Ma Po Tofu

Serving: 2-3 if it's the only dish

Cooking time <10 mins

Prep time <10 mins not including marinating time

As always, if possible, marinate the meat in soy sauce, sugar and corn starch for a min of 15 mins before cooking. If not possible, then as long as possible.

You do not have to finish all the cutting before you start cooking, that will shorten prep time as long as you can multitask :)

Ingredients
1 package of Firm /"Old" Tofu
300g Mince Pork
2 cloves of Garlic
a bit more then 1 tsp Ground Bean Sauce (If you use the tsp, don't scrap it flat, overload it)
1 tsp Chile Garlic Sauce
2 Green Onion, chopped

Thickening Agent - if required
- Water (just enough to dissolve the Corn Starch)
- 1 TSP Sugar
- Corn Starch (pending how much water is there in the wok)

The Sauces that are used: 

Directions
1. Heat the pan and add the oil and garlic when the pan is hot. Stir the garlic around.
2. Add the pork and stir.
3. While the pork is cooking, rinse the tofu and cut into cubes. Not to small because when you stir fry it, it might break smaller.
4. Add the Chili Garlic Sauce and the Ground Bean Sauce and mix.
5. Add the tofu when the pork is 80% cooked.
6. Since Tofu is technically cooked already, heat until it's warm and pork is 100% all cooked.
7. Check how much water is in your pan and if you want to get rid of it/thicken it. If I have a lot, I usually pour out a bit of the water to use to dissolve the corn starch and sugar. Pending on how much water I have, I use anywhere from 1 TSP to 1 TBSP of Corn Starch. Make a hole in the middle and pour in the solution and mix. The moment it bubbles mix in food with the sauce.
8. Add in green onion and mix
Done! :)

Tips:
Firm or "Old" Tofu is firmer and will not break as much when you cook!
Cut bigger pieces so when it breaks, it won't disintegrate into mush

My House Cooking Staples for Chinese food

Since I decided to add Chinese cooking to the blog, I thought I better write a brief note about the cooking staples in my house.

Why would I add Chinese dishes?
It was because of my brother. When my brother heard about me learning to make Chinese Soup, he asked me to send him copies of the recipes.That's when I realized, even though we both can cook normal day to day food, we never learnt how to make soup and without our parents, we would be totally soupless :*(

That made me think about posting them to my blog as well because I'm sure there's other people out there who would like to have Chinese soup but doesn't know how to make it.

I figured, since I'll be posting soup recipes, might as well post other quick dishes that we make for dinner.

So in our kitchen, we have the day to day items and then a variety of sauces and spices etc that we use a couple times a month.

In this particular post, I'll at least make a note of all the stuff I use on a daily/weekly basis. The rest will be found in recipes as I post them.

I will eventually post another one on soup items when I compile the list of what should be refrigerated and what doesn't have to be. 

Soy Sauce

This is a must have!! But did you know that there's many different types of Soy Sauce? Not just the different brand but the taste as well! I still remember my little brother's none Asian Best Friend telling us that our Soy Sauce taste so much better then what he uses at home and we were so surprised that there can be a difference.

The most basic difference between Soy Sauce is light and "old"/Dark.
Light Soy Sauce is the one that is most typically used and what you see at restaurants. You can get less sodium version or just normal. This is the one we use
The less sodium one I also use is this one:






Both are now widely available now so you don't have to go to Chinese stores to get them.

Old/Dark Soy Sauce is the darker in colour and stains your food in the dark colour. It's actually less salty. We typically use this for colouring in things like Soy Sauce Chicken.

Fish Soy Sauce is used on fish like the name suggests :P Whenever we steam a fish, we will pour this Soy Sauce on along with Green Onion, Ginger and Oil. This Soy Sauce is sweeter and less salty and less intense.








At our home, we have all 3 of these Soy Sauce all the time.
All our meats are marinated in Soy Sauce and Sugar base before we add any other flavours.

Salt
Yes, we actually have salt in the house. We don't use Soy Sauce for everything.

