Its been a long while and I have been feeling guilty about not updating the blog but I'm still here and cooking everyday! We were away in Singapore for a couple of months and I have been pampered by the ease of just buying what we want to eat or having my dear Dad cook meals for us that it was starting to become a habit.
However, now that we are back to reality (and Sweden), its home cooked meals most days now and this is one of those dishes that I have been cooking so often that I thought I must have post it up, but no, I haven't. It's a very good recipe from Fuschia Dunlop, who, if you haven't heard has a new cookbook called Every grain of Rice. Since I already had two of her cookbooks, I was quite wary that the recipes might repeat themselves but I was pleasantly surprised that there were plenty of new recipes, with just a few duplicates. I skipped the salted chilli and used a fresh chilli padi instead.
Ingredients
100g minced pork
½ teaspoon dark soy sauce
2 teaspoons Shaoxing wine
1 block (about 550g) firm tofu
1 teaspoon finely chopped garlic
2 soaked and drained dried shiitake mushroom, diced finely
1 chilli padi sliced finely (optional)
1 tablespoon chilli bean paste
1 teaspoon dried chilli flakes
150g water or stock
1 teaspoon potato flour mixed with 1 tablespoon cold water (for thickening the sauce)
3 spring onions, green part sliced finely
1 teaspoon sesame seed oil
3 tablespoon cooking oil
Sprinkle of roasted ground Szechuan pepper
Steps
- Mix the pork with the dark soy sauce and Shaoxing wine and set aside.
- Cut the tofu into large cubes and let it simmer gently for about 5 mins in a pot of salted water. This, according to my Chinese friend helps the tofu stays firm, I also think it flavours the tofu a bit making it more tasty. Drain and set aside.
- Heat the wok over high heat until smoke rises and add the cooking oil, then the minced pork, stir-frying it until it separates and changed colour.
- Add the garlic, mushrooms, chilli bean paste and stir fry until fragrant.
- Add in the chilli flakes and chilli padi and fry a little bit more.
- Add the tofu into the wok and add in the water, along with a sprinkle of chicken stock granules if you are not using stock.
- Reduce the heat and let it simmer until the sauce has reduced a bit with the tofu absorbing the goodness.
- Add in potato flour mixture a little bit at a time until the gravy reach your desired consistency, then add in the spring onions and sesame seed oil and give it a quick stir.
- Serve hot with a sprinkle of roasted ground Szechuan pepper.
