Yes, another tiktok recipe. But I am loving these recipe videos that invoke cooking from my roots. I’ve always loved braised tofu dishes in Chinese restaurants. To be honest, my family didn’t cook much of it at home. Not sure why, it’s a pretty healthy dish. It can be vegan if you use vegan oyster sauce and veggie stock cubes. Well, I made the dish as authentic as can be which includes deep frying soft tofu cubes. Oh boy. I can see why my family didn’t make this ever. But was it worth the effort? I believe so.

During and after frying. Yeah, some tofu got more tanned than others. You got a problem with that? lol

Rehyrated Shiitake Mushrooms

Original recipe I followed only had bamboo shoots, I couldn’t resist throwing in young corn!

Braised Tofu Recipe

Ingredients
2 boxes of soft tofu
2 cans sliced bamboo shoots (I used Family Brand, 8 oz. cans)
2 cans young carrots (I used Family brand, 8 oz. cans)
30 dried shiitake mushrooms, rehydrated in 6-8 C warm water for at least one hour (reserve soaking liquid)
4 C shiitake soaking liquid, avoid scooping up any settlement from soaking
4 stalks green onions, thinly sliced
6 cloves garlic, minced
2 T doubanjjang
Neutral oil for frying

Sauce:
2 T oyster sauce
1 T soy sauce
2 chicken bouillon cubes
2 tsp dark soy sauce
1 t sugar
2 pinches of salt
4 T cornstarch slurry (4 T of water to 2 T of cornstarch)

Instructions

1. Drain tofu, wrap in paper towel and press out excess water (place a plate on top and weigh it down to get out more water)
2. Cube tofu and heat up at least 1-1.5 cups of oil in a frying pan (depends how big your pan is, the oil level should be about half the height of the tofu
3. Heat up oil and add tofu cubes and fry, flip to brown both ends. Remove from oil when the tofu is golden brown
4. Heat up pan with about 2 T oil, add garlic and doubanjjang to saute for about 30 seconds
5. Add bamboo shoots, saute for 10-15 seconds
6. Add young corn, saute for 10-15 seconds
7. Add shiitake mushrooms, tofu, and the sauce, mix well
8. Add 4 C shiitake soaking liquid and cover to simmer for about 10 minutes on medium-high heat
9. Add cornstarch slurry and heat up until sauce is thick
10. Option, blanch bok choy and line bottom of your serving dish with bok choy before adding braised tofu on top

Notes:

• Yes, this a lot. You can definitely half this recipe – I always cook for a crowd
• I like spice so this is the amount of doubanjjang I add – if you can’t handle the spice, cut the amount I add by half
• Next time, I would add one more block of tofu (I think could even take two more blocks of tofu)

Blanced bok choy ready to be smothered!

This is gonna be like my meals for the week but I couldn’t resist taking a few bites. It was delicious!!!!

I’ve decided to explore my roots through cooking and here is one! You’ve probably had taro cake in dim sum restaurants. They’ll pan fry up these thick slices of dough, you can barely taste any different between the rice dough and the taro pieces. It was nothing like the taro cake I grew up with. Although, my family’s recipes went through variations too. It started off with taro but soon became potato cake and then black eyed pea cake. Perhaps they were playing with flavors or maybe trying to find economical and easier ways to prepare this dish.

I haven’t had this dish in quite a while and had a strong craving for it, unfortunately, I am unable to find a similar dish in restaurants so here we go.

Dried shiitakes, rehydrated in hot water and diced

Lup cheong, diced

Boiled taro, cubed. This is the first time I worked with taro and boy oh boy, I can see why my family moved away from it but to me, it’s worth the work (the peeling!!!) and the taste is irreplacable.

Dried small shrimp, soaked in hot water and then minced. Keep that water from soaking! Absolute star of the recipe, you cannot omit this ingredient!

Stirfry the above ingredients together with some chicken bouillion, oyster sauce…your kitchen will smell DELICIOUS.

The rice mixture is super thin, the liquid is from the shrimp liquid. I think it made a difference, so much more flavor!

I added a layer of the filling at the bottom of the dish and then spooned the rice liquid on top until it was barely covering the filling and steamed it.

Right out of the steamer…

Love the sprinkling of roasted sesame seeds and chopped green onions on top. This recipe came out great!

Wu Tao Gau
“Taro Cake”

Ingredients

Batter:

180 g rice flour 

½ t salt

½ t sugar

½ t white pepper

2 C of dried shrimp water

Taro Mixture:

340g taro root (weight after peel is removed), boiled, peeled and cut into small cubes

25g dried shrimp, rehydrated in 2 C of hot water

• Reserve 2C of the dried shrimp water for use in the batter

8-10 shiitakes, rehydrated and minced (no stems)

2 lup cheong (Chinese sausage), cut into small pieces

2 T oil (vegetable/corn/canola)

1 chicken bouillon cube

½ – ¾ C water

2 T oyster sauce

Garnish:

Minced green onions

Roasted Sesame Seed

Directions:

Boil taro root in water for 45-50 minutes. Drain and let taro cool down in cold water, okay to make it ice water. Once cooled, taro skin will come off easily. Dice into small cubes.

Heat up 4C of water, split in half to soak dried shrimp and dried shiitakes separately for an hour. 

Drain both shiitake and dried shrimp, reserve the shrimp water! Mince both shrimp and shiitakes into small pieces. Dice lup cheong into small pieces.

Heat oil in a pan, add lup cheong and stir fry until fragrant. Add shiitake and stir fry for about 30 seconds, add dried shrimp and stir fry for another 30 seconds. Add taro root and stir fry for about a minute. Add chicken bouillon cube and about ½ to ¾ C of water. Let mixture simmer on medium high for about 10 minutes. 

Remove mixture and place on the side. Mix together rice flour, salt, sugar and white pepper in a bowl. Reheat dried shrimp water in the microwave for about 1 minute. Slowly stream 1.5 C of the water into the dry ingredients while whisking.

Prepare a steamer on high heat. Grease a glass pie dish (pyrex kind) with a neutral oil (corn, canola, vegetable) and add about ¼ C of the taro mixture to the bottom of the dish. Once the water is boiling, mix the rice batter right before ladling about 2-3 soup ladles full onto pie dish. Place in steam and steam for 25 minutes on high. Check after about 15 minutes for the water level, add more water as needed.

Remove from heat and garnish immediately with green onions and sesame seeds. Best served warm, enjoy!

Note: This made about 3 pie dishes worth with tons of taro mixture leftover. Will play around with batter recipe for correct yield to the taro mixture.