French Vegetariens Magazine – Jan-Feb 09 issue

This is the French Vegetariens Magazine – Jan-Feb 09 issue! I finally got it from Virginie Pean yesterday (she is even more lovely and beautiful in person ) …

Some of the recipes from this blog are featured there but in French. Virginie is the person who picked and translated those recipes! Thanks Virginie ... : )

Green Apple with Tempeh Salad

Just whip this up this morning … In fact, I wanted to make little cup using wonton skin for the salad, but I am just too lazy! You can add some mango if desired.

Preparation: 8-10 mins

Ingredients (serves 2)
° 100g tempeh, diced and toasted
° 1 green apple, diced

Salad Dressing
° 2 tablespoons vegetarian salad cream/ vegan mayonnaise
° 1 teaspoon sugar
° 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
° ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper or curry powder (optional)

Method
1. Combine all the salad dressing ingredients in a bowl and mix well.
2. Add in the green apple and tempeh and mix well. Serve chilled.

Pickled Pumpkin

Didn’t know that Pickled Pumpkin can be so yummy. I had Stone Pot Rice at Yes Natural Yes Natural (btw Yes Natural Bakery next door sells Delicious Curry Puff) and they have pickled pumpkin on it. It is crunchy, sweet and a bit sourly, very appetizing just like pickled papaya which I really like. I haven’t decided whatever should I add salt on the pumpkin to extract the water, maybe next round I shall try it. Anyway, it is real easy, there isn’t even a need to boil the vinegar. The problem I have is I don’t have the patient to slice it thin enough!

Preparation: 10 mins

Ingredients (serves 6)
° 350g pumpkin (weight after peeling), thinly sliced
° 150ml distilled white vinegar
° 100g sugar, or to taste

Method
1. Combine all the ingredients in a glass container, mix well and leave to stand for 24 hours in the refrigerator prior to serving.

Rice Set with Minced Mock Meat and Scramble Tofu

Do you think you would be able to do this? Why not? It is real easy as long as you know how to wash the rice grain and dump into a rice cooker, boil a pot of water and dump in the French beans and removed immediately once the colour start changing and how to fry scramble egg! Only this little skill set required.

The mock meat in mushroom is a ready made Singapore product that I bought (ingredients: soya bean, mushroom, textured vegetable protein, chili, soya bean oil, sugar, hydrolyzed vegetable protein and yeast extract). That saves some time in cooking using fresh ingredients. And the yellow stuff is not egg, it is scramble tofu seasoned using turmeric to give the colour of the egg. You can omit turmeric if you don’t have any in the kitchen. Turmeric helps to prevent the onset of arthritis and offer some protection against breast cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.

Preparation: 15mins Cooking time: 15 mins

Ingredients (serves 2)
° 2 bowls cooked rice
° 1 can mock meat in mushroom sauce (brand: cixin vegetarian)
° 8 French beans, sliced and blanched
° 1 (225g) big firm beancurd/tofu, pat dry and scrambled
° ¼- ½ teaspoon turmeric powder
° ½ teaspoon sesame oil
° 1 tablespoon olive oil
° salt and pepper, to taste

Method
1. Marinate the scrambled tofu with turmeric powder, salt, pepper and sesame oil. Set aside for 10 minutes.
2. Heat oil in a non-stick pan over medium heat and fry scrambled tofu until dry. Set aside.
3. Divide the rice into 2 serving plates. Top with mock meat in mushroom sauce, French beans and tofu. Serve immediately.

Orange and Mango Juice

A cool, fresh and sweet drink! Just nice for a hot weather.

Preparation: 10 mins

Ingredients (serves 2)
° 4 oranges, freshly squeezed
° 1 mango, peeled and diced
° ice cubes

Method
1. Combine all the ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth.
2. Chilled or serve with ice.

Enoki Salad

Want some mushroom salad! Here it is, simple and crunchy. The core ingredient is enoki mushroom, you can added shredded carrot or shredded green mango to gives it some colour! Drizzle the dressing ONLY when it is ready to be served … Use Chinese plum sauce instead of Thai plum sauce, it is not that watery. So, have fun and create your very own unique enoki salad …

Preparation: 8 mins

Ingredients (serves 2)
° 200g enoki mushroom, base trimmed
° 25g shredded carrot
° some coriander leaves
° ½ teaspoon black and white sesame seeds (optional)
° ½ teaspoon crushed red pepper

Dressing
° 2 tablespoons plum sauce
° 1 teaspoon (1-1½ limes) freshly squeezed kalamansi lime juice
° sugar to taste (optional)

Method
1. Mix all the dressing ingredients in a bowl. Set aside.
2. Arrange enoki mushroom, carrot and coriander leaves on a serving plate. Garnish with sesame seed and crushed red pepper.
3. Serve with dressing.

