Story time! So I'm feeling under the weather this weekend. I thought I was getting another wave of allergies, but then my throat started to feel sore, and pretty soon I was feeling weak and mildly feverish. I realized that I must have a cold of some sort. Since I had slept my way through most of Friday night, I woke up at around midnight thinking about what I could make for a late late dinner / snack that wouldn't drain me of all my energy.

The fridge is mostly empty since I haven't gone grocery shopping in a while. But in my cupboard I had an unopened bag of fine ground corn meal that I bought back when I was getting my wisdom tooth out and thinking of making grits. Well I never did get around to using it, and now grits sounded pretty good to me. Looking online for some good recipes, I noticed that most of them were savory grits, with cheese, gravy, sausage, etc. Unfortunately for me, my fridge was so empty that I didn't even have the usual milk that goes into grits. I did, however, have a single slice of American cheese and a little bit of spam. I discussed the prospect of making spam grits with my boyfriend, who thought it sounded gross and could not find a single recipe for it online. I personally thought I could invent a really cool spam grits dish, but alas, when I went to prepare it, I noticed that my spam was spoiled. Great.

So by this point I was starving to death and really annoyed that I had water boiling for my grits, but nothing to put in it. Finally, I decided that I would make a light grits with garlic and that one slice of cheese, and eat it topped with canned chili, which would provide most of the flavor. I guess in that sense it sort of takes on the role of polenta haha. So let me tell you, this was an exercise in persistence. When my water was at a full boil, I poured in all the corn meal I was going to use, at once, before reaching for tongs to stir with. Bad idea. That corn meal puffed up in a matter of seconds, absorbing all the water and forming these giant clumps with dry corn meal still in the middle. No matter how hard I stirred it and added water to thin it out, the messy clump in the pot was just not edible. So down the garbage disposal it went...

The second time I got smarter and turned down the heat before slowly adding the corn meal while stirring, and everything came out just fine - it was nice and smooth, with no clumps. Plus, my favorite part is that using finely ground corn meal shortened the cooking time dramatically. I was done in just 10 minutes! Now that's a good fast meal I could handle any day :) It's also relatively healthy too, since I don't use any milk or cream for the grits, and the chili is quite good for you with all its beans. I used canned chili here for convenience, but I'm sure it would be even better with home-made chili, if you have the patience that is!

Chili-topped garlic cheese grits

Chili-topped Garlic Cheese Grits       (serves 2)

Ingredients:
1/2 cup finely ground corn meal (it's like a powder rather than little gritty pieces)
2 cups water
1 slice American cheese
1 pat salted butter
onion powder, garlic powder, and salt to taste
canned chili
chopped raw onion for garnish

Directions:
1. Bring 2 cups water to boil in a small pot. Reduce heat to low.

2. Slowly add the corn meal to the water, while stirring constantly with a whisk to avoid lumps.

3. Cook on low for about 7-10 minutes, stirring often, and adding water as necessary to thin out the grits to your desired consistency (I prefer mine to be on the creamy, lightly viscous side). They absorb a lot of water so I think I added maybe an extra cup's worth of water before I reached a nice consistency. Season with onion powder, garlic powder, and salt to taste.

4. When grits is finished cooking, stir in a pat of butter and the slice of cheese, torn to pieces, stirring until melted and incorporated. Serve immediately, topped with warm canned chili and garnished with freshly chopped onions if desired.

Chili-topped garlic cheese grits

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The Chinese sure seem to know how to make dozens of starch variations using rice. Aside from white rice, there are rice noodles, rice noodle sheets, edible rice paper, rice milk, rice flour, glutinous rice and its various incarnations. One particular product, made from glutinous rice flour, you may have heard of - the nian gao. It's a sticky, chewy, popular dessert for celebrating Chinese New Year. A variation of the nian gao is a long log made out of glutinous rice flour and water, which is sliced on the diagonal to achieve thin oval slices, commonly known as "rice ovals" in English, but still called "nian gao" in Chinese. These rice ovals have no flavoring, but are an opaque white color and have a distinctive chew to them. They are usually sold pre-cut and either partially or completely dried, to be reconstituted in water before using.

