Sesame sweet and sour tofu

Tasty tofu. Good tofu is tasty. A tasty tofu dish.
I don’t like when people say “it’s a recipe for people that don’t like such ingredient”. If you don’t like tofu, there is no obligation to eat some. But,but… Let’s say this is a recipe that makes tofu taste and feel differently. It is marinated and prepared in a Chinese style sauce.

It’s very firm momendoufu (cotton tofu). I’ve put a plate on the block during 15 minutes to squeeze out excess water.
Cut, and mixed with a marinade (1 tbs soy sauce, a pinch of sugar, 2 tbs Chinese wine, 1/2 ts wuxi 5 spices mix) and let 1/2 hour.
Then I passed the cubes in a plate of potato starch and stir-fried till golden.

For the sauce :
Heat 1 tbs of sugar (here kurozato black cane sugar), when it’s getting into caramel.
On lower heat, add in water, paprika powder or paste, grated garlic, the rest of the plate of starch and the plate of marinade.
Stir till it takes texture. Add some black rice vinegar. Check salt, add chili pepper to taste, more water if you want.
Reheat the tofu in the sauce.

Top with a little fragrant sesame oil and toasted sesame seeds.
Yuummmmm….

As a side a salad of lettuce, onion, parsley and umi-budo “sea grapes”.

umi-budo (more here)

Served with genmai (brown rice).

Leaves and buds, plant powered early Spring meal

The big lunch. A veggie orgy.
You have seen already 3 dishes, here is the final installment.

I cooked this with all the veggies leftovers I had. Spring cabbage and maitake mushrooms that you see here. Also onion, kintoki red carrot and I’ve added potatoes. At the end, more greens of shungiku.

The veggies are cooked without oil, steamed in the pan. Just salt. They bring enough complementary flavors.

The dish : jardinière de légumes (vegetable garden lady). That looks dry, but it’s very mushy, soft and juicy.

Garlic and yuzu sautéed tsubomina. That you are detailed here.

The main dish maybe is the tofu on wasabi leaves, from this post.

The last slice of this delicious black sesame azuki bean terrine that I had frozen, a while ago (here). I had 2 huge bean terrines that fed me for a while. Now I need to bake the next ones.

Garlic and yuzu sautéed tsubomina

A simple and incredibly tasty dish.

I had a pack of tsubomina (more here). I’ve cleaned and cut them.

I cut some yellow peel from a yuzu lemon, and minced garlic. And I cooked in a drying pan. At the end, I’ve added more peel, salt and a splash of yuzu juice.

Mmmm…

Ryori, a Japanese classic menu… (compilation by cooking techniques)

Quick list of Japanese “classics” to help you navigate on this site. That’s not complete at all. I tried to make it representative. I often make them with a twist, but I tell you in the post.

Short memo about the Japanese meal

-all dishes are brought at the same time, ideally served in individual dishes, one plate per item.
-there is rice + soup + three items. Or more.

The items, called okazu tend to be side-dish sized. On the menu in restaurants, traditional style was to present the okazu by cooking technique.

ONE :

GOHAN, rice
rice cuisine list ***** sushi list

and ONE :

吸い物,SUIMONO
A soup to drink !