Yasai Cha Han

This weekend was chore-tastic but also really hot, so I wanted something nourishing but not too heavy. I'm still working my way through the vegetarian section of the Wagamama cookbook, and this recipe called for things I mostly already had in the fridge. A quick cycle to the local grocer (and a quick swim when we got back to cool down) and I was able to pick up the rest of the ingredients. It was super-fast to prepare; easily a new weekday meal for me. You'll want really good fresh ingredients for this, as there are no other flavourings beyond soy sauce, so the vegetables need to speak for themselves. The rice instructions and the sheer amount of salt were both a shock to me, but I followed the recipe and they did work out.

Ingredients

• A ladleful of Thai fragrant rice
• Four ladlefuls of boiling water
• two king oyster mushrooms, cubed
• 250g firm tofu, cubed
• 8-10 baby sweetcorn
• 15-20 sugarsnap peas
• 4 spring onions, trimmed and cut into 4cm pieces
• 1 tsp salt
• 3 tbsp light soy sauce
• 2 eggs

Cook the rice in the boiling water on a medium heat for 4-5 minutes, until softened but not done. Drain and refresh under cold running water; set aside. If you have wobbly tofu (which I usually do), fry the tofu in a little oil in a hot wok, turning carefully and occasionally until lightly seared on a few sides. Scoop out and set aside.

Turn the heat up, add a little more oil, and stir-fry the mushrooms for five minutes, until golden and bouncy. Throw in the vegetables, rice, salt, and soy sauce, and stir fry for a further 2-3 minutes, until the rice is cooked and the vegetables are bright. Add the egss and stir fry until they are just cooked. Divide between two bowls and serve with miso soup on the side.

Asparagus Shiraae

Asparagus is in season, and I have a Japanese food craving. Irreconcilable? I do not think this word means what you think it means! I went out on a limb and tried the most unusual (to me) recipe from The Guardian's Top Ten Asparagus Recipes. This definitely isn't for everyone... I can imagine the texture would really be off-putting for people who don't like jelly. But if you know you like soft tofu and sesame, give this a try. The recipe said serves four... well, that was total nonsense. Served two of us, with plain boiled rice and nasu dengaku to go with.

Ingredients

• 300g soft/silken tofu
• 200g asparagus
• 4 tbsp sesame seeds, toasted and ground
• 2 tbsp caster sugar
• 1 tsp light soy sauce
• ½ tsp miso
• Salt

Drain the tofu from the packet, wrap it in plenty of kitchen paper, put it on a plate and place a weight on top of it to squeeze the water out. Leave the tofu for 30 minutes, until it weighs around 180g. Remove the woody part of the asparagus, then cut each spear diagonally into thirds.Bring some water to the boil in a saucepan, then add a little salt and lightly cook the asparagus for a few minutes. It should still be firm when drained. Cool the spears under cold running water and pat them dry.

Put the tofu in a bowl and add the ground sesame seeds, sugar, light soy sauce and miso and mix thoroughly. Add the asparagus to the bowl and mix into the dressing, seasoning with extra salt if required. Serve!

Yasai Itameru (Stir-fried tofu in coconut noodles)

I went back to the Wagamama cookbook for this one, and it wasn't half bad. I think the recipes still lack focus, having too many different kinds of vegetables, and the quantities are all over the place. However the sauce was very tasty, if a little rich. I also think it's silly to try to stir fry tofu at the same time as your vegetables: you can get a nice crispy skin if you do them separately, as shown in the photo. I'm posting my amended recipe rather than their original.

Ingredients
For the sauce

• 1 garlic clove
• a thumb of ginger
• two lemongrass sticks
• 100ml hot water
• 1 tsp salt
• 3 tsp sugar
• 100g in of coconut milk or cream (depending on how fat you feel)

For the stir-fry

• 75g rice noodles
• 1 red chilli
• 1 red onion
• a bunch of Chinese vegetables, like pak choi
• 50g sweet potato (about an inch from the middle)
• 200g firm tofu, cut into cubes
• a bunch of fresh coriander
• juice of half a lime (or lemon)
• 2 tbsp light soy sauce

Crush the garlic, peel and grate the ginger, and finely shred the lemongrass. Cook in a small saucepan in the hot water until the garlic has softened. Stir in the remaining ingredients and cook gently for a few minutes, but don't let it boil or the coconut milk can separate.