Rice ovals are used in a variety of dishes and soups in Chinese cuisine. One of its most popular uses is in Shanghainese cuisine, where they are stir fried with sliced meats and vegetables in a clear sauce. My mom makes a lot of great authentic Shanghainese food at home, and she likes to make stir fried rice ovals with a brown sauce (which is called "red braised" in Chinese, even though they're not red nor braised in this dish haha). When cooked properly, rice ovals are uniquely chewy but also soft, which is an interesting way to vary the starch in the dish. The brown sauce is made thickly so that it coats the rice ovals generously, and gives them a lot of wonderful color and flavor. It's one of my favorite Shanghainese dishes, and it always reminds me of home when I think of it. Since today also happens to be Mother's Day, this recipe is my tribute to my mom's home cooking. She inspires me as a cook, and I am always amazed at how there is nothing that tastes quite like a mother's cooking, made with love and care. A woman who has made countless delicious dishes, who cannot write down a recipe for a single dish... that is a woman who knows how to cook with her heart, to harmonize ingredients rather than to follow a list of instructions.

This recipe is made with a package of partially dried rice ovals that I got from a Korean market, also available at most Asian markets. I made red braised rice ovals with beef and Shanghai bok choy (you don't get much more Shanghainese than that!). There is really no difference between using partially dried and fully dried rice ovals other than in preparation, so if you happen to get fully dried rice ovals (they'll be dry and hard, like little oval plastic chips), soak them in a container full of cold water overnight before using them. Otherwise, if using partially dried ovals, they just need to be boiled prior to stir frying.

Shanghainese stir fried rice ovals with beef and bok choy

Shanghainese Stir Fried Rice Ovals (上海红烧炒年糕)          (serves 4-6)

Ingredients:
1 package of partially dried vacuum packed rice ovals (2 lbs) - see here for picture of what they look like
4 heads of Shanghai bok choy, washed and chopped into bite-sized pieces
8 oz. lean beef, sliced thinly
vegetable oil for stir frying
1 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 tbsp rice wine
1/2 tbsp cornstarch
dash of white pepper
soy sauce and oyster sauce to taste

Directions:
1. Marinate sliced beef in soy sauce, white pepper, rice wine, and cornstarch, for about 15 minutes.

2. Bring a pot of water to boil. Place rice ovals in water for 6-10 minutes, until soft and chewy. In my case, I dumped the whole 2 lbs into a small pot of water and it didn't really come back to a boil, but after about 10 minutes they were done. Rinse with cold water, drain, and toss with a little vegetable oil to prevent sticking. Set aside.

3. In a hot skillet with vegetable oil, stir fry bok choy with a few pinches of salt until soft but still a little bit crunchy, about 5 minutes. Remove from skillet.

4. Now sear the beef on each side until almost cooked through. Turn the heat down to medium.

5. Add the boiled rice ovals to the skillet, add soy sauce and oyster sauce (I can't tell you how much I ultimately used, but maybe start with 1/2 tbsp soy and 2 tbsp oyster sauce first, and add as needed), and stir around to coat rice ovals evenly. Try to separate the ovals that are stuck together.

6. Add the cooked bok choy back to the skillet and mix everything together. Heat through and adjust for taste by adding more oyster sauce as needed. The final sauce should be thick enough to stick to the rice ovals. Serve immediately, and store the rest in an airtight container, reheating in a microwave until it is hot all the way through before serving again to avoid hard rice ovals.

Shanghainese stir fried rice ovals

Enjoy and happy Mother's Day!

