Two Summery Salads

 Hisahshiburi, (long time no see) as the Japanese say. We currently have guests staying with us and Friday Night Dinner ended up being some more Bánh Xèo because there were some who had never tried it! My original plan for Friday was to make a chickpea salad with some feta cheese as a summery type salad with some other kind of side protein thing. I was expecting a guest that was allergic to dairy so I made some tofu feta cheese which was similar to last time but with a few tweaks.It goes great on pizza! We made this salad for lunch instead, which we decided to pair with a second cilantro quinoa salad due to the excess of herbs from last night's Bánh Xèo.

This chickpea salad comes from Gordon Ramsay who did a bunch of healthy recipes for the Sunday Times.  I've probably watched every show that he's ever been on, and I'm not afraid to admit I'm a Ramsay fan but not for the yelling and swearing (well maybe just a little bit). It was the care and love that he shows for food that got me aboard the Ramsay bandwagon.

Tofu Feta Cheese
1 package of firm herbed tofu (454g?), chopped into small cubes.

1/2 tsp Pepper

1 tsp Sea salt

1 tsp Basil
1/2 tsp Oregano
A dash of red pepper flakes
1/4 cup Apple Cider Vinegar
1/4 cup Lemon Juice
1/4 cup olive oil
1/3 cup water

After cutting the tofu into small cubes, put them on a plate or bowl and sprinkle on the salt, pepper, basil and oregano. Evenly cover all the pieces of tofu and then in a container, mix the rest of the ingredients. Add the tofu to the marinade and chill in fridge overnight or 3-4 hours.

Chickpea Feta Salad, inspired by Gordon Ramsay

Printable Recipe

Olive Oil
1 can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
Multicoloured peppers, sliced
1 red onion, thinly sliced
1 lemon, for zest and juice.
2 garlic cloves, minced
A dash of red pepper flakes
Sea salt
Pepper
Handful of Cilantro, chopped (Usually flat leaf parsley)
Tofu Feta Cheese (Or just the regular stuff)

Heat some oil in a pan, add add onions and fry for a few minutes until soft. Add the garlic, peppers and let cook for a minute. Add the chickpeas, lemon juice and zest. Season with salt, pepper and chili flakes. Finally, add the cilantro and crumble on some feta.

Salad number two has been made by Gillian many times before, and only now have I realized why sometimes it tastes better than others. Red quinoa doesn't seem to absorb as much flavour as white quinoa does, so when made with the former, it doesn't taste as good.

Quinoa Cilantro Salad, found from allrecipes

Gillian doesn't usually let me change anything in this recipe but this time there was a bit of browning on the pan so I snuck some white wine in there and scraped it all up like a good stew. I also convinced her that green onions would be a good idea. In fact, pine nuts would be an even better addition. Anyway, have fun with the recipe.

the stonemason does all the work
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Egg In A Hole

Although a strong advocate of eating anything for breakfast, I do love (with a capital and italicized L) "breakfast" foods, especially eggs. This morning was a somewhat typical lazy Sunday: waking up at 11:30AM just the perfect time that it takes to prepare brunchfast and then sit down at 12:05PM to listen to the Vinyl Cafe on CBC radio. This was a bit of a family tradition for me growing up, we'd almost always tune in while eating lunch on Sunday. Now, Gillian and I do the same.

This was the first Sunny Side up egg I've ever made. Amazing how cutting out the
step of turning it over slightly, makes it so much easier...

Okay, Egg in a Hole certainly is not an original Vietnamese dish but it was taught to me by both my mom and a couple of my aunts. This reminds me of when my aunts would babysit me overnight and I remember one of them making me scrambled eggs the next morning. At the time, I wasn't able to use chopsticks so she was telling me how versatile of a utensil they were. This is one of the earlier conversations I remember us having and I'm not quite sure why. She went on to become a professor of South East Asian history and I often wonder if she has a lecture on chopsticks...

I love eggs over-easy because of the yolk that comes oozing out that you put soya sauce on and dip your toast in. Yuuum. Only now that I'm older do I realize that was kinda weird. Point is, Egg in a hole is basically an over-easy egg literally fused into a piece of crispy fried toast which somehow makes it taste that much better than the separate version. Essentially, it is a super hero among food, or maybe a super villain, since I can only think of Doctor Octopus as an example.

I quickly googled "egg in a hole" to make sure that's what people call it and I found a recipe for it on the Food Network. Really? I wasn't going to put up a recipe but since they have one...