Cook the noodles according to their packet instructions. Peel and (if you like) deseed the chilli, then finely chop. Finely slice the red onion. Julienne the sweet potato. Clean and separate the pak choi. Stir fry the sweet potato and red onion until becoming tender, then add the rest of the vegetables and stir fry until just barely cooked, then remove from the pan to free it up for the tofu. Stir fry the tofu until golden and crispy, then return the vegetables to the pan and squeeze over the lime juice and soy sauce. Combine the noodles with the coconut sauce, and serve the vegetables over the top of them, topped with the coriander and a lemon or lime segment.

Satay Tofu

About as decadent as veganism can get. Fried firm tofu, crispy on the outside but jelly-like on the inside, topped with rich coconut, peanut butter and lime sauce, resting gently on piles of plain boiled rice and simply stir-fried bok choi. I'm glad I went for an extra 20km cycle ride today!

Silken Tofu with Ginger and Spring Onions

For years I have struggled to use silken tofu correctly. I've made some good brownies, and some utterly terrible ones. I've lost the stuff in a stir fry more times than I can count. I bought a packet the other day and vowed to find a way to use it. I remembered a few months ago reading that you can tell a Japanese restaurant by their agedashi tofu, in the same way you can tell an Indian restaurant from its butter chicken. And I thought -- hmm, that's served cold, right? Maybe I can use the silken tofu. Turns out, you can, and it's fantastic. Very different from crispy fried firm tofu, but delicious in its own right. Probably not for you if you don't like jelly-like textures; it was like a thick set custard but with a grassy, light flavour. Worked really well with some tempura'd veggies and simple cucumber sushi.

Ingredients

• 3-4 spring onions
• half a thumb of fresh ginger
• light soy sauce
• one packet of silken tofu, drained

Trim, tail and finely slice the spring onions cross ways. Peel, then grate or finely chop the ginger. Fry gently with the spring onions for 3-4 minutes, until softened and golden. Slice the tofu lengthways into two large rectangular pieces. Top with the fried ginger and spring onion and drizzle with soy sauce. Serve!

Wagamama Week: Rice Noodle Soup

We used the leftover konbu and katsuobushi from making yesterday's dashi to make a second dashi stock for this recipe, which did indeed taste stronger and more interesting than the primary stock. Unfortunately, the subtle notes were buried under an avalanche of miso...

Ingredients (Quantities in brackets are my revised suggestions):

• 150g rice noodles
• 500g tofu block, cut into small steaks (400g)
• 2 tbsp miso paste (1/4 tsp -- not a typo!)
• 1/2 tsp shichimi (1 1/2 tsp)
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• handful of roughly-chopped choi sum
• 2 spring onions, trimmed and sliced
• 1 litre miso soup (600 ml)
• small handful of coriander

Cook the rice noodles according to the packet instructions. Lightly blot the tofu steaks with kitchen paper. Combine the miso paste with the shichimi and spread over the tops, then fry on a hot griddle, miso-side up, for 6-8 minutes or until the tofu is hot and the base is crispy. Remove the steaks to a warm plate and fry the choi sum and spring onions on the griddle for a minute, until just wilted. Serve the noodles topped with choi sum topped with tofu, with miso soup ladled over.

Verdict:

The tofu stands up to the frying nicely, much better than yesterday's mushrooms. But:

WHOA. MISO. SO MUCH MISO. MORE MISO THAN MY TASTE BUDS HAVE ROOM FOR.

Seriously, 2 tbsp of raw miso paste on your tofu is just too rich. I think you want just enough to stick the shichimi to the tops of the tofu... which on balance I prefer fried on both sides, for maximum crispiness. It's also important to serve this right away, since the crispy base immediately starts sogging underneath the stock, of which there is a ridiculous quantity in the original recipe.