We put Salt in soups and for the veggies.
Salt is the flavour of life. It helps bring out the flavour in the food you cook so just use a little if you need to watch your salt intake.
Use Sea Salt to be healthier :)

Sugar
We have several types of sugar we keep in the pantry
Normal white sugar for most of our cooking, marinating etc
Brown/Yellow sugar for my baking. But I should really be replacing white sugar with this instead. They're basically the same but this is slightly more sweet and moist
Rock Sugar - used when we cook things like Chinese soupy desserts or things that are more liquid in nature

Brown Rock Sugar - similar to the Rock sugar above, but because it's brown, usually we use it more in cooking anything liquid in nature but not desserts because it would colour the dessert







Garlic
We cook just about everything with a bit of garlic. It adds very nice flavour so my brother and I love using it.
At our house, we pre-mince lots of garlic using a food processor and then store it in jars in the fridge. That way it's all done and all we have to do is scoop out what we need. :)
You can buy minced garlic in jars at the stores too but it's honestly not too bad to do it yourself.
You can buy bags of garlic that is already peels and all you have to do is cut off the stem and throw it into the processor. Just sit in front of the TV with the bag of garlic and start cutting away.

Ginger
Very important in Chinese Cooking. Ginger "chases away wind" and warms you according to Chinese eating theory. Store Ginger in a dry cool dark place. We typically put it under the sink.
We usually wash, peel and slice some and keep it in a box in the fridge for easy access.
My aunt likes to do the same but mixes it with oil. So when she cooks all she does is scoop the oil+ginger mixture and that's all the oil she'll use in her cooking.

Onion
We always have Green Onion and normal Onion at our home.
Both adds nice flavour so I like to have both at hand when I cook.

Corn Starch

As apart of the marinate, we typically add some Corn Starch. According to my dad, it makes the meat more "smooth". It also helps with thickening liquid that appears when cooking.
Corn Starch + sugar + water is a very typical mixture added to thicken the sauce of any dish you're making that you deem necessary to thicken.

Cooking Wine

We have Chinese cooking rice wine at home. There's so many of them to choose from when you're at the super market. Pay attention to see if it has salt or not. Some of them have a specific smell or taste as well. I'm afraid you will have to try them to see if you like them. Usually, I'll add a splash when required to help either bring out flavour or de-glaze a pan/wok.

Cranberry Buttermilk Scones

I love baking with buttermilk. I find buttermilk baked goods to have awesome moisture as well as flavour.

Since buttermilk comes in 1 L cartons, whenever I buy it to bake 1 item, I end up baking a whole bunch of items to use it all up.

This scone recipe is very easy and fast to make.

They turn out moist and fluffy and helps me use up the buttermilk :)

Usually I always measure out the ingredients by weight but I find that it's not necessary for the scones

Just need measuring cups, spoons, a fork and a bowl to make the scones

Ingredients

3 cups all purpose flour 

1/3 cup Brown sugar 

2 1/2tsp baking powder 

3/4 salt 

1/2 tsp baking Soda 

3/4 cup cold butter (170.25g) 

1 cup buttermilk 

1 cup dried cranberries 

1tsp grated orange peel (Optional)

Directions

1. Combine dry ingredients in a bowl 

2. Cut in butter until crumbly 

3. Gently stir in buttermilk until just combined 

4. Fold in cranberries and orange peel

5. Turn onto table and make 2 6in disks or make them into 4 smaller disks

6. Put them on a pan and cut each into 6 wedges but leave them together. 

7. Brush with buttermilk and sprinkle sugar on top. The sugar is optional. I typically don't add it but it can add a nice crunch. 

8. Bake at 400 degrees for 15-20 mins or until golden brown. The smaller disk will cook faster. 

2 tier Birthday cake

Catching up on posting.  :)

I have a niece born before Christmas and one after Christmas.
So we celebrate their birthdays during Christmas dinner

This year, I made a 2 tier cake so they each get a layer.

The bottom layer is a white chocolate strawberry buttercream cake

The top layer is a dark chocolate pistachio buttercream cake.

For the buttercream,  I liked the butter to egg white ratio from Keiko Ishida's book but I don't like how she doesn't cook her egg whites.
So I'm still experimenting with the right syrup ratio so I can add more liquid type of flavor (ie strawberry puree) before the cream breaks.
Both cakes are from Rose's Heavenly Cake book.

The decorations are made of fondant. I used cookie cutters for the shapes but I used a sharp knife to cut out the words myself. I think I'll go invest in Alphabet cookie cutters soon. Took too long to do the knife work.

How to make stack the cakes:

You need to build structure for the bottom layer so the top cake doesn't sink in.

I use bubble tea straws as support.
I like to use 5 because my 6in cake is heavy.

Put the straw beside the cake and cut to the right height.
Cut all your straws.
Use your 6 in pan and lightly press on the top of the bottom cake with it too make and indent for where you want to place your cake.
Stick the straws you cut inside the 6in circle indent evenly spaced apart.

Move your top layer on top and your done.  :)