Egg in a Hole
Some butter or margarine.
1 piece of bread, (not the ends)
1 egg

Preparation
Poke out a hole in the middle of the bread. Toss some butter in a low-medium heat pan to coat the bottom. Butter up on side of the bread and put non-butter side down into the pan. Throw in the piece of bread that was punched out as well. Crack an egg into the hole of the bread. Once the bread is nice and golden brown on that one side, flip the Egg in a hole and let cook. Depending how you like your yolk, cook accordingly.

As I was writing this, I remembered a second recipe, that actually cuts down on one step of regular Egg in a Hole. I think someone once called this 'Eggy Bagel' and it's basically Egg in a Hole except using a bagel. I was told this only works with stale bagels, or ones that have been put away in the freezer. Also, I think it goes without saying that it works best with Montréal-style bagels...

Egg in a Bagel Hole

Butter or Margarine
1 egg
1 half of a day old bagel, fry the other half in the pan at the same time.

Preparation
Toss some butter in a low-medium heat pan to coat the bottom. Place the bagel bready side up in the pan. Crack an egg into the hole of the bagel. Once the bagel is nice and golden brown on that one side, flip the Egg in a hole and let cook. Depending how you like your yolk, cook accordingly.

So a couple simple ways to make eggs that much more interesting. Gillian hates eggs but can kind of stand them if they're hard-boiled or in a hole...or scrambled. It's a shame really.

How do you like your eggs done?

i call chickens pre-birds or future birds.
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Foodbox Friday - Gillian makes Salmorejo (spanish tomato soup)

I had only used a single (gigantic) eggplant from the food box we received on Tuesday and the beets, carrots and cilantro were looking like they could use a new home, in our stomachs. For this Friday dinner we tried to buy very little and tried to use food that we already had. This meant no meat since we had none in the fridge so I turned to our ever-growing pantry for a protein idea. Wrapped in a plastic bag, like most things that my wife can get her hands on in the pantry, was a box of red quinoa. We're always looking for good recipes that use quinoa and other grains/beans because we're pretty darn lazy when it comes to meat and they're supposedly healthier.

Quinoa, Pine Nuts, Green Onion, Cilantro from
What's For Dinner?

Oh, what's that? You'd rather hear about the super star dish of the evening? The one made by Gillian? I figured as much. About a month ago, my wife traveled to the south of Spain, to the city of Còrdoba. Apparently, a very beautiful city full of flowers, not to mention cheap and delicious food. At the very least, she was able to eat a combination of all her favourite foods in one dish: Salmorejo. In short, it's a cold tomato soup, thickened with day old bread and garnished with ham. Chefs say that their food is themselves on a plate but I never took it this literally until I noted the main ingredients of this soup. My wife in 3 words: tomatoes, carbs, ham.

Southwestern Quinoa Sweet Potato Salad + Beets
from Laws of Good Eating
The beets add such an interesting colour, to everything
they touch...

Our menu: 

- Southwestern Quinoa Sweet Potato Salad, from Laws of Good Eating

• I somehow missed the seasoning in this dish and ended up serving it sans salt, pepper and cayenne. As I ate it, I wondered how this colourful, hearty salad could be so bland? I couldn't sleep, waking up around 4am (too many nightmares of having ruined this dish!) and while writing this entry, realized I was incredibly hungry. I pulled out the leftovers from the fridge and took a few bites realizing that it still tasted fairly similar. After writing a bit more, I went to find the recipe to link and noticed all the seasoning giggling at me. With a quick eye roll and a sigh at myself, I went back into the kitchen to do this dish justice. It's delicious. 
• As a side note, I added sliced roasted beets to this recipe because I was debating between that or trying Sarah's beet brownie recipe from simply cooked. Savoury won out as usual, but only because our guests were bringing dessert. Next time!

- Quinoa with Pine nuts, Green Onions and Cilantro, from What's for Dinner? (Anyone else know that cookng show? It's not named after it.)

• Following the recipe correctly really helped this dish. I'm also a big fan of cooking quinoa, or anything, in a stock of some kind. It adds so much flavour. This one is really simple, in preparation, appearance and flavour but it's a winner.

- Baked Sweet Potato Fries, from Zesty Cook

• I'll never get baked Sweet potato fries the way I like them: deep-fried.

- Herb Roasted Carrots, from TasteInspired

• I used dried thyme, rosemary, parsley. I think I meant to add some honey but forgot. I prefer honey-herb roasted carrots. 

