117. A rice recipe: Chinese Tofu fried rice (Vegan)

Sorry for not posting lately. Saying I have been a bit busy and lazy is a good excuse? Ha… well, apparently, there is a problem with google, where this blog is hosted, so I got a bit discouraged. Sorry… And now we are trying to come up with our solution to sort out the problem -- fingers crossed, let’s see.

Before anything, I really want to say ‘thank you’ to Elizabeth and Adele for giving me so many nice feedbacks! I feel so encouraged, and inspired. :))

Ok, coming to today’s recipe, Tofu fried rice -- sounds strange? Ha… It is one of my own recipes.

Years ago, when I was helping a friend working in a takeaway, one day, a customer wanted to make a special order -- fried rice without eggs. The chef paused for a while -- as he never had a request like that before. He moaned, 'how can I make that?' Just stir-fry rice with oil sounds very strange, and a bit difficult to make, as the rice can get sticky on the wok easily, and I am not sure it will taste well either.

So as I mentioned before, in northeast China, stir-fried rice with chopped spring onion is an alternative -- instead of eggs -- yes, just a little bit chopped spring onion can make the trick. The taste and smell of the spring onion can really bring some freshness to the rice, and make the difference. But this recipe -- tofu fried rice is even better, I think, especially for somebody like me, crazy about tofu. … :))


It all started when I was little, I was too picky, ( probably you already heard this story million times :) ), I did not like to eat many things, and I never really liked to mix the dishes with rice together -- you know, sometimes, you can get a dish with source covers the rice on a plate in the canteen or in a restaurant (but it is not very common in northern Chinese cuisine though). The only thing I liked to mix in was tofu. I would ‘crush’ the tofu into pieces, and mixed it well with rice, and just enjoyed. Then gradually I came up with this recipe.

The most important part of this recipe is the quality of the tofu. I like those really ‘pure’ soya-tofu, where you can almost smell the soya bean. The good quality tofu can really make a huge difference in the taste of this rice recipe. As if you cook the tofu in other recipes, you can add more seasonings or ingredients, the original taste of the tofu sometimes can be ‘masked’ a little bit anyway. But with just plain rice -- you can imagine.

I prefer to use medium soft tofu -- easy to ‘mash’, and will not totally disappear in the rice. Actually, in northern China, the fresh traditional tofu is not that firm anyway. Only nowadays, there are too many choices on the shelves ---- all become too confusing.

The actual cooking is super easy. Here you go.

Ingredients: (for one person)

A small block of tofu, spring onion, plain boiled rice (from left-overs or cooled down already)

Oil, salt, light soy sauce (optional), sesame oil (optional)

Preparation:

1) Chop half of the spring onion into small pieces.
2) Try to ‘loosen’ already boiled rice -- make it not sticky altogether.

Cooking:

1) In a heated wok, add in around 1 1/2 tablespoon of oil.

2) When oil is 70% hot, add in chopped spring onion, stir fry it for 1 minute.

3) Add in tofu, use spatula gently break the tofu, and stir fry it with spring onion.

4) Add around 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and a few drops of light soy sauce (optional, but if you do like to add soy sauce, only a few drops is enough).

5) Keep on stir fry the tofu in the wok for further 2-3 minutes.

6) Add in rice, and stir fry it with tofu. Let the two evenly mix well. ---

----- Done! Before taking it to a bowl, add couple of drops of sesame oil if you like.

I prefer to add the salt into the tofu rather than later with rice together, I think this way the salt mixes with rice more evenly. Of course, you can add salt later, after adding in the rice.

It can be eaten just like that, or if you like, a clear base soup can also be a good company. :) Hope you like it!