Glutinous Rice Pudding with Mint Coconut Milk

Was wondering whether to post this recipe or not, as the mint leaves in the photo did not look fresh and that appealing. But my little one, gives the green light and say this can go onto the blog, so here it is …. Using lemon grass and mint as the ingredients in this dessert, come from what Veganic described in VSS Forum. However, you can omit lemon grass and ginger if these ingredients are not available.

Nothing difficult and yet you can churn out different variants and presentable dessert. Well, if mint coconut milk does not appeal to you, you can always have mango puree coconut milk sauce, durian puree coconut milk sauce, raspberry coconut milk sauce or whatever sauce you can think of and the most important thing is the sauce must be something you like.

Preparation: 10 mins, Cooking time: 15 mins

Ingredients (serves 2)
° 150g glutinous rice
° 150ml water
° ¼-3 stalks fresh lemon grass
° 1 slice ginger
° mint leaves (optional), for garnish
° roasted sesame seed (optional), for garnish

Sauce
° 60ml fresh coconut milk
° 2 tablespoons peppermint syrup

Method
1. Combine all the ingredients for the sauce in a bowl and mix well. Set aside and chilled.
2. Wash the glutinous rice and place in a bowl with enough water to cover. Leave to soak for 3 hours or more. Drain thoroughly.
3. Peel off the outer layers of the lemon grass stalks, leaving the tender whitish centre. Cut into 8cm pieces and bruised.
4. Place the glutinous rice, water, salt and lemon grass, ginger into an electric rice cooker, mix well and turn it on. Discard lemon grass and ginger when done.
5. Divide into individual serving plate. Garnish with mint leaves and sesame seeds.
6. Drizzle the sauce over the glutinous rice pudding and serves immediately or chilled.

Quick Congee!

Plain congee garnish with carrot shreds & coriander leaves

Congee with enoki, carrot & coriander

During the recent lunch meet up with an ex colleague - Carolyn, she shared a very good idea that she learnt from a cooking video – how to shorten the cooking time for congee. I gave it a try, it works and therefore I did it again with the steps taken down. It is 10 minutes faster than my usual way of cooking congee. So, no worry about making Baby porridge, it becomes as easy as ABC. The secret is to breakdown the fiber of the rice gain by freezing it. So, you can wash the rice, clashed them if desired and put them in the freezer. Any time that you like to have a quick congee, just removed from freezer and within 20 minutes, a hot bowl of congee is there waiting for you. If you don’t want it that mushy, shorten the cooking time a little.

If you prefer it thinner, just add more water. It can be served with a variety of accompaniments, such as pickled turnips, salted peanuts, mustard greens etc. The other option that I did is adding enoki mushroom, carrot shreds, coriander leaves prior to remove from the heat. And season to taste with salt, light soy sauce and sesame oil.

Preparation: 5 mins, Cooking time: 20 mins, plus 2 ½ hrs standing time

Ingredients (serves 2)
° 100g rice, washed and drained
° 750ml water
° 2 slices ginger (optional)

Method
1. Wash the rice and drain well. Put the rice in a plastic or metal container and freeze it for 2 – 2 ½ hours in the refrigerator.
2. Remove from the freezer and add 250ml water to it and leave to stand for 5 minutes.
3. Pour into the rice and ginger into a claypot or pot. Add the remaining water and bring to a boil. Simmer for another 15 minutes or until the congee is soft. If it is too thick, just add some water.
4. Ladle the congee into individual serving bowls and serve hot.