- Salmorejo, from suite101, Gillian's changes in Italics

2 lbs tomatoes, 6 medium-large tomatoes

2 slices white sandwich bread, crusts removed, half a loaf of old Italian Bread (50% off)

1/2 red bell pepper, nope.

2 large cloves garlic

1 tbsp sugar

1/4 tsp ground cayenne pepper

salt and pepper, to taste

1/2 cup olive oil

Combine tomatoes, white bread, bell pepper, garlic, sugar and cayenne pepper in the bowl of a food processor. Whizz on high speed until mixture is smooth. Add salt and pepper, to taste. Whizz again, and with the processor running, stream in your olive oil.
Taste the soup again and adjust the seasonings, if necessary.
Strain into a large bowl and chill for at least 3 hours, or until ready to serve.
Soup can be prepared a day in advance and stored in the fridge.


Garnish with hard boiled egg slices, olive oil and some fried prosciutto (if you can't find serrano ham). The cilantro was me, not her because ...well...I'm still Vietnamese!

She even edited this poorly taken picture...

I'm not a huge fan of cold soups but Salmorejo is really something else. Every flavour is distinct while still playing together so perfectly and the ham and egg just work. I want to say that it's incredibly rich because it tastes quite salty and olive oily in that kinda good, salty, olive oily way. However, I ate three bowls, mopping up this bready soup, with french baguette. Oh, and then I finished the stuff still left in the main large bowl. All that may have dehydrated me, so she made me a three layer juice (a secret family recipe) to end the evening before we started cleanup.

Cold. Refreshing. Her dad's drink of choice.

Time to go have some 7am breakfast soup.

for the thrill of it

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Foodboxing - Eggplant Parmesan

Looks like a delicious hamburger...

I should really take a picture of what comes in one of these food boxes sometime. We get one every two weeks and I'm always amazed at the amount of produce that shows up for $16. This week we found: a head of romaine lettuce, several oranges, a few limes, some red plums, a bunch of carrots, five beets, three yams (or sweet potatoes, I can't tell), trois tomatoes, a bag of onions, a pack of cilantro, a few stalks of green onion, a couple bunches of bananas and an over-sized eggplant.

Despite the bountiful harvest, I took aim at this giant, purple eggplant that has been staring me down since I set it down in my kitchen. I watched a few episodes of Kitchen Boss once and I really liked his bread crumb recipe which I've used for Chicken Parm and various other breadcrumb dishes. Turns out he had an eggplant parm recipe as well, using his breadcrumb recipe, so without much thought required for supper, off I went.

Breadcrumb coating - Try the breadcrumbs on anything. They're really good, since they're probably mostly cheese. I just bought breadcrumbs in a can rather than buying a loaf and chopping it up. I also played around with the spices since I didn't have Italian spices. I used Basil and Oregano which are pretty Italian, no?

Eggplant Parmesan - So good...probably because they get fried in oil. Careful not to burn them!

And then I made an inverted sandwich.




you gave me roses
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Bánh ướt - Wet cakes

Aside from having a strange name, Bánh ướt is special for being a less evolved version of Bánh Cuon which is  Bánh ướt full of meat. What's Bánh ướt though? They're super thin rice paper 'crepes' that are rolled/folded up. They're very soft, eaten with a bunch of garnishes and mixed fish sauce and come from the northern area of Vietnam. When my Mẹ makes these, they seem so light that I can down bowls upon bowls. Oh man.

A few duds presentation-wise on the side but they still taste the same!

I had to do a test run of the non-meat version first since you gotta walk before you can run.


Bánh ướt, no cake wetter!
Printable Recipe


Batter
1/2 cup tapioca flour
2 cup rice flour
4 cups water
A dash of salt
Oil for cooking


Garnish
Fried Shallots (Purchase-able at Asian grocery stores)
Cucumbers, sliced into little sticks
Gio Lua or Cha Lua, sliced (Vietnamese ham)
Steamed bean sprouts, a little bit of water, a bit in the microwave
Healthy amounts of nuoc mam pha.


Preparation


Mix the batter ingredients together in a bowl. Now prepare to make the Bánh; a process very similar to making Bánh Xeo. Put some oil in a bowl and get a brush. Brush some oil onto a pan on medium heat. With one hand on the handle of your pan, ladle in the batter and give it a quick swirl to coat the pan. Pour back any excess into the bowl and then cover the pan until the crepe becomes transparent. 

Nice new pan...

At this point, you have a few choices. 


1) On a plate brushed with oil, flip the entire crepe onto the plate, fold the ends and roll it up. 
2) Give it a couple quick shakes so it folds up on itself, turn onto a plate.
3) Fold/roll it up in the pan real quick and throw it on a plate.