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I told you that my favorite sugar cookie recipe of all time was coming up, and now I'm finally delivering. This chewy sugar cookie recipe is one that I hold absolutely dear to my heart. It was one of the first cookies that I made successfully when I was in middle/high school, and everyone that tried it loved it. Just loved it. I made dozens and dozens of them for my family and friends, and they were always gobbled up with delight. To this day, my ex still asks me to make him these cookies heh. Of course, I'm not going to pretend that I invented some amazing recipe because I was a child baking prodigy. But it is different from the most popular sugar cookies that you'll find when you google "chewy sugar cookies". Admittedly, it is based on the recipe found here, one of the first entries on google. What I did, however, was to adapt the recipe to suit my family's Asian tongue.

As some you might know, Asians usually don't have much of a sweet tooth, especially when it comes to things like cookies and cakes. When I wanted to bake something at home, I wanted to make sure that my parents were going to eat it - that's part of the joy of baking! For one thing, they didn't like chocolate chip cookies much, because it was too sweet for them. So when I came around to making sugar cookies, the first thing I was quick to reduce was the sugar. Out of guilt, I also reduced the butter in the recipe (it's a little shocking how much the recipe calls for...). But I keep all the other ingredients at the same proportions, and add some almond extract for aroma. I love combining vanilla and almond extracts in my baking - it gives everything that little something extra. It's funny, because I didn't really understand the science of baking when I was younger, so I didn't really think about how altering the proportions of sugar and butter can really change the texture of the cookie. As a matter of fact, a few times I went back to the recipe to make cookies for some friends, and figured I'd go for the full sugar and butter content, only to end up with surprisingly disappointing cookies that didn't have that incredible chew I always liked. For the longest time I couldn't understand why, but now I finally do. It's a real relief.

These cookies have a really satisfying chew that doesn't go away after a day. In fact, they stay just the way they are for nearly a week, if you can keep them around that long hehe. I like to make the whole batch of dough and just bake half of it for about 3 dozen cookies, then freeze the rest for quick and easy cookies when I want them. These are not the cookie cutter sugar cookies that you'd want for decorating, they're best for just eating :) So now I'm sharing my absolute favorite sugar cookie recipe with you, I hope you'll like it!

Lucy's favorite chewy sugar cookies :)

Lucy's Favorite Chewy Sugar Cookies  (makes 5-6 dozen 2" cookies)      Adapted from Robbie's recipe

Ingredients:
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt (use 1/2 tsp if using unsalted butter)
1 cup salted butter, softened
1 2/3 cups granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract

Directions:
1. Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl.

2. In another bowl, cream softened butter with sugar until fluffy. Add one egg at a time and stir until incorporated. Stir in vanilla and almond extracts.

3. Gradually add the flour mixture into the batter, stirring until well-mixed. Don't be afraid to stir it a lot. (Stirring the dough well will develop the gluten in the flour, which is important for chewy cookies!) When everything is incorporated, the dough will be heavy and slightly sticky. Cover it up and put it in the fridge for 30 minutes to chill.

4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. When the dough is done chilling, scoop out balls of dough about the diameter of a quarter, and place them on foil-lined baking sheets about 2 inches apart from one another. 

5. Grease the bottom of a flat glass and gently flatten the dough balls until they are small discs about 1/3 inch thick. This will help your cookies spread evenly instead of mounding in the middle.

6. Bake for about 10 minutes, until the edges are just very slightly starting to become a golden-brown. Immediately remove from oven and let sit on the cookie sheet to finish baking for another 2 minutes. While cookies are still warm, remove from foil using a spatula and finish cooling on a cooling rack. They will be perfectly chewy starting from the moment they are cool enough to eat, until they are all gone :)

