Viet World Kitchen

Salt and Pepper Tofu Recipe

On the heels of posting the tofu frying tips, maybe you’d like to try your hand at frying some? This is a recipe that I developed for Asian Tofu but couldn’t squeeze it in. I was attracted to this dish because one of my pet peeves about salt and pepper shrimp (and squid too!) is that rarely are the seasonings absorbed well. HOWEVER, the opposite is true when the same seasonings are applied to just-fried tofu, which take on the heat of the white pepper and chiles well during the fast and last round of stir-frying. Every bite of chewy-crisp tofu is flavorful, even more so when you add some of the chile, scallion, and garlic bits when you eat. Showing off the beauty of cooking with tofu, this vegan dish will please omnivores.

I typically use uniodized table salt for most of my cooking but here, delicate kosher works better for the final stir-frying. If you don’t have Kosher salt, substitute 1 1/2 teaspoons and 1/2 teaspoon of table salt for the soaking and final stir-frying, respectively.

If you have Asian Tofu, bookmark this recipe and add it to the collection. If you don’t have the book, I hope this salt and pepper tofu whets your appetite for more.

Stir-Fried Green Garlic and Chinese Sweet Sausage Recipe

This is one of those dishes that has haunted and taunted my palate for a few years. It’s dead simple, just a handful of ingredients are involved. Unfortunately the main ingredient is a fleeting seasonal vegetable --  garlic scapes that are not often sold in the United States. Slender with a mild sweet garlic flavor, the garlic flower stalks are thinly sliced and then stir-fried with bits of Chinese bacon.

I first had the preparation in October 2009 at the Din Tai Fung at the World Square Shopping Center in Sydney, Australia. It was a great sidekick to an order of xiao long bao Shanghai soup dumplings. The restaurant used the jade colored scapes, which are typically trimmed by farmers to foster bulb growth, per food writer Molly Watson. It was spring in Australia and I took that taste memory back to California, where six months later in 2010, I got to enjoy another spring.

I started looking for garlic scapes at Chinese markets and over the years, have found them a couple of times, once at Ranch 99 in Milpitas, California. The stalks were sold as long thin bundles of 1/4 to 1/3-inch thick green cords. However, I was disappointed by their lackluster flavor. Maybe not enough people buy them or know about them. The ones I’ve found tended to be borderline over the hill. The little stir-fry eluded me.

Tofu, Kimchi and Bacon Taco Recipe

Most of the tofu and kimchi tacos on the food scene are vegetarian but I wanted to turn a classic Korean dish --dubu kimchi (warm tofu with a stir-fry of kimchi and pork belly) -- into a taco filling. The triad of ingredients is wonderful so why not see what it’s like in a corn tortilla? 

I started thinking about the taco filling idea as I was developing the dubu kimchi recipe for the tofu cookbook. I could have squeezed the tofu taco concept into the book as a recipe “Variation,” but there was an inherent brilliance in the original dish (see page 145 in Asian Tofu). I didn’t want to distract from it by cluttering the page with recipe TMI (too much information).

So I saved the idea for the right online moment. In tribute to the 20th anniversary of the 1992 Los Angeles riots and Cinco de Mayo, I tackled my Mexi-Korean taco idea this week. Combining Mexican and Asian flavors has been going on for a long time. Mexi-Asian didn’t start with Roy Choi’s Kogi tacos and David Chang’s Momofuku’s ssam wraps in flour tortillas.

Chinese Fermented Black Bean Magic (plus recipes)

While I’ve cooked with Chinese fermented black beans for years, I didn’t realized how versatile they were until I had about 2 pounds of them on hand, leftover from working on the Asian Market Shopper mobile app and the Asian Tofu cookbook.

The little beans are not the same as what you cook up for a pot of cuban black beans! In fact, they are slightly moist and soft, a preserved seasoning ingredient used in many southern Chinese (Cantonese) kitchens. Expect salty, pungent, and winy qualities from the beans.

Wanting to use them up, I started cooking with them, mining my Chinese cookbook collection for recipes and ideas. When I was through, I had enough information about fermented black beans (dou chi in Mandarin, dul see in Cantonese, dau/tau xi in Vietnamese) and a small collection of delectable recipes.

Food editor Russ Parsons of the Los Angeles Times agreed to an article on the beans. We polished it in March and it was published over the weekend under the title, “Chinese fermented black beans a versatile staple.”

Four recipes were included in the story:

Udon with Clams and Shiitake Recipe (Vongole Udon)

I loved the rusticity and brilliance of the Fukushima straw-wrapped tofu but after I made it the other day, I thought of this modern Japanese twist on an Italian pasta dish. Vongole udon is something I order at Musha, an izakaya in Santa Monica, California. It’s a boisterous Tokyo-style (read non-traditional) drinking establishment where you can get great bar nibbles and pitchers of beer for about $12.

Musha’s menu is full of crazy concoctions, such as the “Tofu World” menu page, where I discovered the tofu fries that are included in Asian Tofu. There’s a risotto made with medium-grain brown rice and stirred tableside in a giant wheel of Parmesan before it’s served to diners. Their pickled mackerel is torched tableside for a little show.

Along with the fries and fried chicken, we always order the “Vongole udon.” It’s a slightly brothy bowl filled with chewy soft udon, garlic, a hint of butter, fresh mushroom and lots of clams. Instead of parsley, Musha garnishes with cilantro.