Vegetarian- Cold Cucumber and Tofu (凉拌小黄瓜豆腐)

It is 45C outside, and it will continue for another 3 days....I think I will be half cooked if letting me standing outside for 10 minutes. Lucky I can work from home today. Tired about meaty meal? Lets try some simple low carb vegetarian dish. It is very simple and refreshing.

1. 1 Persian cucumber (aaprox. 160g) - unseeded, cut to strips, marinate with a dash of salt and few drop of lime juice, chilled.

2. 220g Soft/Silken Tofu - cut to aprox. 1/2" thick slices, cook in a pot of boiled water for 2~3 minutes. Drained and cooled.

3. 1/3" inch of ginger - chopped
4. 1/2 red chili - chopped

5. Seasoning sauce - mix the following ingredients in a small mixing bowl.
i) 1~2 tsp soy sauce
ii) 2 tsp drinking water
iii) 1/2 tsp sesame oil

6. Garnish with some cilantro (optional)


Assembly
1. Arrange Tofu slices and cucumber strips on a plate.
2. Mix ginger and chili into sauce # 5, then pour on top of the cucumber strips!
3. Garnish with some cilantro (optional)

ENJOY!!! and STAY COOL!... :-)

蟹肉粉丝豆腐汤(Crab meat tofu soup)

有没有很像鱼翅汤啊??? 吃起来味道也很像哦....Shark fin soup???

This is the soup I like to make whenever I am craving for shark fin soup. Tom actually like it better than the real shark fin soup because of the cruelty how we treat the sharks just to get the fins. I added silken tofu just to enhance the smoothness texture, you can omit it if you want to make it more real like shark fin soup.



其实鱼翅吃起来真的没有什么味道, 为了减少那么一点罪恶感, 我还是用粉丝来代替好啦. TOM还蛮喜欢的. 你不妨一试? 我加了嫩豆腐是因为我喜欢滑顺的口感, 如果你想让它更像鱼翅汤, 你可不必加豆腐.


1. Chicken stock - 500~600ml
2. Dried scallop - 1 (optional)
3. Bean thread (粉丝) - 20g- pre-soaked and cut to about 3~4 inches strips.
4. Frozen crab meat - 300g (I like it more!!!) - thawed
5. Silken tofu (嫩豆腐) - 120g - cut to 1/3" cubes
7. Salt to taste
8. Corn starch water for thickening
9. Some Shao Xing wine
10. Black vinegar / Balsamic Vinegar


Steps :

1. Boil the chicken stock with dried scallop, add in bean thread, cook over low heat for 10~15 minutes.
2. Add in crab meat, cook for another 5 minutes.
3. Slowly stir in tofu cubes, bring to boil again.
4. Salt to taste, thicken the soup with corn starch.
5. Add some Shao Xing wine (1~2 tsp).
6. Serve hot with some black or balsamic vinegar

Mixed Mushrooms with Tofu in Claypot (三菇豆腐煲)

I need to get rid of my "spare tire" hanging there on my belly --> a side effect of baking and eating too much recently.

I decided to cook more vegetable and less meat (Tom can't live without meat (Editor's Note: Vegetarians are weird. Vegans doubly so.)), so I grabbed different kinds of vegetable and mushroom from the stores. Do you guys know that by consuming more fresh mushroom, your skin will be smoother? I am not sure if this works for you. I did have this experience while I was working in China few years ago. The cook in our hostel cooked at least 5~8 mushroom meals in a week.


Cute little beech mushroom!!

At that time, I was not a big fan of mushroom, but I did not have too much choices to eat. After several weeks of working there, I noticed that my skin of my arms and hands turned smoother (usually rough like sand paper.. lol), I started to cook and consume more fresh mushrooms afterward... hehehe... women --- beauty first!

You can cook this dish with any kind of fresh mushroom available. Amount of uses is adjustable to your personal liking. You don't have to serve it in a clay pot if you don't have one.

Ingredients :

1. 10 white mushroom - sliced

2. 1 stalk abalone mushroom - sliced

3. 1 small bunch of beech mushroom - separated

4. few pieces of fresh black fungus (can use pre-soaked dried black fungus too)

5. Some snow pea

6. 150g silken/soft tofu - cut to10cm thick slices

7. 3~5 cloves garlic - crushed or chopped

8. 1 tsp oyster sauce

9. Salt to taste

10. 2~3 tbsp water

11. Some Chinese celery for garnishing

1. Heat a lightly greased frying pan.

2. Brown the garlic, stir in ingredients # 1~4. cook for 2~3 minutes over high heat.

3. Add in snow pea, oyster sauce, continue to another 1~2 minutes.

4. Salt to taste, add some water if needed.

5. Transfer the mushroom to a clay pot, add in tofu, bring to boil.

6. Remove from heat, garnish with some Chinese celery when serve.

Steamed Tofu (bean curd) with Ground Pork

Tofu (bean curd) is commonly used as a substitute for meat in Asian vegetarian meals, it contains large amounts of iron and protein. It is also very popular for people on diets. I am a tofu lover, I used to consume tofu (soft or hard) everyday - steamed, stir-fried, deep-fried, tofu soup, tofu dessert..., whatever dishes that made by tofu, I would surely love it, and never feel sick of it.

Tofu has very little flavor. In order to keep Tom eat healthy, most of the time, I cook tofu soup with sea weed. He always said that tofu tasted bland. To make him consume more tofu, I came up another recipe - steam tofu with some ground pork, mushroom and carrot topping. He is more happy to eat tofu now. :-)



The ingredients are adjustable to personal desire.

A)
1. 1 pc of soft tofu (approx. 1.5" thick, 2.5"W X 6"L)

B)Topping
1. 1.5 tbsp ground pork (if you want to make a meatless meal, you may substitute it with bamboo shoot or vegetarian meat)
2. 1 dried mushroom - pre-soaked - finely chopped
3. 1 clove garlic - minced.
4. Few slices of carrot

- again finely chop the ingredients # 2~5 until well combined, season with 1/2 tsp soy sauce, 1/4tsp oyster sauce, a few dashes of white pepper, a few drops of sesame oil and garlic oil.

C) Sauce
1. 1 tsp soy sauce
2. 1/2 tsp oyster sauce
3. A pinch of sugar
4. 1 tsp hot water
5. Some cilantro for garnishing (Unless you hate cilantro! -Tom)

- mix the sauce ingredients in a sauce bowl.

Cooking :
1. Boil the water.
2. Spread the topping evenly on top of the tofu.
3. Steam for 12~15 minutes.
4. Before remove from heat, add in the sauce C as needed. drop a little sesame oil and garlic oil. Garnish with cilantro
5. Serve warm