Pumpkin with Ginkgo Dessert

Pumpkin is never my favourite food. The only pumpkin dish that I love is Cream of Pumpkin Soup which I had in New Zealand 15 years ago. Few days back, I was having lunch at Naïve and the dessert of the day is Pumpkin with Sago. Wow, love it and didn’t know that pumpkin dessert can be so delicious. It had a little bit of coconut milk (my guess) and with tiny sago, it is just nice like Bubur Cha-Cha. If you wonder what Naïve is, it is a newly open modern Asian vegetarian eatery, check out the review here

That dessert inspired me to make this, thick and creamy pumpkin paste quite similar to Taro with Ginkgo Dessert (Orh Nee, a traditional Teochew dessert). You can even replace Ginkgo nut with fresh lotus seeds or water chestnuts bits. You can even design how you want to present this dessert to give it different touch. If you don’t really like Orh Nee ‘style’, just add more water and sugar to make it thinner to suit your preference. The amount of coconut milk used is minimal, so it might appeal to those who don’t like coconut milk or limiting the intake. And you can have it hot or chilled!

If you wonder what is that green thingy near the bowl - that is an environmental friendly toy leg-less grasshopper that I weaved using pandan leaves instead of young coconut leaf. Well, I had almost forgotten how to do it and I think it didn’t turn out well. Coconut leaf is the best material, using the midrib or mid vein to serve as something that kid can hold on or just stick them in pot of plants …

Preparation: 15 mins, Cooking time: 10 mins

Ingredients (serves 2-4)
° 350g pumpkin (weighed after peeling), peeled and diced
° 12 fresh ginkgo nuts
° 50ml coconut milk
° 180ml water
° 2 ½ tablespoons sugar, or to taste
° 3-4 pandan leaves (screwpine), tied into a knot

Method
1. Stream the pumpkin in a pot of boiling water or streamer for about 10minutes or until tender when pierced with a fork. Drain well and set aside.
2. Place the ginkgo nuts, water, sugar, pandan leaves in a pot and bring to a boil and simmer for 3 minutes. Removed the ginkgo nuts and set aside. Discard pandan leaves and stir in coconut milk.
3. Transfer to the pumpkin and coconut syrup to a blender and blend until smooth and creamy.
4. Ladle the pumpkin paste into individual serving bowl or plate. Garnish with ginkgo nuts.
5. Serve hot or chilled.

Vermicelli Salad

Another healthy and easy salad dish, almost no-cooking required except for blanching the Brown Rice Vermicelli in boiling water. Brown Rice Vermicelli is high in fiber and good for our health. You can add some oil (sesame/shallot/garlic/ginger) to it to prevent it sticking together and at the same time add some fragrant to it. I added lettuce leave here to up the fiber intake. Again the amount of carrot and cucumber shreds and herbs to be added depends on individual preference. Remember to add mint leaves, it is A MUST. You will understand what I mean if you taste it …

Preparation: 15 mins

Ingredients (makes 2-4)
° 150g blanched brown rice vermicelli, mixed with 1 teaspoon olive or fragrant oil
° 25g shredded carrot
° 50g shredded cucumber
° few onion slices (optional)
° 1 lettuce leave (optional) for garnish
° some mint and coriander leaves
° some toasted/roasted sesame seeds

Chilli Dipping Sauce
° 2 fresh red chilli padi, sliced
° 2 teaspoons sugar or to taste
° 4 tablespoons light soy sauce
° 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar or rice vinegar
° 1 teaspoon olive oil (optional)
° 5-6 kalamansi limes, freshly squeezed

Method
1. Combine all the ingredients and mix well. Set aside.
2. Place the brown rice vermicelli, carrot shreds, cucumber shreds, onion slices, mint leaves, coriander leaves on a serving plate. Garnish with sesame seeds and chilli slices.
3. Serve with the dipping sauce.

Mango and Veggie Salad with Wasabi Salad Dressing

Lately have been busy with other stuff that I didn’t spend enough time on this recipe blog and those things on my January To-Do List. So last night, I decided to create this recipe at 8pm. It is real simple as I love to say. It has to be simple yet nutritious to be done at home by anyone, anything that required more works; let’s enjoy them at the vegetarian eateries. Maybe it is a little bit costly, but just takes that as the price for the manhour if we have to do it ourselves and we can relax and dine in a different ambience … Be a little compassionate and pamper ourselves once in a while by having a nice meal at the vegetarian eateries …

Back to this recipe, adding mango to the veggies salad gives a different taste – natural sweetness.! The amount of mango or carrot or cucumber to be used depends on individual preference. For the salad dressing, I added Wasabi! Sunny had left comments on my blog that avocado with wasabi is her favorites, I think. So, I happened to pass by the sushi counter at Cold Storage @ Bugis, so I brought 2 little pack of wasabi at 10 cents each. By adding wasabi to the salad cream, it gives a totally new flavour and it is nice, but you have to taste it before adding more wasabi, if not …. : )

Oh yeah, just to share this new piece of information from Health Promotion Board (HPB) - A Vegetarian’s Guide to Eating Right Share with ALL your friends (veg*n and non-veg*n)….

