Steamed tofu with meat sauce

This is a very Chinese-style dish that often made it to my family's dinner table back home in Malaysia; steamed silken tofu with meat sauce garnished with ginger-garlic oil and scallions. I made this on a work night to go with some rice and simple stir-fried veggies and that's dinner in less than 45minutes.

You can use vegetarian "meat" as a substitute for this dish as I had done. I bet you couldn't even tell the difference from that picture! Feel free to use minced chicken, pork or shrimps in this recipe, it would still be very tasty.


Steamed Tofu with Meat Sauce Recipe:

250g of silken tofu block, handle with care

Sauce:
150 grams of minced chicken, pork and/or shrimps
1/2 teaspoon of sesame oil
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 scallions/green onions - chopped and used only the white part, reserve the green ends for garnish
1 teaspoon of chopped ginger
1 tablespoon of goji berries (optional)
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon of brown sugar
2 tablespoon Chinese cooking wine
1/2 teaspoon of sesame seeds
1/4 cup of water
salt/pepper to taste
1 tablespoon of oil

Garnish:
Green scallions (green part of the stalk)
garlic-ginger oil (recipe below)


Method:
1. Carefully remove tofu out of its package and pat it dry with a paper towel. Wrap paper towels around the tofu and set it over a plate, cover with another plate and put some weight over the top. This is to draw the extra water out of the tofu. I used canned vegetables as my weights. Do this for 10 minutes and prep the other ingredients.

2. To make the meat sauce, pre-heat a pan over medium high heat until hot. Add oil and sesame oil and add in garlic for a saute, do not burn the garlic. Add your minced meat in and cook the meat for 5 minutes, until it is nicely infused and fragrant with the oil.

3. Add the rest of the ingredients in and let the meat sauce come to a simmer. Once it is slightly reduce, the meat sauce is ready. Set aside.

4. Remove the paper towels off the tofu, and place the silken tofu in a plate. Add the meat sauce over the top of the tofu and steam it in a steamer for 10 minutes.

5. To serve, garnish with chopped green scallions and ginger-garlic oil drizzled over the top.



Ginger-garlic oil
(makes about 1/4 cup of ginger-garlic oil)
2 tablespoon of garlic
1 teaspoon of ginger
1/4 cup of vegetable oil

Method:

There are two ways you can do this, by frying the ginger and garlic in oil in a pan on your stove top until golden brown or via your microwave. I did it in the microwave because it's simple and does not compromise the flavor of the oil.

1. Mix the ginger and garlic with oil in a microwavable bowl and put it in the microwave for 2 minutes. If the garlic and ginger still looks a bit pale after two minutes, cook for another 30 secs until it is golden brown.