Chewy sugar cookies enjoyed with a view of the Charles River

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On a night when I was particularly busy trying to meet a submission deadline by midnight, I asked my boyfriend to make dinner for us (which I planned to shovel into my mouth at light speed before returning to work). He wanted to do something simple that could incorporate a bunch of ingredients and be a one-pot kind of dinner. Fried rice seemed to fit the bill! Neither of us particularly enjoys eating the soy sauce doused stuff that people pass for fried rice at greasy Chinese takeout spots. Instead we prefer Yang Chow style fried rice, which if you aren't familiar with, is a lighter and more savory fried rice that isn't flavored with dark soy sauce so the color is usually lighter, and contains certain usual ingredients including roast pork pieces, egg, shrimp, and scallions. Many times when I order Yang Chow fried rice in restaurants, they come looking pristine and white, which leads me to believe that they must be flavored with no soy sauce at all, though I'm not quite sure how to achieve that aside from using salt or fish sauce. In any case, my boyfriend decided to wing it based on skimming Wandering Chopstick's recipe (whose Asian blog I love), and thus was born his improvised version of Yang Chow fried rice:

Yang Chow fried rice

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There are days when I just can't bear the thought of firing up a skillet and hovering over a stove for an hour just to make dinner. For those times, I like to rely on my trusty drumsticks and a coating of Shake 'n Bake to take over. But as the price of food as increased dramatically, I recently invested in a large (read: cheap) container of parmesan seasoned bread crumbs, and thought that maybe I could use it to make a substitute for Shake n' Bake (which runs for a couple of dollars for 8 servings or so). It was easy enough, since the bread crumbs were already seasoned, I just had to give my thawed drumsticks a toss in a ziplock of crumbs and it was ready for some oven action (375 degrees F for about 40 minutes or until juices run clear when poked).

The best part is that I can do the vegetables at the same time, by roasting a sweet potato in the oven simultaneously. Ah, how I love the sweet potato (I just can't stop calling it a yam, because I grew up thinking they were the same thing). Anyway, I like to cut the sweet potato in half lengthwise, leaving the skin on. Then I wrap up each half with foil, and lay them flat side up on a baking sheet for the same amount of time as the drumsticks (these things don't overbake anyway). They're ready when they are soft and start to leak caramelized liquid. You can stir up the flesh of the sweet potatoes with a little salted butter, brown sugar, and lots of cinnamon. Soooo delicious! And when you're all done, the only cleanup necessary is to ball up the foil and throw it away :)

Baked sweet potatoes and drumsticks

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Yesterday (which was just an hour ago) was my 23rd birthday - the beginning of the age when we are expected to suddenly go from college students to being grownups. How intimidating! Things have been going quite smoothly in my work life, and in the next few weeks I will make my final decision about which medical school I will be going to this fall. Maybe the continued schooling will give me an excuse to be a "student" for another few years :)

I had a chance to celebrate my birthday early with my family this week. We had a cake freshly decorated for us from the only Chinatown bakery that was still open at 8pm on a Sunday night, so I'm quite grateful that I got a cake at all haha. The decorator made me a bull out of whipped cream on top of the cake, since I was born in the year of the Ox. It was done quite well if I do say so myself - I really liked the cute chocolate accents :) I was originally tempted to make my own cake, but you never make your own birthday cake heh. The cake had a mixed fruit filling, and the sponge cake layers were soft. I wasn't terribly fond of the whipped topping, as it was more fluffy and marshmallow-y than I would have liked, but the flavors came together pretty well. My family and I enjoyed the cake with some freshly brewed aromatic white tea that my dad brought back from China this past week, mmm.

My birthday cake ox :)

On the actual day of my birthday, I went out with my boyfriend for some nice sushi at one of our favorite sushi joints in Boston: Shino Express. Unfortunately, we realized that in the time we had not gone, they had not only changed their name from Shino Express to Shino Newbury, but that they also dramatically raised prices. More startlingly, they changed all of their sushi from using regular white sushi rice to using some special kind of brown rice. That's right, they don't even carry white rice sushi anymore, and for this they are charging us extra. What happened to the Shino that used to be heaven for students because they had delicious sushi of high quality for a dirt cheap price in a casual setting? It seems like with this new brown rice sushi comes on the tail of Shino trying to remodel itself into a trendy spot on Newbury St. They've changed all their plates and dishes to look modern, but all I really want is the good ol' Shino sushi that was good to my tastebuds AND my wallet (or in this case, my boyfriend's wallet :). I honestly may not go back anymore, since the sushi is no longer priced competitively.