Preparation: 8-10 mins

Ingredients (serves 1-2)
° 75g mango shreds
° 50g carrot shreds
° 25g Japanese cucumber shreds
° 1 lettuce leaves (optional), for garnish
° some toasted/roasted sesame seeds (optional)

Wasabi Salad Dressing
° 1 tablespoon vegetarian salad cream/ vegan mayonnaise
° 1 teaspoon sugar
° 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
° ¼ - ½ teaspoon wasabi or to taste

Method
1. Combine all the wasabi salad dressing ingredients in a small bowl and mix well.
2. Arrange the mango shreds, carrot shreds and cucumber shreds on the lettuce leaves. Garnish with sesame seeds.
3. Serve with wasabi salad dressing sauce.

‘It is OK To Be Wrong” Green Curry Dried Udon

What a weird name! Yup :)

The core ingredient for this is 1 tablespoon of green curry paste, around 60ml of water and 60ml of coconut milk to make thick Green Curry Sauce. It can be used for Pasta … hmmm… I will redo this again sometime later by totally omitted deep-fried basil leaves and the pan-fried chilli need to be changed or done differently maybe, or at a time when I have lesser things to deal with, maybe …

It was done sometime back in hurry and when I was hungry. The presentation, the deep-fried basil leaves, the pan-fried chilli and the lacking of good ingredients to make this dish more nutritious and unique, that I almost decided not to post this at all and discard this totally …

In this world, we are unknowingly been "taught" to fear mistakes and in a way affect how we deal with things and that affect our life … However, it is from mistakes that we learn more …

There is something that I read from from the book PresenationZen by Garr Reynold on what Benjamin Zander said that I find it meaningful, I manage to search it from the web, as I don’t have the book on hand, it should be something like this …,

“
You have to take a risk
In most cultures — and certainly here in Japan — making a mistake is the worst thing you can do. Zander says that it’s dangerous for musicians, for example, to be so concerned with competition and measuring themselves against others because this makes it “difficult to take the necessary risk with themselves to be come great performers.” However, only through mistakes can we see where we’re lacking, where we need to work. But we hate mistakes so we play it safe. Yet long term nothing could be more dangerous if our goal is to be insanely great at what we do. Zander suggests that instead of getting so dejected by mistakes, we instead exclaim loudly (or to ourselves) “How fascinating!” every time we make a mistake. This little gem alone was worth the price of the book. Think about that. Another mistake? How fascinating! Another opportunity to learn something just presented itself. Another unlucky break? No worries! Move forward.”

Fake Fried Rice

Hmm… I am not so creative in naming veg*n recipes. This is not something new, just that playing with 2 old recipes and simplified even further. Many would say to have a plate of nice and fragrant fried rice, you need some techniques to do it. It is simple fried rice but the ability to achieve that is not that easy.

So, what can a newbie or kid can do … maybe try this recipe. What we need is to stir-fly the ginger to make it fragrant. The rest is just mixing the oil and dark soy sauce or maybe together with the ginger. It is simple but tastes good, remember those olden days, where we just add some oil and soy sauce to the rice. Garnish with more lettuce or carrot shreds if you desired.

Preparation: 10 mins, Cooking time: 5 mins

Ingredients (serves 1)
° 250g cooked rice
° 75g ginger shreds
° 2 tablespoons olive oil
° 1 tablespoon sesame oil
° 1 tablespoon dark soy sauce
° lettuce shreds and corianders leaves (optional), for garnish

Method
1. Heat oil in a wok. Add the ginger shreds and stir-fry for 3 minutes or until fragrant.
2. Remove the spring roll with a slotted spoon. Drain well on kitchen paper and set aside.
3. Place the cooked rice in a big bowl. Add 1 teaspoon oil from the wok, dark soy sauce and mixed well.
4. Transfer to a serving plate and top with the ginger shred.
5. Garnish with lettuce shreds and coriander leaves and serve.