I was a big fan of method #2. Sprinkle with fried shallots, the rest of the ingredients and serve.


*sax*
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Happy Birthday Gillian - Cherry Bundt Cake

Gillian told me she wanted flowers to dance around

her head too.

Today my wife catches up to me in age as she takes her first step into her late twenties. I don't put much emphasis on age but she keeps making jokes about it and I wonder if it is secretly bothering her (I doubt it!). Of course I had planned on baking her a cake and I've been waiting to make this cake for her because I know she loves it. In fact, this has been her birthday cake for as long as she can remember. I just turned to ask her if this statement was true and it is except for one year when the oven was broken and they had ice cream cake.  Apparently I was there.

It is fitting that the first year we spend together as a family, I am making a recipe that comes from her's. After all, this is about learning from my family, right?

This is what time travel must feel like.

There was no straying from this recipe, it's been tried and tested for many years. Although I was told by what I thought was reliable source that we should be using whole wheat flour...

Cherry Bundt Cake 

Printable Recipe

1 1/4 cups softened butter

2 3/4 cups sugar

5 eggs

1 tsp almond extract

3 cups all-purpose flour 

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup undiluted Carnation Evaporated Milk

2 cups drained, quartered maraschino cherries

Pre-heat oven to 350F.

Blend together butter, sugar, eggs and almond extract in large mixer bowl on low speed. Beat on high speed for 5 minutes, scraping down sides of bowl often. Stir together flour, baking powder and salt. Add to creamed mixture alternately with evaporated milk, combining lightly after each addition. Stir in cherries. Turn batter into a buttered 12-cup bundt pan or 10 x 4-inch tube pan. Bake in oven for 70 to 80 minutes. Cool in pan on wire rack for 10 minutes. Remove from pan; cool completely. Dust top lightly with icing sugar to serve.

So once the birthday girl tasted her cake, she realized that her mother did not use whole wheat flour, so hey, not my fault. It was still incredibly moist and it tasted very similar, to me at least. Next time, it'll be perfect.

now these points of data make a beautiful line
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Perogies and Arista (Tuscan-style Pork Loin)

Does one fork a perogie?

Perogies? Pierogies? Wait, is the singular perogy? However it's spelled, we decided to make it for dinner this Friday. A recipe was found from cookbookjunkie, Sivan made the dough the night before and away we went. If you don't mind the whole-wheatedness of whole wheat flour, then it should be an okay substitute. However, if you prefer a softer, less dense perogy then keep away from brown flour. I ended up smelling like onions and cabbages the whole night. We used greek yogurt as a dipping sauce.

To act as our main protein, we found a recipe for Arista, Tuscan-style pork roast with a pan sauce from The Complete Meat Cookbook. We made a few spice-related variation as usual.

Arista, variation on The Complete Meat Cookbook
Printable Recipe

2 lb pork loin centre cut
1/2 tbsp rosemary
1/2 tbsp thyme
1/4 tbsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
2 tbsp olive oil

Pan sauce
5 garlic cloves thinly sliced
Pan juices
1/4 cup dry white wine
1 cup chicken or beef broth
Salt and Pepper to taste.

Preparation

Pre heat oven to 450 F. Mix all the herbs together in a bowl and rub on the meat. Lay the pork over the garlic in a pan. Drizzle pork with olive oil. Cook in oven for 15 minutes and then reduce heat to 300 F. Cook for 45-60 minutes. When done, take out of oven, remove pork from pan. Let rest 5 minutes before cutting into it.  Cut into 1/4 inch thick slices.
To make the gravy: Drain pan of excess fat. Heat pan on oven and add pan sauce ingredients. Scrape up all the cooked meat bits that are stuck to the pan and let the gravy reduce.

We didn't adjust the cooking time for the recipe for a 4
pound loin. It might be just a tad overcooked, but it still
tasted great.

Top it off with one of Lil's salads and yum!

Field greens, goat cheese, beets, honey-roasted pecans? Walnuts?

Does anyone love the contrast between the first helping and the second? Why bother making it pretty the second time.

Round 1

Round 2.
Not shown: Rounds 3 and 4

I've got a cherry cake cooling in my kitchen right now...

yeah, we maxed our credit cards

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Another Birthday, Another Two Birthday Cakes.