That said, the meal I had tonight was still as amazing as Shino's has always been. I didn't really notice the flavor of the brown rice. It might have been slightly more chewy, but it definitely was a subtle difference (grr, not one I'd want to pay for), which is good because I was so worried that brown rice would ruin the sushi experience. I had a regular salmon roll, a crispy eel roll (eel, avocado, cucumbers, flying fish roe, and topped with mayo and crispy tempura bits drizzled in unagi bbq sauce), and one of their specials, the Boston lobster roll (avocado cucumber roll topped with warm baked lobster mixed with chopped raw red onions in a wasabi butter sauce). The rolls were all amazing, with fresh and fatty fish that melted in my mouth. The lobster roll is one of my favorites because it has such a unique flavor - the wasabi butter sauce really brings together everything in that roll, and it really is a monster to behold with all that lobster! My boyfriend also got a shrimp tempura roll which he said was really good too. Mmm I really wish I could go back to the days when Shino's was cheaper...

Crispy eel roll and shrimp tempura roll

Boston lobster roll

After dinner we went to Cheesecake Factory for some dessert - the Godiva chocolate brownie sundae :) Deliciously rich and a perfect end to a wonderful birthday dinner. I never knew this, but apparently Edy's makes a special vanilla ice cream specifically for Cheesecake Factory to use in their desserts. I wonder what exactly is different about it...

Godiva chocolate brownie sundae

Thanks for a nice birthday dinner Greg! Gosh, I still can't believe I'm 23 already... time just passes so fast. There are so many things I'm looking forward to this year, and I'm also sad to be leaving Boston in just a few months. It really is a wonderful city filled with an endless array of amazing places for every taste. I am certain that the years I have spent here will be fond memories I carry with me forever.

Me and Greg

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Updates have been sparse lately because I had a wisdom tooth out earlier this week and was not up for cooking nor blogging, but I'm happy to say that I'm back to eating solid foods again :) Last night I found myself once again the usual predicament of having ripening bananas and no desire to eat them as is. As luck would have it, I also happened to have a few boxes of instant pudding mixes in the cupboard, which I bought for my widsom tooth recovery period, and my boyfriend gave me an idea to make some sort of cake and pudding trifle to use up the bananas. He said he wanted a light sponge cake to go with the pudding and bananas, and I immediately thought of the Bostini cream pie that I had seen the Daring Bakers make not too long ago - a similar concept of a small sponge cake with a custard and topped with chocolate sauce. I decided to use the orange chiffon cake from this recipe, with some alterations to suit my pantry, which came together with surprising ease. With the speediness of instant coconut pudding to shave off even more time, this became one of the simplest "complex" desserts that I've ever made! I love the combination of flavors, from the coconut to the bananas, to the orange, and the chocolate - everything pairs so well and none of the flavors overwhelm each other. And I find layered desserts so elegant-looking, so I'm definitely making this for company sometime :)

Coconut Banana Trifle with Orange Chiffon Cake

Coconut Banana Trifle with Orange Chiffon Cake           cake adapted from Scala's Bostini Cream Pie
(makes 6 individual servings)

Ingredients:

Orange Chiffon Cake
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup confectioner's sugar
2 eggs, separated
2/3 tsp baking powder
1/3 tsp salt
1/8 tsp cream of tartar
1/6 cup canola oil
1/3 cup orange juice
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract

Filling
1 package instant coconut cream pudding
2 cups cold milk
2 ripe bananas, cut into slices

Chocolate Topping
1 oz. chocolate chips
1 tbsp salted butter

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Spray a 6-hole muffin pan with cooking spray.

2. Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Add the egg yolks, oil, orange juice, vanilla and almond extracts, stirring together until just blended (dont' worry about lumps).

3. In a clean bowl, beat egg whites until frothy, and add in cream of tartar. Continue beating until soft peaks form. (I used a hand-held rotary beater for this in place of an electric one and it worked out great!)

4. Using a spatula, fold in the egg whites carefully into the batter in 3 separate additions. Ladle batter into the muffin pan, filling each well to the top.

5. Bake for 25 minutes, until tops of cakes spring back when lightly pressed with fingertips. Remove immediately from oven. Slide a knife around the edges of the cakes and flip over the muffin pan to release the cakes onto a cooling rack. They will have a golden brown skin around the edges, and you can either keep them for texture and color or trim it off for aesthetic appeal - I tried both and they both look and taste great.

finished orange chiffon cakes

7. To assemble dessert - slice up cakes into three layers. In a parfait glass or a goblet, alternate spoonfuls of pudding, banana slices, and cake layers, ending with a cake layer on top. Drizzle with chocolate sauce on top and garnish with banana slices. Serve immediately or chill until needed.  Enjoy!

Assembled coconut banana trifle

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Although I strive to bake interesting and creative items when I can, there are certain classic baked goods that I want to make sure I've made at least once and succeeded at, if only to be able to whip out a simple dessert for a backyard BBQ somewhere down the road. I don't know how it happened, but I've never baked blondies before, even though I've eaten them countless times. And since I've changed my blog tagline to "everything tastes better homemade", well I'd better practice what I preach!

Blondies, like chocolate chip cookies and brownies, deserve a spot in every kitchen's recipe box. That's why I'm creating a new category of posts called "Essential baking repertoire" (or EBR for short) - nothing fancy, just simple, tried and true recipes that I can always turn to when I want something that is sure to please every time. So often food bloggers are so busy churning out new and innovative recipes that the traditional ones get left behind because they might seem "boring". But sometimes all I want is a good recipe for a no-frills, common dessert. Anyway, I'll slowly try and build up this category of posts (my favorite sugar cookie recipe is probably coming soon). I haven't decided if any other recipes I've posted thus far should be included. If you have any such recipes to share, or suggestions for things you'd like to see, please let me know! :)

So then, the main event of this week's baking was the blondie - sort of like a chocolate chip cookie in bar form. I have seen a zillion different variations of the blondie, some with coconut, some with white chocolate chips, some with nuts. I found my blondie EBR recipe on Allrecipes.com, one of my favorite places to go. A recipe site that has lots of reviewers is always useful in determining if a recipe will be a winner or a dud. The recipe calls for walnuts, which I omitted due to lack of availability (and also because I don't think traditional blondies should have nuts in them), and chocolate chips, for which I used half chocolate chips and half toffee chips, since I was low on chocolate chips. Other than that I followed the recipe down to the word, and boy does it make a sinfully chewy blondie...

Chocolate chip toffee blondies

Chocolate Chip Toffee Blondies  (makes about 16 small squares)              original recipe at Allrecipes.com

Ingredients:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup butter
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1 egg
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup chocolate chips of your choice (I prefer milk chocolate here)
1/3 cup English toffee bits

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

3. Melt butter. Allow to cool briefly, and stir in brown sugar. Beat egg separately, and add to butter and sugar mixture. Stir in vanilla and mix well to get a creamy batter.

4. Gradually stir in flour mixture with the batter until well-mixed. Fold in most of the chocolate chips and toffee bits, reserving some to sprinkle on top of the blondies (or you can just add extra for the top).

5. Spread the batter evenly into an 8x8 inch baking pan (I used an 8" round pan because I don't have a small square pan). Sprinkle remaining chocolate chips and toffee bits on top of the batter if desired. Bake for 20-25 minutes until top is a light golden color and edges are crinkly and pulling away from the side of the pan. Remove from oven and cool completely before cutting.