Vegetarian Au Lac Pho

I have never tasted the non-vegetarian Au Lac Pho before, but I had the vegetarian version of it at Loving Hut at Suntec City Mall, Sky Garden. I like the herbs especially the mint leaves in this Vietnamese soupy noodle. Therefore, I whipped up a modified, simplified version and have that for quick lunch … I didn’t have green lime, so I used lemon which I find in my kitchen. As for the vegetarian fishball, I just added one to make it looks nice, it is optional. As for red dates, I used it to sweeten the soup base, omit it if you find using it too ‘heaty’ for the body.

I know just having this for lunch is insufficient and as Vegetarian I must eat well and, have a balanced diet. Just that today, I am real lazy, so I allow myself a break and shall remember to eat well tomorrow.

Preparation: 10 mins Cooking time: 20 mins

Ingredients (serves 1)
° 200g , blanched rice noodle/Kway Teow
° 25g beansprout, tailed and blanched
° Some basil leaves
° Some mint leaves
° 1 wedge green lime or yellow lemon
° 3 chinese dried mushrooms
° 1 vegetarian fishball (optional)
° 3 seedless red dates (optional)
° 1 slices ginger
° 300ml water or vegetable stock
° 1 tablespoon light soy sauce
° granulated mushroom bouillon (optional), to taste

Chilli Sauce
° 1/4 teaspoon sugar
° 1 tablespoon light soy sauce
° 1-2 red or green chilli padi, sliced

Method
1. Combine the sugar and light soy sauce for the chilli sauce in a small serving plate and mix well. Add in chilli and set aside.
2. Place the mushrooms and water in a pot and soak for 15 minutes. Add in red dates, ginger and bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Season to taste with light soy sauce and granulated mushroom bouillon.
3. Place the noodle, bean sprout, basil leaves and mint leaves in a serving bowl. Pour in the soup. Serve immediately with the chilli sauce and lime or lemon.

Silken Tofu with Cream of Miso

Finally, able to resolve the horrible font issue by re-do them. For the below recipe, it is nothing new, just using ingredients for making the Miso Soup and play around with the amount of ingredients used to create something slightly different.

It is not difficult at all …

Preparation: 5 mins Cooking time: 5 mins

Ingredients (serves 6)
° 1 pack silken tofu (300g), steamed or blanched, cut into 6 sections and drained well
° 250ml water or vegetable stock
° 1 slice ginger
° ¾ tablespoon miso paste or to taste
° 1 teaspoon cooking rice wine (optional)
° 1 teaspoon corn flour, mixed with 30ml water
° some roasted sesame seeds, for garnish
° few slices spring onion or coriander leaves or mint leaves (optional), for garnish

Method
1. Place the water or vegetable stock, ginger in a pot and bring to a boil. Add miso, cooking rice wine and mix well. Stir in corn flour mixture and bring to a boil.
2. Place the tofu on a serving bowl and scoop the cream of miso onto it.
3. Garnish with spring onion or coriander leaves or sesame seeds and serve.

Simplified Vegetarian Dried Pawn Mee

This bottle of Vegetarian Penang Pawn Mee Paste (from Friendly Vegetarian Supplier) comes handy. If you want a quick dried noodle dish, just used it together with vegetarian belacan powder , oil and toss well with blanched cooked yellow noodle/hokkien mee. I added some toasted vegetarian belacan to give it a more robust tasty, omit this if you don’t have any on hand. You can add some water convolvulus/kangkong, if desired.

Preparation: 5 mins Cooking time: 5 mins

Ingredients (serves 2)
° 200g hokkien mee, blanched
° 1½ -2 tablespoons Vegetarian Penang Pawn Mee paste, or to taste
° ¾ teaspoon toasted vegetarian belacan powder (optional), or to taste
° 1 tablespoon shallot oil or olive oil
° a small handful fresh spring onion or fresh coriander leaves, for garnish
° some deep-fried shallot (optional), for garnish
° 1 chilli padi (optional), sliced

Method
1. Mix hokkien mee with Vegetarian Penang Pawn paste, vegetarian belacan powder, oil and spring onion or coriander leaves. Toss evenly. If it is too dry, just add a little bit of hot water. Divide hokkien mee between individual serving plates.
2. Garnish with deep-fried shallot, spring onion or coriander leaves and serves.

Stir-Fried Silver Sprout

I didn’t cook this dish for many years and it is getting a little difficult to find fresh and beautiful bean sprout that is a little bit longer at the wet market near my place now. Few days back, I just purchased 200g+ bean sprout (S$0.30) from the wet market and removed the head and tail. It is a little bit time consuming but I kind of like doing it. I would sit there and enjoy removing the heads and tails of every single bean sprouts. If you don’t like this task, purchase those bean sprouts with the heads and tails removed.

