"Century/Preserved Egg and Tofu" 皮蛋豆腐

It's summertime, and the weather has been incredibly hot!

One of my favorite dishes in summer is 皮蛋豆腐 (pidan tofu). I'm not sure what the exact word for 皮蛋 is in English, but it comes up as Century Egg on Wikipedia. This dish is very simple to make, and is very refreshing to eat on a hot day.

All you need is:

- 1 block of soft tofu

- ~ 2 or 3 century eggs (depends on the size or how much of it you want)

- salt

- sesame oil

- bonito flakes

All of these ingredients should be available at local grocery store or an Asian grocery store (for the bonito flakes, century/preserved eggs, tofu, and sesame oil).

First, I put the block of tofu into a bowl, and cut it up with a knife. Later, I switch to using chopsticks or a spoon to stir the tofu. My dad prefers to use a fork, which mixes the tofu and the rest of the ingredients really fine.

Second, I add in the eggs. I usually use an egg cutter to make it easier to mix evenly with the tofu.

Next, I add sesame oil, salt, and bonito flakes according to my tastes, and mix everything together again. You can experiment and see how much you need of each.

Then, you are done! It is ready to serve and to be eaten with rice!

Hope you enjoy this dish : )

Gyudon + Spinach = Easy Meal

On Mother's Day, I decided to cook some dishes for my mom. I browsed through several websites, blogs, etc. and I came across a recipe for gyudon from Appetite for China. Gyudon, a Japanese dish, basically means beef bowl. I decided to use this recipe since I am a beginner at cooking, and the recipe looked simple!

This recipe is taken from dianakuan's blog from Appetite for China.

Gyudon

Serves 4
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 large onion, thinly sliced
1 pound marbled beef, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons mirin
2 tablespoons sake
1/2 cup dark soy sauce
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon white sesame seeds

Cook plain rice in the rice cooker while you prepare the beef.

In a large sauté pan, heat vegetable oil o

ver high heat. Stir-fry the onions until soft, about 3 minutes. Add the beef and cook, stirring, until the meat is no longer red.

Add the mirin and sake and stir for 1 or 2 minutes while the alcohol lifts up the nice brown bits from the pan. Add the soy sauce and sesame oil and let simmer until sauce is reduced by half.

Serve hot over the rice and sprinkle

sesame seeds on top.

The gyudon didn't turn out the way I thought it would. I would recommend using a lot less soy sauce, or just adding soy sauce by your own taste. I added too much soy sauce and ended up having to counter the saltiness with sugar. Despite adding too much soy sauce, the dish went well with rice. In the future, I think I would also add some freshly cut hot chili peppers to add spiciness to the dish. I personally LOVE spicy food. (Note: As you can see in the picture there are some red peppers... I added a teeny bit of left over Thai food into the dish, since it was also a beef dish. I think it was Pad Kra Prao, which was basil beef.)

Along with gyudon, I just cooked up some spinach to balance the meal with some veggies! So basically you can cook up almost any vegetable this way, and it is very easy to make. You heat up your cooking pan with oil, add some pieces of sliced garlic. Then, you add your spinach and let it cook for a little bit. Also, add a little water if the spinach seems a bit dry. Then, just add some salt for some flavor, and it's done!

So if you are ever stuck at home with some beef, onions, and green veggies. You can easily cook up a beef bowl and cook some vegetables for a meal!