Fried Tofu with Teriyaki Sauce

For this dish it is suggested that you have some cooked rice to pair it with. For this you will need the following ingredients.
Serves 5-7 with rice

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Flour for dusting and Oil for frying
A block of Extra Firm Tofu (16 oz)
1/4 C Dark Brown Sugar
1/4 C Soy Sauce
1/4 C Rice Wine Vinegar
Shredded sushi seaweed for garnish

Pour your oil in the narrowest pot you have as to save on the amount of oil needed put it on medium heat. It will take a couple moments to get to frying temperature. Next put a cup of flour in a wide bowl, and set aside. Press your tofu lightly with a paper towel so it will remove as much of the moisture as possible before cutting in to cubes at an inch squared. After cutting, check the oil by pinching a small amount of flour in to the oil if you get a fair reaction that looks just like a soup on a low simmer then you can begin. Dredge them in the flower in batches before dropping them in to the oil you don’t want to do it all at once because that will drop the temperature of the oil and for most stove top burners you will not be able to hold temp without splitting them in to at least two batches. I did mine in four batches total, but I wasn’t in a hurry. Let them fry until golden brown or a light manilla color for those who know their around an office better.

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The bubbles don’t have to be big you just want to make sure that when they come out they can drain. rinse and repeat with all batches until all the tofu is drying off. For the teriyaki sauce take a small pot and put your sugar, vinegar and soy in it before bringing it up to a simmer making sure to stir until the sugar has been dissolved and let simmer for a couple minutes until all the flavors meld together or about three or four minutes.

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I got a little impatient and cranked up to high which you can do if you want to watch it for a minute or two. You do not want the sugar to burn or else you will need to try again. After your tofu has dried appropriately you can use your sauce to dip into or pour over depending on how you like your sauces to be done. Some people are picky, no judging here.

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I got my tofu placed on cooked white rice and seaweed around it and from here I just poured the sauce over the top and dug in. The picture didn’t come so clear as I had hoped but its tofu blocks on rice. So I hope you enjoy this recipe and if you liked what you saw give some of my other dishes a chance their in the cooking category on my blog.

Have a good day everyone, oh and before I forget starting in December their will hopefully be more posts I am getting a little bit more comfortable doing this as well as the youtube videos if you watch those link is to the side. I am going to try to up my game to do two a week I feel like it can be done. Wish me luck.

Fried Rice –

Hey everyone, time for another simple recipe this time to use up any rice you may have this works best after the rice has cooled. You will need the following.

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3 large eggs
1/4 C chopped green onions
2 qt of long grain white rice

Of course you want to have your seasonings of choice on hand. In a non stick pan on medium high heat start by cracking your eggs in to the pan until they begin to get opaque. Next is to toss your rice mixing the two together until the eggs are almost completely cooked. Picture below for example. Make sure to keep your rice moving as to not get over cooked in places this dish from start to finish takes less then five minutes if the rice is already cooked.

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Last is to add your green onion as well as any seasonings you prefer, making sure to mix everything up with your spat of choice.From there just plate up Mine in the pic has a little bit of chili powder for color and a touch of heat. Shredded seaweed works well, and of course you can always just grab a spoon and dig in.

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If you do not want to use or do not have a non stick pan then just a drop of oil is needed before putting the eggs in. From there just go for it.

Next, two recipes on this blog will be a tofu dish fried and with sauce over rice once again. Rice was on sale so I got a big bag to last me for a while. The other recipe will be a dish I actually took as a challenge / idea from someone on twitter. Breakfast cupcakes. Me being a stickler for things got to be a problem there, but over all the dish tasted good and was actually very good for breakfast. If you

Beef and bell peppers over rice

For this you will need the following for ten portions heaped over rice. This is a dish that holds well in the fridge and can be eaten as is or over rice or noodles. When my friends or myself are feeling a little under the weather we eat a bowl of this. It can cure what ails ya.

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Seven large peppers consisting of three red bell peppers, two yellow, a green bell pepper, and one poblano pepper.

One large white onion, one bunch of green onions, one shallot, and five or six good sized cloves of crushed garlic.

Meat wise you will need a half pound of each beef and pork chorizo and a pound and a half of 75/25 ground beef ( 25% fat)

Otherwise you will need a tablespoon of oil. (your choice) I had olive nearby but any will do.

Start by getting your oil in the pot before putting the pot on medium low heat.

Peel and smash your garlic before adding them to the pot. Dice your onion type items ( green, white, and shallot)  before dumping them in to the pot and giving them a good stir. You don’t want to hear a whole lot of sizzling.The pot will be there just to hold everything.

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Give it a good stir before dicing up your peppers. Make sure to remove the white ribs of pith (That’s the kind of soft stuff forming the ribs inside the pepper.) Dice your peppers up and toss them in. Even if you are not the fastest with a knife you should have very little effect on the food. We are letting all the guests know each other flavor wise. Once it is mixed up in a pot take it off to cool. If your doing rice with this you can dump the veggies in to the future rice pot while the meat cooks.

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Place your pot on medium high heat devoid of all vegetable matter before dumping in your chorizo. You want these to cook first because this will allow the spices in the fat to be released so that the beef can pick up the flavor. Once that has been rendered you can dump in your beef and let that cook up. While that is going in this is only going to have the spice of the chorizo which will be very mellow once it is all tossed together with the chopped offerings. This will be fairly mild overall.

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Now the main portion of cooking will be when you dump everything back in to the pot with the warm meat and let everything hit a low simmer. Doing this will draw some of the liquid out of the peppers giving you a very nice well rounded sauce made in pot with little effort to pair with our bell peppers and beef.

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Cook some rice and cook an egg sunny side up and build your bowl. It follows very few diets but by portions it can be tweaked with adding more vegetables or less fat if you need to.

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This recipe was just a guess from the bell peppers and beef mentioned in the Cowboy Bebop anime. I would think that even a pair of bounty hunters could enjoy this. Thank you and see you all next time. Happy Easter.