The early summer months (End of May, June, July) in my recent years have been filled with birthdays. Birthdays that are very close to one another in time. Remember that Red Velvet Cheesecake? Birthday cake.  Last night we celebrated our friend Lil's birthday and knowing her name is important for understanding the pictures that will soon follow. Speaking of things that soonly follow after other things, my wife Gillian's birthday is coming up in four days. Yes, I plan on baking her a cake.  No, I have yet to find a gift for her. No, the cake is not my gift to her (because I don't think it counts despite the significance of this cake that you will soon learn about). Yes, I may not be alive to post about said cake.

We had secretly decided on chocolate cake as the cake of choice with no real reason backing this decision. Gillian sent me a recipe yesterday morning that she found on the Chowhound message board. You know, I was wondering what her search terms were. In any case, this is the e-mail I received. Please note that these are the entire contents of this e-mail from my wife.

If this isn't the easiest, sturdiest and most bombproof chocolate cake, I don't know what is. You don't even need an egg or milk or anything. I swear, it's delicious. You can leave it in the baking pan until you get it to the destination, then remove to a plate, dust heavily with icing sugar and squirt with a spray-bomb of whipped cream (a few fresh berries or flowers are a nice touch). Seriously - you will thank me for this recipe.
Stupidly easy chocolate cake
1-1/2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. vinegar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 cup water
In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, and baking soda until well mixed. All at once add the vinegar, vanilla, oil, and water. Stir well, then dump the batter into a well-greased 8-inch (20 cm) square baking pan. Bake at 350o F (180o C) for 30 to 35 minutes, until a toothpick poked into the center of the cake comes out clean.

Let cool completely before frosting or sprinkle with icing sugar and decorate with a few fresh flowers.

Doesn't that first paragraph look like it's something out of one of those spam e-mails? All you need to do is add "Hi friend, I know we haven't spoken in a long time but..." I was really confused but I started on this cake, mixed all the dry ingredients together and just as I was about to pour in the liquids, I stopped.

For whatever reason, I decided to also try another chocolate cake recipe, a birthday chocolate chiffon cake from simply cooked. Sarah has been very helpful and inspirational to me as a newbie blogger and I'm finally making one of her recipes! So armed with two recipes, I set off to bake two cakes before noon. When it comes to baking, I usually mess something up and I really don't want to admit that it was the cake from simply cooked! In her recipe, you need to whisk egg whites until soft peaks form. Unfortunately, while separating the yolks, I dropped a whole yolk into the whites and despite my efforts to get it out, there was some left in it. Now I don't know enough about baking and whether or not one can get soft peaks if there's yolk mixed in and I whisked until my arm tired to no avail. In the end, I improvised (a dangerous move in baking) and just mixed the chocolate mixture with the egg whites that was still pretty much a soup. It turned into very liquidy batter that I poured into a pan and crossed my fingers.

 Luckily, I don't know what chiffon cake is supposed to be like and it turned out pretty okay! I mean, it tasted good, I just don't know if the texture was right. When we had both cakes out, we decided to use the chiffon cake just a little differently.

Luckily there was still a lot of chiffon cake leftover. 

Before serving it to be the birthday girl, we snazzed it up just a little bit with some icing sugar and strawberries. Lil knew she was getting cake, she just didn't know what kind, or how it was going to look.

The strawberry <3

 Of course we served it with some ice cream and berries.  

Happy Birthday Lil!

de vous laisser parler d'amour
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Friday June 24th - Diners, Dives and Cupcakes!

Guess where we were!

Last week,  my wife Gillian and I were in Toronto makin' Tofu. Now rewind two weeks to when we visited our neighbouring nation's capitol! We drove nine and a half hours, along with my Friday cooking partner Sivan, to visit one of our friends who was working down there for the summer. Along the way we tried to hit as many TV-famous places as our stomachs would allow! 

Stop #1: The Dining Car, Somewhere near Philadelphia

I cannot resist trying the items seen on the show, especially if Guy Fieri makes a "OMG-this-is-delicious-sound" when he tastes it. So I got the creamed chipped beef, which is roast beef sliced up into little squares. This gets fried up so they're like little chips and then they get covered in cream. It actually looks and sounds pretty plain but it does in fact taste quite good. I also got my first taste of grits, which kind of didn't taste like much of anything.

Creamed Chipped Beef served on Toast

The other two ordered chocolate chip pancakes and french toast (with real vanilla bean!). The Dining Car had the definite charm of an actual dining car, since it is a dining car. Its vast menu of comfort food items had us super excited to eat and we loved the classic look inside the car itself. I didn't end up trying to the scrapple though. 

