· James Torr · Personal · 1 min read
Hadn’t prepped this before but I’d heard great things. We cooked mapo tofu today for lunch. Freshly ground pork loin, silken tofu, dashi/soy/sugar/gochujang sauce, wild garlic and spring onions. Donburi style on some rice. Super simple and really delicious.
Medium firm tofu trial. I wanted it a bit firmer but I think the mould (a ricotta cheese mould) was a bit all for the correct pressure. The individual steps for making tofu are relatively simple, but there are quite a few: Soak the beans for 8hrs, liquidise with a set quantity of water, strain in a nut milk bag, heat up to around 80C, hold for 30 minutes, add gypsum (or another coagulant), stir, ladle into a mould lined with cheesecloth, press. I made some mabo dofu (pictured) and some home style tofu. I'm not saying I won't do this again, but it's probably on the rainy day side of the food projects I've done as it's relatively simple and cheap to buy locally.
Home made . After last night's meal, not totally convinced about the work-payoff ratio, but I have a kg or so to play with so that may change.
I've been eating a lot of rice bowls lately and I thought I'd share some basics that I've learned since eating them. I started with some of the donburi style Japanese rice bowls. Oyakodon is lovely, simple chicken vs egg with dashi, sugar and soy, likely ginger and garlic. Gyudon is thin sliced beef with something similar. Korean rice bowls (Bibimbap) are a bit more relaxed and have more variety of toppings.
Tokyo style ramen noodles made this week. Based on the legendary @ramen__lord's recipe. Subbed soy protein isolate in for the egg white powder. No idea whether this will make much difference but they turned out nice! Broth was a blend of fish / dashi and rich chicken.