For this recipe, I didn’t have red or yellow capsicum, so I garnish with spring onion and edamame bean. It is real simple, the secret is high flame and a very quick stir-fry about 30-45 seconds (so get your salt ready!). It does not matter, it look a bit raw in the wok, once you dish it out, it will be just nice and delicious. Seasoning is just salt and the lovely taste comes from the bean sprout with out tail and heads.

Preparation: 10 mins Cooking time: 5 mins

Ingredients (serves 2-3)
° 200g beansprout, head and tail end removed
° 1 slice ginger or 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
° 1 tablespoon olive oil
° salt, to taste
° 2 stalks spring onion, cut into 5cm lengths and soaked in ice water
° 1 fresh red chilli padi, for garnish
° some edamame (optional), for garnish

Method
1. Heat oil in a wok. Add the ginger or garlic and fry till fragrant.
2. Throw in the beansprout and stir fry briskly for 30-45 seconds. Season to taste with salt and add in the chilli.
3. Transfer to a serving dish, garnish with spring onion, chilli, edamame and serve immediately.

Edamame Salad in Bread Box

I got the idea from Sunny’s blog - Coffin Shaped Bread (Guan Cai Ban .Well, I don’t have thick toast and therefore I used 3 slices of bread, cutting out a square from 2 slices of bread to make a ‘hole’ and place them on the other slice of bread. I used edamame beans mixed with vegetarian salad cream to make the salad. You can use corn salad or mixed vegetable salad if desired. This is good for tea break and edamame beans are real nutritious. I purchased the edamame from Fairprice – it is known as soya bean salted about S$2.90 per pack (500g). To get the beans, just squeeze them out from pod, it quite fun too.

Preparation: 8 mins

Ingredients (serves 1)
° 3 slices bread
° 75g edamame beans
° 1 tablespoon vegetarian salad cream or vegan mayonnaise, or to taste
° tomatoes slices (optional), for garnish
° mint leaves (optional), for garnish

Method
1. Mix edamame beans with vegetarian salad cream or vegan mayonnaise well in a bowl. Set aside.
2. Place one slice of bread on a serving plate. Cut a square out from 2 slices of bread and put on top of the first slice of bread.
3. Spoon the edamame beans into the little square on the bread. Garnish with tomatoes slices and mint leaves and serve.

Satay Rice with Gochugjang

Well, this is the creation that I mentioned in my recipe Bibimbap from the Sea, – Singapore Variant Bibimbap - using cucumber, onion, satay rice and Stir-fried tempeh with Gochujang chilli paste. I just don’t know how to name this recipe. I used Lotong Rice to replace Satay Rice, in fact, there are almost the same and can be purchased from Supermarket or Wet market.

This is something simple and you do not need to cook, just heat up the Lotong Rice. For a more nutritious one, just add stir-fried tempeh with Gochugjang chilli. Otherwise, this is fine.

Preparation: 30 mins

Ingredients (serves 2)
° 400g Lotong rice, steamed
° 75-100g shredded Japanese cucumber
° 50g onion, sliced
° sesame oil (optional), to serve.
° gochujang (Korean Hot Bean Paste), to serve

Method
1. Cut and divide Lontong Rice into individual serving plate. Arrange shredded cucumber and onion on the Lotong Rice. Garnish with some sesame seeds.
2. Serves with a plate of gochujang and sesame oil.

Cha Soba with Sweet Miso

If you are running out of time to prepare the sauce for cha soba, you can consider using this – sweet miso paste … Toss well, garnish with more shredded nori and sesame seeds before tucking in … Or you can divide this into 4-8 smaller portions and serve that as a appetizer.

By the way, the dipping sauce with grated diakon for Agedashi Tofu goes well with cha soba too. So, unleash your creativity and churn up some new recipes for cha soba! Explore and have some fun …

Preparation: 5 mins Total time: 5 mins

Ingredients (serves 1)
° 100g cha soba, cooked
° some roasted sesame seeds, for garnish
° some nori shreds, for garnish
° few slices spring onion or coriander leaves (optional), for garnish

Sweet Miso Paste
° ¾ tablespoon miso paste
° 1 tablespoon hot water
° 1 tablespoon sugar
° 1 tablespoon sesame oil

Method
1. To make the miso paste: combine all sauce ingredients in a bowl and mix well.
2. Place the cha soba on a serving plate and top with sweet miso paste.
3. Sprinkle some sesame seeds on it, garnish with spring onion or coriander leaves, nori shreds and serve.

