Cauliflowers with Mince Pork

Ingredients
4 cups Cauliflowers
1/2 cups Pork Mince
2 Clove Garlic finely chopped





Seasonings
1 tsp Sesame seed oil
1 tsp Chicken essence powder
1 tbsp Oyster sauce
1 tsp Light soya sauce
1/2 cupWater
1tbsp Olive oil for frying

Heat a little olive oil in a non stick wok on medium heat. Add garlic and fry till frangrant. Add mince pork and fry till redness is gone and add in sesame seed oil, chicken essence, oyster sauce, light soya sauce and water. Allow to mix well then add the cauliflower. Cook till vegetable is cooked but not soggy. Remove from heat and serve immediately.

Sizzling Beef

When it comes to dinner, I cook everyday. Problem is, I keep forgetting to take some pictures and post them in my blog. Making use of my new sizzling hotplate has reminded me to do so tonight. There you go, we have sizzling beef, home made Ham Tan, and cauliflowers with mince pork. I was stufffed like a fat lady's socks.

Sizzling Beef
500 g fresh beef thinly sliced
1 large red Onion sliced
Few slices fresh ginger
1 clove garlic crushed

Seasonings
Dark soya sauce
3 tbsp chinese rice wine
Oyster Sauce
Chilli powder
Pepper
Corn starch
Sesame oil
olive oil for frying

In a wok, heat olive oil till medium hot. Add in ginger, red onion and garlic. Stir fry until fragrant. Put in beef and fry until redness is gone. Add chinese rice wine and simmer to reduce. Add dark soya sauce, oyster sauce, chilli powder, pepper and a dash of sesame oil. Mix well and add one cup of water and let to reduced to half. Add in corn starch mixed with little amount of water to thicken the sauce. When gravy appears thickened, remove from heat and place aside.

Before serving, heat hotplate on stove. Place hotplate on the wooden base and pour the beef gently onto the plate. Take extra careful not to stand too near to the plate as it really sizzlers.

Lime Mmmm

As spring is on its way, my lovely lime tree in the back garden yielded plenty of ripe juicy lime. Like the previous year, I tend to cook more dishes with lime than the rest of th year for making use of home grown stuff. I still remembered the first year it started to bear fruits, it was only a handful of it. Now, it is producing more and more. As a result, I will harvest them at the lastest date possible but also remember to leave few here and there on the tree so as the tree will not look too "botak" or bare.

What I have harvested, I rinse them clean, halves them and squeeeezee them. Goodness me, it was a long and squeezing task! My poor hands are all wrinkly by the end. Worth it! I got two one litre bottle of fresh lime which I freeze them for future cooking.

Salami Pineapple Pizza

Salami Pineapple Pizza makes a appetizing after school snacks. My kid is in the crazy growing age and she is constantly crying hungry. This pizza is just ideal to keep her tum tum satisfied until dinner time. As salami is generally high in fat but we love them the most, I fry them in the nonstick frying pan until the fat melted away. I then pad the salami with towels to remove access fat. As a result, it dont only taste yummy, it is also a tiny bit healthier too.

This is the journey of my tofu con't

Gypsum Tofu Take Two! And Success!
This is the Second round making gypsum tofu. The result is really remarkable! I am pleased with the outcome of the experiment. To my opinion, I have cracked it! (To my preference lah! Hee) Same ingredient quantity but I used one table spoon of gypsum this time.

Top Secret Experiment. OpsomTofu. Take One!

This is the Opsom method. The tofu has small pockets of holezies in between. Texture wise is much much more firmer/denser than the other two. Press time is somehow the least compared to the other two. Thickness is slightly less than gypsum tofu.

Top Secret Experiment. NigariTofu. Take One!

This is the Nigari method. The tofu is soft and silky but somehow it is much much thinner than the other two. I uses the liquid Nigari which is the only type I came across so far. I started with adding one tbsp of nigari but the milk was still very milky so I added another and then another. 3 tbsp I have used.





Experiments Result
I don’t know if my creations are correct but I will certainly have a go again with all the three coagulants until I came up with the best way I can make with each of the stuff.
When it comes to the taste of the three tofus, they tasted and smelled pretty delicious!

Gypsum tofu: Tasted very silky and soft. Need to toughen up a little bit more.
Opsom tofu: Tough guy, tasting firm and good. Need to soften up much more to perfect it.
Nigari tofu: Tasted soft and silky but don’t know why abit on the skinny side. Maybe I need to make more quantity to yield a decent size?!

The Journey of my Tofu making con't

This is the curd which Epsom and Nigari yield. Unlike gypsum curd, which most of us call tofu fa, is more a giant silky piece.

This is the curd/tofu fa using gypsum powder. Initially it is in one piece jelly mass. It has been scoped into the pressing mould.


All three types of tofu use this same press to remove access water.


Same weight was also used for the three types of tofu.

Top Secret Experiment. GypsumToFu.Take One!

For gypsum, because the coagulant is premix in a big bowl and follow by pouring down the Soya bean milk like waterfall at a go, the result of the curd or tofu fa is in one big mass. Hence the quantity of the curd is much larger than the other two. Pressing also takes longer but the result is really pleasing. The tofu is thicker and silkier

Journey of my Tofu making

Fascinating Tofu Journey of mine!

This is the journal of my tofu making. I did intensive surfing on the net trying to find out if I can find other alternative ways of making tofu with the different kind of coagulants. Finally I don’t only get to purchase one; I bought three types of tofu coagulants. They are Nigari (Japanese), Opsom Salt (US), and the humble Gypsum Powder (Chinese). As I have always used gypsum powder previously. I was actually forced to find other ingredients when in recent weeks, gypsum powder seemed to be vanished off the oriental market shelves.

As a result, I tried making tofu using these three precious powder/liquid. The steps are pretty much the same. First Soya bean milk is created, the only variation I noticed is the quantity of beans and water. Nevertheless, it all started with Soya bean milk. Here goes…

Nigari or “Hai Ching” as it said on the package. Have to get an oriental owner (friend) to purchase it from supplier of Japanese stuff. Around 6 bucks.

Epsom Salt is more common in the US according to what I learned in the web. Got this from health food store in Perth. Around 4 bucks.

Gypsum Powder. I don’t really know what is the difference between cooked and raw. The previous package I bought was different from this and it didn’t mention cooked as this has. I supposed it is serving the same purpose/result for tofu. Around 4 bucks.

1. Made Soya bean milk, all cooked and ready to go.

For Nigari and Epsom coagulants, the mixture of 1-3 tbs of the stuff is the same as well as the fluffy looking curd (above). Epsom curd is much springier than Nigari. It is also very easy to separate the curd from the whey