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.

Very Easy Roasted Duck Breast

Honestly, this duck dish does not have a name. But it is the duck dish for all duck dishes because this is a basic duck preparation that anyone can use and then customized to their liking.

I love duck. It's one of those meats that I can't get enough of. Have you had Chinese roast duck? That crispy brown skin and gray flesh nicely imbued with Chinese spices and herbs? It is to die for. But I do not have time to dry and blow a whole duck's skin up before roasting for that Peking goodness so I make do with a nice slab of duck breast from Lac Brome Ducks.

Why are ducks from Lac Brome Ducks special? I just know that this is the oldest duck-breeding farm in Canada that breeds Peking ducks - and knowing that their ducks are not forced-fed for foie gras is good enough for me.

It's really easy to get duck at the market, your everyday grocery stores carries frozen duck breasts in their freezer sections at the very least. And cooking duck breast cannot be any easier. Duck is probably the only poultry you can eat a little raw. You treat it like steak and cook it to your desired done-ness; I like mine medium. There are two ways to finish cooking this duck breast, on the stove top or in the oven. This is the stove top method.


A Very Easy Roasted Duck Breast
serves 2 people

1 Duck Breast, with skin intact
salt & pepper

Optional seasonings:
1 teaspoon szechuan peppercorn
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

Chinese Five Spiced Sauce:
1 teaspoon five spiced powder
1 star anise
1 tablespoon of brown sugar
1/2 cup of chicken broth
2 teaspoon of duck fat, reserved from duck breast
1 sprig of fresh thyme
1 clove of garlic, crushed
Salt to taste



Method:
1. Crush the Szechuan peppers with cumin until powdery fine. Use a pepper mill to do this. Mix it with the garlic powder to combine well and set the seasoning aside.

2. Make small slits on the duck skin, in a crisscrossed manner - be careful to not cut through to the meat.

3. Season with salt and pepper throughout the duck breast. Rub the seasoning spice you had milled on the meat of the duck and not the skin. Let the duck breast sit for about 15 minutes so the flavors of the spice get a chance to work its magic through. It would be best if you could let it sit in the fridge overnight.

4. Heat a skillet on the stove - there is no need for any oil. Once the skillet is really hot, put the duck breast in skin side down and let it roast in the pan for 5 minutes. Reduce heat to medium.

At this point you'll be seeing a lot of oil gathering around the pan, save two teaspoons for the sauce later. Or save it all and use it as you would with olive oil, just remember to store it in the fridge so it won't go rancid.

5. After 5 minutes, pour the excess oil out into a small bowl. Turn the duck breast over and cook for another 4 minutes.

6. Remove duck breast onto a cutting board to let it rest for 10 minutes - cover with some aluminum foil.

To make the sauce:

7. In the same skillet, add two teaspoon of the duck fat and the crushed garlic. Saute until the oil is fragrant and then add in the chicken broth, star anise, brown sugar, five spiced powder and thyme. Scrape the fond off the skillet and let concoction boil until it is reduced by half.

8. To serve, slice the duck breast as thin as you want, serve with some sauce.

I served mine over some left over butternut squash puree. MMm!



You can make changes to this duck recipe to suit your taste. Duck a l'orange? Sure, follow the recipe for the sauce and drizzle it over the duck breast. Duck is a very tasty meat on its own and while you pay premium price in restaurants, you can easily make it at home at a fraction of the price!

Back soon

Oh boy, has it been that long?

I need to get my ass back to posting! Sorry, readers - I've been very bad in the kitchen, eating toasts with peanut butter for dinner and opening cans of tuna with a drizzle of ketchup with some hard-boiled eggs for dinner. AND I have 5 beautiful Lac Brome duck breasts in my freezer waiting to be thawed, roasted, basted, sliced and served with a nice spicy sauce.


Gotta get cooking...soon!

The open-face smoked meat sandwich for breakfast

Have you ever had one of those days when you just don't know what to eat? I've been having a lot of those days lately.

I stared at my fridge for 5 minutes thinking about what I could make for brunch. And after a long halloween night (yay, Montreal Canadiens won!), I was famished.


Thankfully, I had some left over smoked meat from Schwartz's so I made an open-face breakfast sandwich with some pan roasted cherry tomatoes. Topped with a lot of pepper, a sprinkle of salt and it was just scrumptious! I know, it's perhaps not the most healthiest of breakfast but I wanted some greasy grub, yo. Ok, it wasn't that greasy but I shoulda added some home fries to the mix, drizzled with some maple syrup for a little more kick!

Sorry for the lack of food postings, there's been lots of eating but not much of them are blog-worthy. I seriously need to cook up a storm.