On Monday, my husband had
dental surgery and for his post-operation, recovery dinner, I made a comforting
(read: easy to chew) tofu, shrimp, and peas stir-fry. The Trader Joe-san medium
tofu came in a 1 1/4-pound (565 g) block and I only needed about a pound. I had
a little block left.
What can you do with a chunk of
leftover tofu? You can save it in the fridge, or in my case last Monday, I
added it to a simple Vietnamese soup with mustard greens and a bit of chicken
thigh sitting in the fridge.
I’ve been making very simple foods for the past week, mostly
because my days of recipe testing and writing have been very full, often
extending till 11 p.m. when I collapse into bed. That kind of work schedule
doesn’t permit elaborate cooking.
By late afternoon, the kitchen can look like
something exploded. After tidying up, my husband and I usually take a daily
walk to buy groceries for dinner. Some days, that’s the only time I leave my
house so I relish the chance to stretch my legs and breathe extra fresh air. It’s
also an opportunity to ponder dinner.
Local farmers grow some spectacularly tasty broccoli and
broccolini, which are sold at weekly farmer’s markets as well as independent
grocery stores. My default preparations are to briefly boil broccoli in lots of
salted water (steaming tends to unevenly cook the vegetable), stir-fry broccoli
with a little meat, or employ it in Chinese-style noodle soups. Here are a couple of past recipes on VWK that involve broccoli:
It was not so much nostalgia as a yearning for something
deliciously Vietnamese that led me to whip up these scrambled eggs today. My
mom taught me how to make scrambled eggs – after she let me prepare rice for the family. We’d
have the eggs for lunch with bread. At the time, I didn’t realize how genius it
was.
There were just a handful of ingredients involved: shallot
or yellow onion, tomato, eggs, fish sauce, and black pepper. If things got
fancy, green onion was added for color. Making the Viet scrambled eggs got me
thinking about the brilliance of simple cooking.
I go grocery shopping practically every day. It’s part of my
routine and my work. While it’s a luxury to buy and cook fresh ingredients
daily, it can sometimes be a chore that I have to surmount.
Yesterday was a case in point. I’d been working on a seafood
recipe for days and had to go back to the supermarket yet again for more fish.
We’d eaten enough of the seafood recipe trials to be seafood-ed out so I couldn’t
put my husband through it again. I had to go two more rounds with my seafood
recipe last night but I wanted to dine on something else.
What could be a quick and satisfying solution? Pork. Not a
roast but a pork chop, thinly sliced to the thickness of my pinkie finger. I
love that cut of pork chop because you get lots of porky flavor and can cook it
relatively quickly without drying. And the seasonings shine because there’s
more to go around in every bite. And did I mention how much I love to gnaw on
the bones too? They’re just the right manageable size.
Do you ever make something with the best intention and then
shove it to the back of the fridge only to forget about it? That’s what
happened to me and a jar of Chinese hot and sour napa cabbage. I’d made it
around Chinese New Year and at the last minute, decided to not serve it because
it didn’t go with the Vietnamese pickles that I’d prepared. I put it away, only to rediscover it months
later this afternoon. It tasted fine and I ended up snacking on about a quarter
of the jar before dinner. It’s suppose to be a palate arouser.
This is an unusual pickle for a couple of reasons. It’s
tangy and spicy from the seasonings and the cabbage is salted and squeezed to
eliminate excess moisture. Those are pretty standard approaches but there’s a
stir-frying process involved which adds a touch of oil. The result is fatty
tasting and luscious.
We don’t tend to think of pickles as being rich but the
Chinese figured out a way to imbue that quality into humble napa cabbage. I was
totally impressed after I initially made the pickled cabbage, but even more so
months later when I found in the back of the fridge. Despite the chiles and
ginger, this is no kimchi as there’s no fermentation. Just a friendly pickle.
