Tofu Salad

Tofu Salad, originally uploaded by myviaggi.

Contributed by BF:

The first time I tried this dish was soon after we met. I had eaten Tofu before, when i used to live in Singapore, but only in soups or hot dishes. When she served this small chunk of fresh tofu, I gingerly tried, and found it was delicious! I couldn't stop grabbing them with my chopsticks and eating them with extreme gusto. The soft cool tofu texture was balanced wonderfully with the combination of the sauces and the crispness of the raw vegetables on top. The next time GF made this dish, i urged her to teach me its simple recipe. And now even she she is not around, its a dish i make regularly by myself.

HOW TO PREPARE:

* Half pack of fresh tofu (medium firm to firm), rinse and dry;
* After placing it on the serving plate, slice it into small cubes;
* Season with salt and pepper, finely chopped sweet green pepper, spring onion and cilantro;
* Dribble some sesame oil (or chili sesame oil) on top; serve chilled;
(Add roasted sesame, soy sauce, or Japanese fish flakes to taste)

For a Western version of this dish, try to replace sesame oil with olive oil and green vegetables with chopped olives and add basil.

Garlic Scapes

Garlic Scapes, originally uploaded by myviaggi.

I was very surprised to see these in New York. Coincidentally, the weekend after I discovered them at a street market, The New York Times published an article mentioning them. Apparently, most of people are not familiar with garlic scapes, nor how to cook them. In China, this vegetable is simply stir-fried in the same way as many other vegetables. It is a "quick fire" dish with a bit salt and light soy sauce with omelet or thin pieces of beef. Fresh garlic scapes are very fragile and age quickly even more so than asparagus.

While I myself had never been keen on these (cooked in the Chinese way), I was so impressed by the taste brought out by the Western way. I think our soy sauce method might have overwhelmed the freshness of this unique vegetable. Last weekend, we grilled them as a side dish for our BBQ.

HOW TO PREPARE:

* Trim off the soft tip from each stem; if the bottom end is yellowish, it means they are aged and need to be trimmed too.
* Chop or break them to pieces about 4-5 inches long.
* Marinade the vegetable with olive oil, salt, pepper and some Provence herbs for half an hour.
* Grill them on a flat pan on the BBQ until the green color deepens slightly.

It is almost the same way as how asparagus would be grilled. Garlic scapes however are much crunchier. Instead of a bambooish taste, garlic scapes carry a hint of garlic without being 'garlicky'. A perfect companion for a beef burger.

Three-Green Salad

Three-Green Salad, originally uploaded by Robin "Evil Bob" A.

Something to chill you down in the exhausting hot summer days. This green salad is flavourful and easy to make.

HOW TO PREPARE:

* Three types of green vegetable combined to your taste. (All are easily available at the local stores.)
* Sweet green chili pepper;
* Coriander (cilantro);
* Cucumber (Asian cucumber preferred; if not available suggest seeding the cucumbers)
* Add a few slices of spring onion; cut or slice the vegetables to approx 2 inches (or 50mm) long. Season the salad with a pinch of salt, a pinch of sugar, dabs of sesame oil (or olive oil), lime juice. At the end, I also added a tea spoon of sweet soy paste (the same kind of paste to dip Peking Duck in). This is just a start, add more seasoning if you would like to have stronger flavours.

Serve after chilling the salad for five minutes in the refrigerator. Every mouthful of this dish is exotic and refreshing.

Baby Boi Choy with Shrimp

Baby Boi Choy with Shrimp, originally uploaded by Robin "Evil Bob" A.

GF:
As soon as I told my BF I was cooking stir fry, he asked me what kind of meat I would have. He is a meat guy and I am a vegetable girl. When I thought of doing a stir-fry, I was trying to take him off meat for an evening. In the end, we settled on adding shrimps to some Boi Choy. This kind of vegetables are now quite commonly seen in most of the grocery stores in the US. I thought: 'great!' with the shrimps, perhaps I could give the Boi Choy dish a Thai touch.

Here is what we had for the evening with steamed rice.

Recipe:
* Break large Boi Choy leaves from the stem and rinse the sand from each leaf inside.
* Rinse the headless (8-15) shrimps, dry and get ready for frying.
* Heat a table spoon of the oil (I used olive oil) in a small frying pan, add shrimps and gently stir.
* Add a table spoon of oil in a wok, then add chopped garlic and spring onions (approx a teaspoon each),
* When sizzling, add vegetable in the wok and start to stir. (Don't stir constantly, just make sure vegetables are evenly heated in the wok)
* After about 3 minutes, add a bit salt, one tea spoon of Thai garlic chilli sauce(optional), one tea spoon of fish sauce and some sugar.
* The shrimps should have turned red by now, so pour them into the wok, stir gently for a couple of minutes.
* When the Boi Choy stems have absorbed the heat and don't look as pale as before, and the shrimps have been well mixed with the vegetables, the dish is ready.

BF: The dish was a resounding success except when the fish sauce was added to the wok; the resulting cloud of "steam" really irritated my throat, and I had to escape outside for some fresh air, dropping all my chores as a sou chef! GF laughed at my lack of fish sauce experience. But aside from that small drama, the dinner was quickly finished, accompanied with some hot Sake. Lovely!!