I spent the first 18 years of my life eating Chinese food nearly every single day. Now, when I look back at that time, I am amazed by mom’s cooking ability and repertoire of Chinese food. I rarely got tired of the dishes she cooked during those 18 years (although there were times when we had a new favorite dish, she would then make it frequently). My favorites include shoyu chicken and ground pork cake (?, literal translation).
But I rarely tackle these dishes on my own. Partially because the guidance I get from my mom is so vague I get confused. Also, because I know that it will never turn out as good as how she made it.
So whenever I do cook Chinese food, I make something that mom never, or rarely made. For example, an asparagus stir fry and mapo tofu. I don’t think we ate very much asparagus back then, or I didn’t notice because the only vegetable I ate back then was choi sum loaded with oyster sauce. But asparagus has since become one of my favorite veggies.
Many people consider mapo tofu a comfort food, as do I. I’ve had it in Chinese restaurants over a mound of rice and in Japanese restaurants over a big bowl of saimin. Great either way, and it’s very simple to make. I did a variation of Rasa Malaysia’s Mapo Tofu recipe. But instead of using chili powder and chili oil to add heat, I used sambal oelek. And I also added a constarch slurry at the end to thicken up the sauce. Here’s how my dish turned out:
For the asparagus stir fry, I followed 101 Cookbooks’ recipe with my own variations. I omitted the cashews since I didn’t have any on hand. I used gai lan (Chinese broccoli) instead of the dark greens she suggested and I also substituted the mint with cilantro.
Massive Appetite 