Miso Soup

Since I already had the miso out, I thought a nice accompaniment to the salmon would be a miso soup. This was also simple, quick and healthy with minimal cleanup. I love meals like this!

Ingredients:
- Miso
- Water
- Dashi (pellet-like fish stock base)
- Wakame (dried seaweed - but not the sushi kind)
- Tofu
- Green onions

Directions:
- Boil some water in a pot.
- Add dashi according to the package directions, stirring to dissolve the pellets.
- Add miso paste to taste.
- Add in the wakame.
- Dice the tofu and gently slide it in.
- Gently stir the soup so that everything is mixed.
- Garnish with a bit of freshly chopped green onions.

Century Egg Tofu (Pi Dan Tofu)

I apologize for the lack of posts recently. Both work and life in general have been keeping me busy, but here's another super quick and super easy dish. *Warning* - it's not for everyone.

See that black jelly like stuff in the picture? That's an egg. Yup, a hundred year old egg! It's not really a hundred years old, that's just what it's called. It's also known as century egg or pi dan in Chinese. Here's what it looks like with the shell on.

How do they get the egg that way? They cake it in clay, ash, salt and some other stuff to preserve it. Even if you can get passed its appearance, it's definitely an acquired taste and texture, and tastes nothing like an egg. I know a guy who will eat everything from chicken feet to scorpions to bull testicles, etc, but won't touch this stuff with a ten foot pole. Then there are people like me who absolutely adore it.

So, if you're feeling adventurous, give this a try. It's a nice refreshing dish that's especially nice on a hot summer day, and who knows, you may fall in love with it too!

Ingredients:
- 2 century eggs
- 1 block of silken tofu
- Soy sauce
- Oyster sauce
- Sesame oil
- Green onions or bonito flakes as a garnish (optional)

Directions:
- Dice the tofu into large cubes.
- Dice the century eggs into large cubes.
- Top the century egg and tofu with a few dashes of soy, a healthy drizzle of oyster sauce and a splash of sesame oil.
- Garnish with green onions or bonito flakes if you want.
- Mix everything together and serve cold.

Inari

As a kid, I called these little guys Japanese footballs, so I figured they'd be nice to serve during our Super Bowl party. Plus they make great finger food. Don't they look like little footballs to you?

Anyway, Inari is a great "sushi" for beginners. It's very simple, there is nothing raw, and the flavor is mild and sweet. It's just fried tofu pockets and rice - very non-threatening.

They're also super easy. Just buy the already seasoned tofu skins in a can like above and stuff them with rice. Ideally you should stuff it with seasoned sushi rice, but the skins already have so much flavor that if you don't season your rice, you'll still be fine.

Ingredients:
- Seasoned tofu skins (aburage - pictured above)
- White rice
- Rice vinegar to taste (optional)
- Sugar to taste (optional)

Directions:
- Cook the rice and season it (the seasoning part is optional).
-To season the rice, you can either be lazy like me and dump vinegar and sugar to taste, into the water while the rice is cooking, or do it the right way - cook the rice and then spread it out on a cookie sheet. Sprinkle the vinegar and sugar on the rice and mix until combined.
- Open the can of tofu skins and take them out. If you'd like, you can also use the liquid in the can to season the rice.
- Carefully open the pocket of each tofu skin, they are very delicate.
- Stuff some rice in. You can put as much or as little as you like. You can also sprinkle some sesame seed or furikake on top if you'd like, but traditionally, they're served plain.
- Pop them in your mouth and rub your tummy with delight!

This is about 2 cans worth of inari, minus a few that I accidentally ripped while opening and had to eat them myself :)

Kimchi Tofu Stew

Argh, terrible picture, but oh so delicious dinner! I took this picture before I stirred the tofu in, that's why it looks so pasty white. Stir carefully when you do so that the tofu doesn't break.

Kimchi tofu stew or kimchi jigae is like korean comfort food (at least to me it is). It comes in a burning hot black stone bowl still bubbling at restaurants. At our house, it comes in a dutch oven.

So after going for a hike with my friend Stephanie, we were talking about going out to dinner. She suggested Korean. Then after some more discussion, we decided we'd come over to my house and MAKE Korean instead. We made the kimchi fried rice that I posted earlier and this! It was much better than the restaurants if I do say so myself =P Now, I just need to go get some of those special bowls they serve these in!

I usually put seafood (shrimp, imitation crab, baby clams, etc) but since this was a spur of the moment thing, I didn't have any. Steph suggested ground pork. OMG, sooo much better and I'm not going back to the seafood version again.

Kimchi tofu soup is easy, delicious and healthy.

Ingredients:
- One onion sliced thinly
- 4-5 cloves of garlic sliced thinly
- 5-6 mushrooms (I used shitake, but button or cremini is fine too) sliced thinly
- 1/3 lb of ground pork
- 3/4 cups of kimchi and kimchi juice
- 1 box of tofu (soft or silken, I prefer silken) cut into cubes
- soy or fish sauce to taste
- korean chili paste or chili flakes/powder to taste
- egg (optional)

Method:
- Heat up your pot and add a bit of oil. Add the onions and cook until soft.
- Add garlic and mushrooms.
- Add ground pork and break it up with your spatula.
- Add kimchi and some kimchi juice (to taste). If you used dried shitake mushrooms, add the water that you soaked the mushrooms in, minus the gritty stuff that fell to the bottom.
- Add tofu and stir gently to avoid breaking the tofu.
- Taste. If it's not salty enough, add a bit of soy or fish sauce. If you want more liquid, add some water or chicken broth. If you want it spicier, add a bit of chili paste or chili flakes.
- If you want, you can add an egg at this point like they do at restaurants.
- Serve over rice.

Mapo Tofu

I bought some szechuan peppercorns and was so excited to use them. Alas, they were weak or imitation peppercorns and just not up to par. I was so disappointed. Szechuan peppercorns are supposed to literally make your tongue numb when you bite into them (usually accidentally since you're not really supposed to eat them). The "Ma" part of mapo tofu actually means "numb". But even without the proper spices, this dish is always a good one.

There are so many ways to make mapo tofu and as usual, I pull my recipes out of my ***, so this is by no means the only or best or traditional way of making it. In fact, almost everytime I make it, I make it a little differently. This is what I put into it this time around....


Ingredients:
- 1 block of soft tofu cut into cubes
- 1/2 pound of ground pork, turkey or chicken
- 1 clove of minced garlic
- 2 tbsp of hot bean paste (if you don't have this, you can use a regular chili paste)
- 1 tbsp soy sauce
- cornstarch slurry (~1-2 tsp cornstarch mixed in a tiny bit of cold water until dissolved)
- 1 tsp ground szechuan peppercorns (optional)
- 1 scallion sliced for garnish (optional)

Direction:
- Heat up your wok/pan and put enough oil in to coat the bottom
- Put the ground meat and the minced garlic and the soy sauce and cook until most of the pink in the meat is gone.
- Add in the tofu, chili paste and peppercorns. Stir gently to avoid breaking the tofu. Taste and adjust accordingly. Sometimes I'll add a bit more chili, salt, or even some sugar, depending on how it tastes.
- The tofu should release some water. If it's pretty dry, feel free to add a bit of water or chicken stock. Then add the cornstarch slurry to thicken the liquid. If it doesn't thicken up immediately, don't worry, it will thicken more after you turn off the heat. Or you can always add more cornstarch slurry. This step is actually completely optional, you'll just get a more watery sauce.
- Add the scallion
- Eat over rice!