrooms. As you can see I used button mushrooms. If you are in SL you can use oyster mushrooms. They need to be super fresh and you don't have to cut them too small. Just keep in mind that oyster mushrooms lose a lot more water so you should probably reduce the added water to around 1/2 cup.

For this stir fry I used the largest wok that I own. Okay, it's not humongous but it's pretty big. There are a lot of vegetables here and before they are fully cooked they take up a lot of space. So the wok gets heated up and then the oil goes in. I used to put the oil in the wok and then heat the pan, but my father-in-law does it this way and he owned his own Chinese restaurant so... go figure! I later found out that the cold oil prevents things from sticking to the pan!

Put the oil in the wok and then the onions, garlic and ginger and stir fry for around 1 minute. [While it's frying take out your tofu and dice it into 2 cm pieces]. Then add the carrots to the onion mix and stir it well. Carrots take the longest so they go in first. Make sure you stir it and cook for 1-2 minutes during which time you can finish off chopping the tofu.

Next in go the eggplant and the mushrooms and that gets stir fried too. While you are stir frying you can cut up your shitake mushrooms. Since I use the dried variety I had to remove the stems and cut the caps into halves. How you cut the caps will depend on how large they are. Mine were really, really small. Taking the stems off takes forever but luckily the vegetables now need to cook a bit.

Once you are done with the shitake mushrooms then chop and wash the nappa, which is also known as Chinese cabbage. Throw this, the tofu and the mushrooms into the pan and stir it all up.

Now comes the sauce. Well I'm a bit lazy when it comes to sauces. I don't like to dirty an extra bowl to mix the sauce unless it is really necessary. So I just pour the sauces into the saucepan. I was running out of time because my vegetables were on the verge of being over cooked so there was no time to mix and photograph, so the sauces went directly into the pan. Pour in the soya sauce and then mix the corn starch with the cold water and pour this into the pan. Crush up the vegetable cube and sprinkle it on top. Then mix it all up. Now my family likes it's gravy so you'll find that this is a bit of a gravy heavy stir fry. The amount of gravy is adjustable, you just have to add less water. If you want a thicker gravy then once the water and corn starch has boiled take out a bit of the gravy from the pan, mix in some more corn starch and add it back into the pan. Make sure you allow it to boil because only then will the starch thicken the sauce.

Finally, while you let all the juices absorb and the tastes combine, quickly wash the bean sprouts and throw them in. I like to add them right at the end so that they are still crunchy when they are served. Oh and don't forget to season with salt and pepper. I almost always don't have enough salt in my cooking!! Generally I just forget about it. I've been trying really hard lately to remember to put enough salt but unless my recipe says "1 tsp. salt" I just sprinkle some in and hope for the best. I guess less salt is better than too much!

Serve pipping hot with the rice.

Pad Thai Recipe

After 3 weeks in China everyone's been craving their favourite, non-Chinese, foods and been literally begging for them. I caved in to the craving for Pad Thai today and thought I'd share the recipe. It does take a while to make (1 hour from start to finish) but we find it delicious. Full of protein which is perfect for our vegetarian table. Although I do put some fish sauce into this recipe but that's because I've never been able to figure out what the original recipe meant by "Asian bean sauce". Actually if anyone knows what this is please be so kind as to help me find it.

After this description you'll find a pdf with the recipe in black and white. This is the best thing to use when you are actually cooking the Pad Thai. I'm never very good with a recipe which has pictures in the middle :(

This recipe serves 4 - 6 hungry adults (depending on the extent of hunger!) and is made with a whole pack of rice noodles. It makes things much easier to use a whole pack because halving a pack of rice noodles is a nightmare. 

Ingredients:

14 oz     Rice noodles (with the width of linguine)

12 oz     Firm tofu (1 pack in the USA or one block in Germany)

2 tbsp    Minced garlic

4            Eggs, lightly beaten

200 ml   Water

1/2         A vegetable cube

3 tbsp    Tamarind liquid or 7 tbsp freshly squeezed lime/lemon juice

4 tbsp    Water

3.5 tbsp Fish sauce (or Asian bean sauce)

3.5 tbsp Sugar

7 tsp      Soya sauce

1/2 tsp   Ground red chili pepper flakes (optional)

1/2 cup  Non-sweetened peanut butter (optional)

3 cups   Bean sprouts

6           Green onions

1           Lemon or Lime
Approx. 5 tbsp oil

Method:

First take your pack of rice noodles and dump the noodles into a bowl of very hot, but not boiling water. Boiling water makes the noodles all soggy. I just use hot water from the tap but our hot water is usually too hot to put your hands under.

