Chinese Entree
TOFU RICE
INGREDIENTS
1 cup rice
6 hard-boiled eggs
3 garlic cloves
3 stalks green onion
1½ pound package extra-firm tofu
2 teaspoons rice wine vinegar
1 teaspoon sesame oil
⅓ cup soy sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
3 tablespoons olive oil
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
SPECIALTY UTENSIL
Wok (If you have one.)
Serves 4. Takes 35 minutes.
PREPARATION
Cook rice according to instructions on package. Boil 6 eggs. Mince the garlic cloves. Mince green onion. Cut tofu into strips ½ inch wide. Cut these strips into ½-inch squares. Mix in bowl, rice wine vinegar, sesame oil, soy sauce, and sugar with whisk.
While rice and eggs cook, heat olive oil in wok or saucepan, preferably non-stick, medium-high heat. Sauté garlic and green onion. Add tofu, salt, and pepper. Cook until tofu is golden brown on both sides. (Pay attention or your tofu can dry out faster than your printer jams paper.)
Add sauce from bowl. Cook for a few minutes or until tofu absorbs the sauce. Serve with rice. Peel eggs and crumble. Cover plate with rice. Top rice with egg. Add tofu squares.
TIDBITS
1) I don’t how many times I accidentally typed “bowel” instead of “bowl.” Don’t worry; I corrected the two or three mistakes. Yes, those typos would change the recipes considerably.
2) China has over a billion people and is growing by millions each year despite having an official policy of one child per family. It sounds as if some couples are cheating. In feudal Japan, tax collectors took rice as payment. All sorts of meat substitutes are made with tofu. One of the best known is TofurkeyTM. This springs up in health-food stores around Thanksgiving and is surprisingly tasty and expensive.
3) Would there have ever been the first Thanksgiving if the Pilgrims and the Native Americans had to eat TofurkeyTM?
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
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