Note: Recipe can be doubled to fit a 9x13 inch baking pan.

blondies after baking

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I know, I know... nobody uses silken tofu to make pan fried tofu chunks because it falls apart too easily. But I had a dinner to whip up and what I had at hand was silken tofu. My boyfriend told me that his family sometimes makes a dish where they pan-sear slices of tofu and then top it with beef in a brown sauce. That sounded really good to me, but I was a bit skeptical about getting the silken tofu to sear without breaking it up into tiny chunks. I went ahead and tried it anyway though! I used pork instead of beef, and added a bunch of onions to the brown sauce. It was amazing! Seared silken tofu has this delightfully crunchy skin and a warm soft tofu center that just melts in your mouth... and topped with the pork and onion gravy, the flavor is just right! I had to experiment with a few pieces of tofu before I got going with the easiest searing method - but that means you won't have to! :) It takes a little bit of care to make sure you're not tearing the tofu up to shreds, but the result is so worth it.

Pan-seared silken tofu with pork and onion gravy

Pan-seared Silken Tofu with Pork and Onion Gravy  (serves 3-4)

Ingredients:
3 blocks of fresh silken tofu (3 inch cubes)
1/2 lb. pork tenderloin
1 1/2 medium onion, cut into thin strips
handful of cilantro, chopped up
2 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp rice wine
1 tsp sugar
dashes of garlic powder, onion powder, and white pepper powder
2 tsp cornstarch for the meat, plus more for the sauce as needed
1 1/2 tbsp teriyaki sauce (I used roasted garlic flavored)
3 tbsp oyster sauce
vegetable oil for searing

Directions:
1. Wash tofu blocks and cut into slices that are 1/2 x 1 x 2 inches in dimensions (about the length and thickness of your index finger), cutting it so that the "skin" side of the blocks are always along the thin edges of the slice - this helps hold the tofu together. To make this easy to figure out, just always place the skin side of the tofu down on the cutting board, and proceed to cut 1/2 inch slices from the top down.

2. Cut pork into thin strips, and marinate in the soy sauce, rice wine, sugar, cornstarch, garlic powder, onion powder, and white pepper powder for 10 minutes.

3. In a hot nonstick skillet, sautee the onions until starting to turn translucent. Remove from pan and set aside. Sear pork slices until mostly cooked through on both sides, and add back onions. Pour in about 3 cups of water (adjust as desired to get amount of sauce).

4. To make the sauce, stir in teriyaki and oyster sauces to achieve desired saltiness. It should be a rounded flavor with some sweetness. Stir in a slurry of 2 tbsp cornstarch in 1/4 cup of cold water, and allow the sauce to come to a boil to thicken. Add more cornstarch slurry if needed - you want to get a sauce consistency that is somewhat thickened, so that it will sit nicely on top of the tofu later.

5. In a clean non-stick skillet coated with vegetable oil, heat to medium/medium-high (about 6 on a dial from 1-9). Carefully lay down 8 to 10 pieces of your tofu with the flat side down. Don't let the tofu touch each other or else they'll stick later. Close the lid of the pan, and allow to sear approx 5 minutes, removing lid occasionally to release steam and remove water collecting on the top of the lid (you don't want too much of that to drip back into your pan).

6. Using 2 spoons, carefully flip each piece of tofu onto its back. The seared side should be golden. Continue to sear the backsides of the tofu pieces for another 4-5 minutes before removing from heat. Repeat with remaining tofu slices, and clean the pan in-between each batch if there are lots of little bits in the pan (don't want them to burn).

7. To plate: lay tofu slices out flat and spoon pork and onion gravy on top (I had more than enough pork gravy for the tofu I used - I had about 1 piece of pork for each piece of tofu). Garnish with fresh cilantro and serve immediately. Enjoy!