Next comes the tofu. How much you actually use will depend on your taste. Sometimes I use one block, sometimes two. It's not a very exact science. When I use two my wok tends to overflow a bit!

Next the tofu needs to cut and then pan fried. Now if you have extra time (ha, ha, who are we kidding!) you can elevate one side of your chopping board slightly and then put a weight on the block of tofu to remove any extra water. Your tofu will fry better and be crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.

Cut your tofu into cubes (or any other bite sized shape that you like).

Put about 3 tablespoons of oil into a frying pan, heat it up over medium high heat and fry the tofu. Make sure you have a pan that doesn't stick. It doesn't have to be a non-stick pan, actually it's better if it's not. The tofu needs to be occasionally turned.
While the tofu is doing it's thing take your eggs and beat them lightly (or not so lightly if you need to relieve some stress). Peel your garlic and pulverize it.

Now mix the garlic and the egg together.
By the time you've done this your tofu is probably looking like this:

and it's time to remove it from the stove. I just flip it into a bowl add a few more tablespoons of oil to the pan and then throw the egg right in there. All you need to do is prepare scrambled eggs and in your hot pan this should take no time at all.

Now is a good time to drain your noodles and fill up the bowl with some new hot water.
Once you've done this it's time for the sauce. Now as you can see below I've put all the ingredients for the sauce into separate bowls but this is purely for the photograph. I never do this when I am not photographing my food (which really saves time). All you need is a one pint/ 2 cup/ 500 ml measuring jug and you can just pour everything into it.

So for the sauce mix together the water, veggie cube, tamarind paste, water, fish sauce, sugar, soy sauce, chili pepper and peanuts.

So here's the deal. The water is actually supposed to be vegetable stock, so if you have that great. Go ahead and use it. I never have veggie stock around because 1. I can't be bothered making it and 2. if I buy it I end up using 200 ml and having to trash the rest because it rots in my fridge. Veggie cubes work fine for me.
The tamarind paste I buy in a jar and I have to add the extra water because if there is not enough sauce the noodles tend to be too dry. Here is a picture of the type of paste I buy. It's pretty thick which is why I dilute it with water. I'll try and post how to make tamarind liquid from scratch for my wonderful Sri Lankan friends who have access to the most delicious tamarind ever. But if you use tamarind liquid you should use 7 tablespoons of it and no extra water.

Again, the fish sauce should be Asian bean sauce and I'd love to find it but have been unsuccessful in the USA, Germany and Sri Lanka (well the last is only to be expected, no?)
I never put chili in my Pad Thai and I really cannot be bothered to grind my own peanuts thus the peanut butter. The ingredients of your peanut butter should be "peanuts" and "salt" and nothing else. If you have sugar in there you might compensate by reducing the amount of sugar that you add into the sauce. If you have no access to peanut butter you probably can take roasted peanuts and grind them up (this might actually taste better!). When I don't have peanut butter, or I don't have enough, I still go ahead and make the noodles. It's just a matter of taste.
Now mix up your sauce and don't worry too much about the bits you can mix them in better once the sauce is hot in the pan.

Next get those noodles out of the water and drain them. Put a largish wok on the cooker add in a couple of tablespoons of oil and heat up the oil on medium high. A non-stick wok is a good idea! Add the noodles to the pan and fry them until they become transparent. Something like this:

Then add the sauce and watch it sizzle! Mix it all up nicely and let it cook. In the mean time wash and chop your green onions. Thinly slice the white parts and chop the green parts to about 1 inch in length.

Now add the tofu and the egg to the noodles and mix it all up. While the egg and tofu are absorbing all that wonderful sauce wash your bean sprouts and cut up some lime (or lemon).
Add 2 cups of the bean sprouts and all the green onion into the wok and mix it up again and after a few minutes you should have something that looks like this:

Yummy, yummy Pad Thai.
To serve, put the rest of the bean sprouts in a bowl together with the lime slices and have your gourmets sprinkle fresh sprouts over their noodles, add a squeeze of lime, mix and enjoy.