香辣豆豉豆干 Spicy Black Bean Dried Tofu

Cooking for a small 4-person family, this was The Slow Chopper's mother's basic outline for every meal:
1. Veggie/Greens
2. Meat
3. Soup (occasionally)
4. "The In-between dish"

"The In-between dish", as I call it, is neither meat nor greens. To my mother (and thus, by inheritance, me as well), the following foods would qualify in this category: eggs, tofu, potatoes and.......... that's actually about it.

As kids, my brother and I were easily appeased with just fried eggs seasoned with a splash of soy sauce and a dash of pepper. Come to think of it, when I was living with him in NJ, the traditional Ooi family-styled eggs was still the crowd favourite without fail.

Recently, I've been suffering from a lack of creativity when it comes to preparing "The In-between Dish", not to mention that since eggs have disappeared from our dinner menu (because we love eating eggs for breakfast), we (or just me, actually. Since The Camel doesn't hold the same principle in preparing his meals) have been left with only potatoes and tofu. A further disappointment came when my two attempts at making Hunan-styled potato strips 土豆丝 (previously successful in NJ) failed miserably.

Hence, all efforts were channeled to making tofu dishes.

One afternoon during lunch, as my colleagues chirpily devoured their food and yakked away, discussing the woes of our industry, I focused all my attention on this one dish on the table -- stir-fried dried tofu in a wok. I picked through the various ingredients, contemplated the flavours, and plotted a recipe in my head.

Two days later, The Camel gave me the thumbs-up. When we had our vegetarian friends over for dinner, I prepared this dish as well and removed the pork. They liked it too.

Yay!

Ingredients:
1. Garlic
2. Red Onion (cut into strips)
3. Ginger (cut into strips)
4. Dried red chillis (remove seeds)
5. Fresh red chillis (remove seeds and chopped)
6. Leek （both white and green parts, chopped)
7. Fermented black beans 豆豉
8. Soy sauce
9. Drief tofu 豆干 (ideally those that are browned/smoked on the outside)
10. Optional - pork belly 五花肉

*p.s. I apologize for not providing the proper measurements for the ingredients. My mother was a strong advocate of the "cooking by gut feeling" school of thought.


1. Heat the wok thoroughly. Add a reasonable amount of vegetable oil (depends on how much oil you like your food to be soaked in).
2. Add garlic, red onion, ginger, dried chilli and the white parts of the leek. Keep the flame low to avoid burning the garlic. Stir to ensure that the flavours are completely soaked in the oil.
3. Add pork belly.
4. Add dried tofu. Stir well.
5. Add fermented black beans. If the beans are clumped together, make sure you crush them well and mix them evenly with all the other ingredients.
6. Add only a small amount of soy sauce since the fermented black beans are already rather salty.
7. At the end, add in the fresh red chillis and green parts of the leek. Stir for about 10 seconds before turning the flame off.

Serve hot. Enjoy.


Posted by The Slow Chopper