Pan-seared silken tofu with pork and onion gravy

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I think dry fried beef chow fun is one of those Chinese restaurant dishes that you either try and love or you get unlucky with a badly done dish and hate it. For the most part, I think it's hard to mess up - the usual culprit in a bad beef chow fun dish would be hard noodles. Normally, there are soft sheets of noodles that have soaked up the flavors from the oyster-based sauce, slippery with the vegetable oil that helps prevent the noodles from sticking and intermingled with flavorful pieces of beef and onions... it's always so satisfying, even though you know it's pretty greasy.

After seeing my mom buy the premade steamed rice noodle sheets from the Asian market recently, I discovered that you could also use the same noodles to make dry fried beef chow fun! (Just get the plain noodles without dried shrimp and scallions). So when I got back to school, I bought a bag of refrigerated freshly made rice noodle sheets from Super88 in Boston - they come in bags of 1-2 lbs of noodles, all folded into neat squares or rectangles and bagged in clear plastic baggies with vegetable oil to prevent sticking (cost me about $2.75 or so for a 2 lb. bag). I found an easy recipe from About.com, and with a few improvised ingredients, everything came together pretty easily. Dry frying is really just a term for stir frying something without the use of a liquid sauce or oil to fry in. You use dry frying to get things cooked without making it soggy and saucy, or crunchy, and with a hot enough wok, you can make your foods with a nice and smoky flavor this way too. And since I was cooking the chow fun myself, I could add veggies and use a lot less oil to get a healthier version of the same dish, double yum!

Dry fried beef chow fun

Dry Fried Beef Chow Fun  (serves 4-6)                                              original recipe at About.com

Ingredients:
2 lbs. folded steamed rice noodle sheets
1 lb. beef flank steak
2 medium onions, sliced
1 bag of washed fresh spinach
2 stalks of scallions
3 cloves garlic, minced
5 tbsp dark soy sauce
1 tbsp rice wine
1/2 tsp sugar
few drops of sesame oil
1 tsp cornstarch
2-4 tbsp oyster sauce (use as needed)
vegetable oil as needed for stir frying

Directions:
1. Cut flank steak into thin strips about 1/4 inch in thickness. Marinate with soy sauce, rice wine, sugar, sesame oil, and cornstarch for 15 minutes at room temperature.

2. Rinse refrigerated rice noodles under warm water to loosen sheets, applying mild pressure to loosen the folds. Cut noodle blocks into 1 inch strips and peel apart the sheets. Set aside.

cutting the rice noodle sheets

3. Heat a skillet with vegetable oil on medium high. Sear beef by laying each piece flat against the skillet, and flipping after a minute. Cook another minute on other side. Remove from pan and clean the pan.

4. Cook the onions until they are starting to turn translucent. In another pan, heat some vegetable oil and gently cook the spinach just until wilted. Drain and set aside.

5. Add some vegetable oil to the onion pan, and add in the rice noodles, stirring vigorously to prevent burning and sticking. Try to coat all the noodles with oil to prevent them from sticking (some will probably occur, that's okay). Mix in minced garlic, cooked spinach, and cooked beef.

6. Add oyster sauce to the noodles, and mix to allow the noodles to soak up the sauce (they will turn a light brown color). The noodles should soften as they are warmed up. When they are soft and they taste flavorful enough (add more oyster sauce if needed), stir in scallions briefly, then remove from heat and serve.

dry fried beef chow fun

Beef chow fun is best eaten fresh - if you have leftovers, sprinkle some water on top before microwaving. Rice noodles are hardened when they are cold, so make sure you microwave long enough to get them nice and hot. I really enjoyed this dish, even though I had some difficultly stirring the noodles around in the pan without too many casualties flinging outside the skillet (a big wok would have solved my problems). My boyfriend liked eating it with a bit of Sriracha sauce squirted on top, but I thought the flavor was great just the way it was. Best of all, it didn't taste or feel greasy, and the noodles didn't stick, so it was really nice. I would add some bean sprouts next time too, but the onions and scallions gave a nice crunch to contrast the soft chewy noodles also. Hah, not so tough after all!

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