Pan-fried Tofu

While away in Margaret River, we went out to a nice restaurant I'd visited before. After a day tasting wine and nibbles and a fairly hefty brunch, I wanted something simple and vegetarian, so ordered the 'corn-crusted tofu with noodle salad'. To my surprise, when it arrived, they had 'run out of corn-crusted tofu', so replaced it with a blob of silken tofu! Of course, you can't just eat silken tofu on top of a salad; it's an ingredient for say, vegan brownies or Chinese soup. Baffling to have it trickling down the side of my cold noodle salad... for maybe the second time in my life, I sent the meal back and asked for a speedy replacement (fish of the day, excellent).

So when I got back home, I still had a craving for properly-cooked tofu, so picked up a lovely firm block from my local Chinese greengrocers', along with a big bundle of cheerful, flowering greens. I cut the tofu into half-inch thick triangles and dipped them into a mix of half-flour, half Chinese spice and a generous grating of black pepper and salt. Pan-fried over a moderate heat until golden and crisp, but still moist and wobbly in the middle, hen served atop the greens and rice, it was exactly what I wanted. Yum!

Salt n Pepper Tofu Stir Fry

To go with our vegetarian steaks, we made a quick stir fry. The tofu was salted and peppered and fried separately, then left to drain. We finely chopped the vegetables and about half a thumb of ginger, stir-fried them quickly for a few minutes, then added the tofu and a splash of soy sauce at the end. Nom.

Tofu Dolsot Bibimbap

Just love this meal. Tonight instead of the usual beef, we fried strips of tofu rubbed in Chinese five-spice until crispy, and served it with a more European melange of vegetables - celery, silverbeet and carrots. The usual kimchi and sweet chilli sauce also featured, of course! We improvised heat mats with some spare tiles from the garage, turned upside down...

Rice Paper Rolls

I was amazed to find that I hadn't yet blogged this recipe, as it's become such a family favourite over the last few years. It's a meal best prepared by two or three people, as there are many stages that can be performed in parallel. After a couple of times making it, you'll find it takes less than an hour, and it's also a lot of fun!

Rice paper can be purchased in Asian grocery stores - usually one pack is enough for eight people, and costs only a few pounds / dollars. The rolls end up being about as long as half the diameter of the rice paper, so if you want small ones, buy small rice paper; large, buy large!

You can use whatever dipping sauce you like; I often use satay, but hoisin, plum or even just a little light soy sauce would all work perfectly. The filling ingredients can also be varied easily, and you don't need to make all of them the same. We often serve these rolls with hameul pajeon in a kind of Pan-Asian feast, but they work equally well with steamed rice or a light Asian-style salad, or just alone (and preferably, a bit smaller than shown here) as starters.

Instead of giving a guide to making an exact number of rolls (impossible!), I give examples of fillings, which you can use in equal volumes and just scale how much you cook depending on how many people you have. Don't feel like you need to include all of the ingredients, just pick the flavours you feel like using. The ones in the picture use carrot, cucumber, rice noodles, tonkatsu, mint and coriander.

Filling ingredients:

• fresh herbs: mint, coriander, basil
• cool crisp shredded vegetables: carrot, cucumber, lettuce
• protein: tonkatsu, cold shredded beef, crispy duck, cold lemon chicken, deep-fried marinaded tofu, fresh tofu, tamagoyaki (sweet Japanese omelette), cooked shitake mushrooms, cooked prawns
• carbs: cold rice, cold coconut rice, cold sweet rice, thick azuki bean paste, cooked rice noodles, fried rice noodles

You will also need:

• a stack of dry rice paper rounds
• hot water (boil a kettle and leave for at least 30 seconds)
• a frying pan, deep enough to take some hot water and wide enough to easily place in and remove the rice paper
• soft tongs, a wide slotted spatula, or asbestos fingers
• two large, clean, flat plates

Start by preparing all of your ingredients - wash and pick leaves from herbs, shred the vegetables, cook your protein and ready your carbs. It's helpful to arrange these in small bowls or plates around the work surface where you will be making the rolls. Prepare any dipping sauces ahead; chill if needed.

