Tofu with thousand year egg (皮蛋豆腐）

Experiment: Tofu with thousand year egg (皮蛋豆腐）

Introduction:
Few weeks ago, my co-worker brought an thousand year egg to office, and said that she’ll have that and tofu for lunch. I was like, “REALLY? I have always heard about it but never tried it!” At lunch time, she cracked the thousand year egg, sliced it, and put it on top of the tofu. She poured some soy sauce on top… and TaDa! There’s a dish of Tofu with Thousand Year Egg. The whole process took like maybe… 2 minutes? It was so simple, yet it tasted so good. So tonight, I decided to give it a try, and make my own version of it.


Materials:
1 box of soft tofu
1 thousand year egg
Bonito flakes
Sliced red ginger
Soy sauce
Sesame oil

Procedure:
1) Take the tofu out from the package, put it on a plate. Steam it if you like, or you can serve it cold.

2) Crack the thousand year egg, peel it, and slice it. Put it on top of the tofu.

3) Put as much bonito flakes as you like on top of the tofu and thousand year egg.

4) Put some sliced red ginger on top of the bonito flakes.

5) Pour soy sauce on top, then sesame oil. DONE!



Result:

Discussion:

1) In case you’re wondering what a thousand year egg is, it looks like this:










Picture taken from Wikipedia.org



You don’t need to cook the egg. When you crack it open, it looks like a hard boiled egg, except that it’s black. And if you’re lucky enough to get good eggs, the yolk would still be quite liquidy, like a soft boiled egg, as shown in the above picture. OH btw, thousand year eggs are made with duck eggs, not chicken eggs.


2) There are many versions of this dish. Some people like to put coriander instead of bonito flakes, and some like to put chopped green onions on top. Well basically you can put whatever you like on top of the tofu!

Tofu Steak with mushrooms (豆腐ステーキきのこあん)

Experiment: Tofu Steak with mushrooms　(豆腐ステーキきのこあん)

Introduction:
I’ve been craving tofu lately. I flipped through my recipe books and found this Tofu Steak with mushrooms. Yay! One dish with 2 of my fave food…


Materials:
1 pack tofu
1 pack enoki mushroom
1 pack maitake mushroom
1 tbs chopped green onion

Sauce:
1 tbs oyster sauce
1 tbs soy sauce
2 tbs sake
1/2 cup water
1.5 tbs corn starch
Salt, white pepper


Procedure:
1) Cut the tofu into big pieces.

2) Wash the 2 types of mushrooms. Cut the bottom part of the enoki mushroom, then cut the remaining part in half. Cut the maitake mushroom into small pieces.

3) Heat a frying pan. Add oil into pan, and put the tofu in. When one side is done, flip over to the other side. Put the tofu on plates when both sides are golden.

4) In a small pan, stir fry the mushrooms. When the mushrooms are half done, put the oyster sauce, soy sauce, sake and water in. Stir well. Sprinkle salt and white pepper as you like. When the sauce is ready, put the corn starch in. Mix well until sauce is thicken.

5) Put the mushroom sauce on top of the tofu. Sprinkle the green onion on top of the mushroom sauce.



Result:

Discussion:
1) It’s a quick and yummy dish!

2) You can try other types of mushroom as well. I just happend to have enoki mushroom and maitake mushroom at home. By the way, it’s my first time trying maitake mushroom… the texture is like oyster mushroom, but maitake has quite a “woody” taste. Interesting! Definitely will try again (too bad it’s quite expensive… otherwise I’ll buy it more often.)

3) Acutally 1 pack of tofu is not enough for me and Mr. Clam… I think I’ll make 2 packs of tofu!