A shitty meal. That’s about it. Oh, or food poisoning. Yeah…there’s that, too. That said, it is critical to ones development to always at least attempt to expand ones repertoire. Just because you can make one good thing doesn’t mean that you’ll be contented with eating it every day. As in all things (jobs, conversations, sex, etc) if you condemn yourself to a repetitive routine you’ll be condemned to resent it. Mix it up! Try new recipes. Buy weird ingredients. I’m not saying you should head straight to Chinatown, pick up the stinkiest, most desiccated, unrecognizable ingredient you can find and expect to turn out some sort of Julia Child miracle with it (but if you do, please post it here so I can applaud your ingenuity and bravery).
For example: my hubby likes to order katsu-don when we go out for Japanese food. In case you’re unfamiliar with it, katsu-don is a breaded, fried pork cutlet, served over rice with a fried egg, onion and a sweet/salty sauce. Last night I used that as my inspiration for a vegetarian rice dish. My cupboards were rather unstocked, so I tried to scrape together as interesting a meal as I could with limited ingredients.
I started out with some tofu, sliced into thin pieces (about 4mm thick, and the size of a square on a checkerboard), marinated them in some soy sauce, a small blurp of maple syrup (I was too lazy to reach the top shelf and grab the sugar) some ginger and garlic (both dried and powdered, as I was out of fresh). I would’ve liked to have added a dash of sesame oil, but, yeah, I was out of that, too. Let the tofu hang out for an hour or two in the marinade.
Get a skillet good and hot, then (with a splash of oil) fry the tofu until golden, flip and repeat until other side is golden, too (make sure you don’t pour out the remaining marinade). Remove tofu from pan and place to the side I didn’t have any regular onions, but I did have a bag of pearl onions for a beef bourguignon which I just haven’t bothered to make yet. I took about a dozen of the lil suckers, peeled them, and sliced them thin. This is, of course, much easier with regular onions, so do NOT go out and buy pearl onions thinking this is how the recipe should be. If you do, you’re either masochistic or thick. Perhaps a bit of both.
Once the onions had softened slightly I threw in the sliced white parts of a head of baby bok choy. Tossed that around the pan awhile until everything was showing signs of translucency, then added the green bok choy tops, the tofu, the remaining marinade and a splash of water, and stirred it until the greens had wilted.
I only had one egg left in the fridge, so I had to make the best of it. Rather than a whole fried egg in each bowl, I used the one egg, slightly scrambled it and divided it between the two bowls.
Oh yeah! Rice! Before I got cooking the other stuff I threw some bamboo rice into the rice cooker. This was the first time I’d used this particular rice, and I must say it was a pleasant experience. I bought it because it’s green, and I’m a total sucker for novelty. The key to the bamboo rice (or any sticky rice, for that fact) is to allow it to rest for about 15 minutes after it’s finished cooking. This seems to allow for any remaining chewy bits of the rice to soften up. It also seems to defeat the glue-like nature of the starch.
I then took a mound of rice, threw the veg/tofu on top and half the scrambled egg. An additional splash of soy on top and dinner was served. Pretty frickin tasty for not a lot of ingredients.
Let’s recap, shall we?
To serve two:
Sticky rice (1 cup dry rice to 1 ¾ cup water)
Small block tofu (firm)
Soy sauce
Ginger
Garlic
Sugar (or maple syrup, if you’re a lazy SOB)
Sesame oil (ideally, but apparently not requisite)
Sliced onion (about half a small onion. Use more if you like)
Bok choy (green tops and white base separated, and sliced)
Egg
I got a good review from the hubby on this one, despite the fact that I had issued a warning as he came in the door: “Consider this a disclaimer on the edibility of dinner”. Personally, I would’ve liked more egg, and maybe more marinade to allow for more sauce on the rice, but since I was pretty much braced to be calling out for pizza after the first mouthful, I’m gonna have to chalk this one up as a success. Kudos me!
*there were photos of this, but do you think I can find them? No. Am I about to remake the dish purely to take photos? No.
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