Three Cups Tofu

Actually I think I’ve only eaten 3 cups chicken once, and I don’t really remember much of it.
But when I saw this on Shirley’s blog, gosh, I just got to try this.

Shirley used pressed tofu of which she found it not silky smooth after braising and suggested silken tofu to her readers instead. Well, I fried half of my local silken tofu cubes in my wok, and I had to discard all of them into my tummy cos they were totally unpresentable and stuck to the wok. Then I fried the other half of the silken tofu in a non stick pan. Phew, they looked much better, but there was only half. Not enough!!!! Luckily I had another block of pressed tofu in the fridge, supermarket pressed tofu in a plastic box. I just used that … fried it and cooked with it. Frying pressed tofu was a breeze :)

Weirdly, after all the braising, I couldn’t distinguish between the silken tofu and the pressed tofu. Both were soft, but porous after all the frying and braising. Unlike what Shirley had said that hers were not soft. Mine was soft, but rough and porous inside. But I do think that Tofu made with only GDL gives a rubbery texture when cooked for a prolonged time, because I once had that for steamboat and the tofu was rubbery but not porous. Yucks!!! Some sites also mentioned that no water should be added to 3 cups dishes. So, maybe it’ll be better if the braising is not done to ensure one gets a nice smooth center, as braising draws moisture out from the tofu, thus making it either porous or rubbery. I don’t have any other experiences with 3 cups dishes, so, I’ll leave the decision to you, to braise with water/stock or not to braise. I might not braise it the next time I do this.

Well, Shirley didn’t mention how much tofu to use as 1 block can be really ambiguous. 1 block of pressed tofu at the wet market here is just 2 X2X1 inch. And there’s one stall in Kampar that sells block tofu that measures 6x3x2. So, I pretty dunno how much and I just used approximately 400gm. I find my dish being slightly oversalted (maybe my soy sauce is salty???? I dunno) and I will use 500gm next time, that is if I ever do this again. Or just reduce the 3 Tbsp each to just 2 Tbsp each of sesame oil, light soy sauce and wine.

Overall, this is a nice tofu dish.

3 Cups Tofu
Recipe source : Kokken 69

400gm pressed tofu, cut into cubes
Half bulb of garlic, skin on, hard ends cut off, lightly smashed
3 stalks of spring onion, white parts only, cut into 2 inch lengths
1 inch ginger, sliced

3 Tbsp sesame oil
3 Tbsp light soy sauce
3 Tbsp Shao Xing wine
¼ tsp sugar (It's sweet enough for me, after adding this, I found it too sweet)
1 cup water (I didn’t use stock cos I find the aromatics used above is flavourful enough)
Handful of basil leaves (as much or as little as you want)

1. Fry tofu until golden and crisp. (I do this in a non stick pan as a regular wok is so difficult to fry these delicate things). Drain and set aside.
2. Heat wok and put in sesame oil.
3. Fry garlic, green onions and ginger until fragrant and slightly golden
4. Put in fried tofu cubes and put in light soy sauce and Shao Xing wine. Toss it until it sort of dries up.
5. Put in water and sugar and let it braise until the water dries up and you start to see oil on the base.
6. Put in basil leaves, give it a toss and turn off the heat.