How many of you watch Instagram reels and learn cooking from them? Well I do! I get inspired a lot from Instagram recipes and I even save the recipes under a tag "recipes" on my account.
This is a dish I told myself must remember to experiment it. I have eaten Yu xiang brinjals in China and the taste of it is unforgettable. So whenever I see anything with yu xiang now, it makes me want to try.
What is Yu Xiang?
According to Purpleculture.net
yuxiang, a seasoning of Chinese cuisine that typically contains garlic, scallions, ginger, sugar, salt, chili peppers etc (Although "yuxiang" literally means "fish fragrance", it contains no seafood.)
The cooking of this dish is rather easy. The part that is more tedious is the cutting and prepping before cooking. So I was aiming to finish the prepping earlier so I can cook a one pot dish before rushing off to my home tuition class at 1030am.
So YES I hustled all the way to produce this Yu Xiang Tofu!
Ingredients needed:
- Scallions
- Shallots
- Sugar
- Black Vinegar
- A block of soft tofu
- Black fungus
- Carrots (shredded)
- Minced pork (optional)
- Eggs
- Black Fungus
Now to the Cutting and Prepping!
The carrots need to be julienned.
For the black fungus, they need to be soaked in hot water for a while to see them "bloom and expand" before cutting them into slices or julienned too.
Chop the white part of the scallions into small pieces .
Dice the shallots into small pieces too.
Season the minced pork with some light soy sauce and white pepper. If you have the Chinese shaoxing wine or cooking wine, can add a small dash of it too.
Cut the block of tofu into cubes and soak them in beaten eggs.
Prep the sauce for the gravy later by adding in some plain water, 2 table spoons of light soy sauce, 1 table spoon of oyster sauce, 4 table spoons of black vinegar, 3 tablespoons of sugar, 1 teaspoon of chicken stock powder and 1 tablespoon of corn starch and stir them well together.
Now ready to be cooking!
Firstly heat up some oil in the pan and add in the tofu with the egg mixture. Be careful to turn the tofu gently to not break it too much apart.
After the eggs are cooked, dish all of the tofu and eggs out to set them aside.
With the pan still hot, add in some white scallions and shallots. Fry till fragrant.
Add in a tablespoon of fermented soy bean paste or taucu and a bit of water.
In goes the seasoned minced pork. Brown it up.
Next ingredients to add in are the black fungus and carrots. Cook them up until you see the rawness is gone.
Now it is time to add back the tofu egg mixture that was cooked earlier.
After the ingredients are cooked, then we can add in the gravy we prepared earlier, remember?
Finally add in a generous amount of chopped green scallions for garnish and taste.
Now the dish is ready to be served with steamed white rice or being eaten just on its own! Though the prepping work is a bit more, it was worth it because the flavour is phenomenal! I managed to get this dish done and churned out by 10am, was so happy and fulfilled only to find out my student texted me to cancel my class 🙃
So I ate this as my brunch instead.