Pour hot water into your frying pan and place a single rice paper round in it. Leave for 30 seconds or so, until malleable, then remove using the tongs, spatula, or just your fingers. If it tears easily as you remove it, you have left it in too long, so discard and leave the next one in for less time. If it is not easily flexible and malleable, put it back in. If the water goes cold, discard it and refresh with new hot water. If you run out of water, top it up! It's really nice to have one person readying rice paper and one or two others filling the rolls.

Place the ready rice paper round on one of the plates and add your fillings. I found this beautiful guide to rolling them perfectly, so check it out if you're not sure how much to add or how to roll. When it's all rolled up, place on the other plate. If you need to wait before serving them, make sure to sprinkle them with water and cover with cling film, or cover with a very damp teatowel, so that they don't dry out. They will last several hours unserved, but if you refrigerate them over night, the rice paper has a tendency to stick to itself, so they may tear as you pull them apart. If you really needed to keep them and not let them tear, you could put cling film between each one, but it's a bit of a waste of plastic :) Just eat them and enjoy!

Tofu, Asparagus, Cucumber and Lentil Salad

Sometimes you just want a meal of really clean, crisp flavours, preferably without any meat or milk. Just delicious, nutritious things which can be cooked quickly. This really fits the bill!

Ingredients:

• a block of firm tofu enough for two (about 350g)
• a cucumber
• two handfuls of puy lentils
• a handful of toasted cashew nuts or peanuts
• a handful of alfalfa or other sprouts
• a handful of cooked asparagus or green beans, cold, sliced
• bright, fresh herbs, like basil, mint, coriander or dill
• juice of a lemon
• olive oil

Cube the tofu and shallow-fry it for a few minutes on each side, until golden and crisp. Meanwhile, boil the lentils - they usually take 20-25 minutes. Cut the cucumber in half lengthwise, scoop out the seeds, then cube. Dice the herbs. When the tofu is cooled and the lentils are cooked, drain them and toss everything together, along with the lemon juice and olive oil. Taste for seasoning. You could probably chill this for a day or two, minus the olive oil, but it was devoured quickly at our house!

Deep-fried Tofu

Another of our fun purchases from GumTree: a deep-fat fryer. I experimented with the salt 'n pepper tofu recipe I love, this time deep-frying the tofu for about 8 minutes at 180 C. Not bad - it's a little too easy to over cook the cubes, even when I made them quite large. I think 5 minutes at 190 C would be better, or perhaps flouring them very lightly first. I will experiment again and see how it goes :)

Pan-Fried Tofu

I really like tofu - it's best deep-fried at Japanese restaurants (mmmm, with salt and pepper) - but at home you can make a decent version with a shallow pan, a sharp-edged spatula, and some care. It's nice to marinade it beforehand but it's not absolutely essential. Tonight as a base, I quickly fry up some sesame seeds, thinly-sliced cauliflower and broccoli, and toss in some soaked rice noodles with some soy sauce. Nothing too complicated, so that the sweet and subtle tones of the tofu can come through.

Ingredients:

• 350g firm or extra-firm silken tofu block
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 tbsp rice wine or mirin
• 2 spring onions, very finely chopped
• 1 tsp sugar

Slice the tofu block in half along its longest axis, then again crossways twice so you have eight large-ish flat pieces. Combine the other ingredients in a bowl and whisk until the sugar is dissolved. Put the tofu in a small flat dish and cover with the marinade, then leave for 30 minutes to 2 hours, depending on how much time you have. Prepare anything else you want for the meal in the meantime - e.g. cook rice, slice vegetables.

When you're ready, heat a few tbsp of vegetable or sunflower oil in a heavy-based frying pan - non-stick if you have a very good plastic or wooden spatula, or metal-based if you have only a very sharp metal spatula. Once the oil is hot, gently shake or push off any marinade clinging to the tofu blocks, and add the tofu to the pan, in a single layer. Fry for 4-5 minutes on the top and bottom until golden brown. I emphasise using a good spatula because you want to make sure when you turn it that the fried skin does not separate from the milky body. When the tofu slices are done, remove them to a plate. Reduce the heat and pour the marinade ingredients into the pan. Cook for 3-4 minutes until reduced, and the spring onions soften. Serve the tofu atop your chosen accompaniments, with the thickened marinade poured over.