Stop #2: Chap's Pit Beef, right outside Baltimore 

My reuben. I miss that sandwich and the 1000 island sauce..

A big hunk of beef roasted on a pit full of charcoal, the outside a crispy, charred coat, while the inside contains every rareness of beef conceivable to human kind. Just ask for your preferred doneness, they'll slice at the right spot, throw it between some crispy, grilled bread, smear on a dollop of horse radish and viola! Best sandwich ever. 

Sandwiches + mac & cheese, beans, fries, coleslaw. Yum.

This place was definitely a dive, located smack in between a 24 hour adult video store and a gentleman's club but man, is it ever good food.

Stop #3: Tune Inn, Washington D.C. (It would seem that at the time of writing this, the restaurant had caught fire. I guess we had good timing and I hope they recover quickly.)

I just finished The Lost Symbol, this morning and I'm convinced that Dan Brown had it all wrong. I don't want to say too much, but I'm pretty sure the hidden treasure of Ancient Mysteries in D.C is found at the Tune Inn, just behind the Library of Congress. 

The secret hides within the pyramid.

We, or maybe I, came here for the famed beer-battered burger but while here, we found a hidden treasure (to us Canadians) known only as Mac & Cheese Wedges. Deep fried Mac & Cheese served with salsa ranch dipping sauce which can only be described as wow! Crispy on the outside, gooey and cheesy on the inside.

Robert Langdon, eat your heart out. Though, maybe
that's what I just did...

Then there was also a delicious sandwich known as Joe's West Virginia, roast beef, american cheese, signature sauce on grilled rye. Like a grilled cheese, with meat...and sauce. Excellent! Though I would still say my reuben from Chap's was better.

Finally, we come to one of the greatest burgers ever. Beer battered, and cooked to a medium doneness. There was nothing else particularly special added to the burger but it tasted great. The added crunch from the battered shell, followed by the tender, juicy burger is a combination that I had only ever dreamed of.

Missed Opportunity #1: Grubby's? In Baltimore.

The picture says it all. And I passed up the chance to eat it.

Stop #4: Georgetown Cupcakes in Georgetown D.C.

After an hour long line-up, we cut the seal on this box.

Gillian claims she can never eat cupcakes again after this experience because no cupcake will ever be able to top these. I'm not sure I agree with never eating cupcakes again but I do agree that these cupcakes were worth waiting an hour in line for. Especially that strawberry one in the top right corner. All of them were so perfectly made, incredibly moist and not too much icing, just enough to be simply awesome.

so delicious and moist

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Fried Tofu in Tomato Sauce - Happy Canada Day!

Well, you get the idea.

I had been toying with the idea of making something that would be representative of Canada Day for dinner on Friday but decided not to mostly due to lack of ideas. I went for a simple dish since we spent most of the day enjoying the Canada Day festivities which, here in Montréal, featured line dancing and yoga. What could be simpler than some tofu mixed with some tomatoes and onions atop a bed of steamed rice?

Dau Hu Ca Chua
Printable Recipe

Ingredients
1 package of firm or extra firm tofu, drained and cut into squares or cubes
3-4 tomatoes (I used Roma or Italian tomatoes), diced
1 onion, sliced
1-2 shallots, sliced
1-2 green onions, thinly sliced
1-2 tsp Fish Sauce (Adjust to taste, those tsps are guesses, I just pour from the bottle)
Sugar
Oil

Preparation
First we need to get rid of a lot of the liquid in the tofu. Place some paper towel in a container and place the tofu on the paper towel to absorb the tofu juice. Place something heavy (a bowl full of water) on top of the tofu and let sit for a while. Meanwhile, prep the veggies.

Put a little oil in a pan on medium-high heat and add the onions and shallots. Cook them down for about a minute then add the tomatoes, fish sauce and a sprinkling of sugar. Stir, reduce to low-medium heat and let that cook down.

I like tofu steaks.

Put a tbsp of oil in another pan on high heat. Once the oil is hot, add the tofu and fry until golden brown on both (or all) sides. Set aside on some paper towel to soak excess oil. Once they're all done, add to the tomato sauce pan and let them all stew together. Top off with the green onions, serve on rice.

A delicious mess.

So it turns out this easy recipe I had planned happened to be red and white but I didn't notice it until the next day. I guess I'm just subconciously patriotic though I did notice myself humming the national anthem while making it. Hmm. I'm told this recipe tastes even better when you make your own tofu to put in it and I don't doubt it one bit.

Happy Canada Day!

Well I need these baskets back...
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