Silken Tofu with Sweet Miso

Another one! Quick, simple plus impressive! If you consume alcohol, you can add sake or few drop of cooking rice wine to this miso paste. This is another dish that you can play with the presentation using different colour sesame seeds, spring onion/coriander leaf or even chilli slice/flake … Just have some fun with it! Next, I am going to use this sweet miso paste with green tea soba for another recipe …

You can do away with steaming, if you love cold tofu or want to save energy. Steaming or blanching the tofu, will make the texture for some tofu softer.

Preparation: 5 mins, Total time: 5 mins

Ingredients (serves 4)
° 1 pack silken tofu (300g), steamed or blanched, drained well cut into four sections
° some roasted sesame seeds, for garnish
° few slices spring onion or coriander leaves (optional), for garnish

Sweet Miso Paste
° ¾ tablespoon miso paste
° 1 tablespoon hot water
° 1 tablespoon sugar
° ½ teaspoon sesame oil

Method
1. To make the miso paste: combine all sauce ingredients in a bowl and mix well.
2. Place the tofu on individual serving plates and garnish with spring onion or coriander leaf.
3. Top with sweet miso paste, sprinkle some sesame seeds on it and serve.

Instant Vegetarian Satay!

I got this packet of 10 sticks of Vegetarian Satay that come with Satay Peanut Sauce too, from Friendly Vegetarian Food Supplier. The shop assistant recommended that I take this brand – Tian Hock (天福斋供应商). Oh, it turns out delicious.

What I did was place the satay in my oven toaster, brush some oil on it and toast it. Next, I cut some Japanese cucumber, onion (omit, if you desired) and steamed the Lotong Rice that I got from the Supermarket and warm up the Satay Peanut Sauce. The Satay Peanut Sauce is sufficient for the satays, cucumber and Lotong Rice.

And all with 15 minutes, I can enjoy this lovely vegetarian satay at home without much fuss.

As for the price, oh I can’t remember now and this supplier does not have the habit of pasting price tag on their product.

Silken Tofu with Vegetarian Meat Floss

This is real simple and to make it look presentable, just plays with the arrangement of the vegetarian meat floss, spring onion or coriander leaves, chilli and different colour sesame seeds.

Not all things need to be complicated to prove its worthiness. If it can be simplified, why make it complex? Sometimes, I just wonder those special or secret recipes, does all of them need to be special by using so many ingredients? I believe, not all special or secrets need to be in that way.

So for this sauce, it’s real simple, even kids can do it. Just get some good quality light soy sauce and the sesame oil can be replaced with garlic oil, shallot oil, chilli oil, olive oil or no oil! And you may even surprise your family member with this simple and easy to do dish, yet yummy. If the tofu is broken during handling stage, never mind, just mess it up a bit and said it is meant to be in this way to absorb the sauce!

You can do away with steaming, if you love cold tofu or want to save energy. Steaming or blanching the tofu, will make the texture for some tofu softer.

Preparation: 8 mins

Ingredients (serves 2)
° 1 pack silken tofu (300g), steamed or blanched and drained well
° 1 tablespoon vegetarian meat floss
° some nori shreds
° some roasted sesame seeds, for garnish
° few slices spring onion or coriander leaves (optional), for garnish

Sauce
° 2 tablespoons light soy sauce or to taste
° ½ teaspoon sesame oil or garlic oil or shallot oil or chilli oil or olive oil

Method
1. To make the sauce: combine all sauce ingredients in a bowl and mix well.
2. Place the tofu on a serving plate and drizzle the sauce at the bottom the tofu.
3. Garnish with vegetarian meat floss, spring onion, sesame seeds and serve.

Summer Noodles with Vegetable (Bibim Guksu)

Well, Bibim guksu, is a popular traditional cold noodle dish using thin wheat flour noodles called somyeon and a special spicy, sweet and sour sauce. You can cook this in advance since this is a cold noodle dish. This is something like Bibimbap and you can add any vegetable like shredded cucumber or nori shred to it. In here I used dried udon noodle - Kiw Ami Udon which I got from Daiso.

Preparation: 20 mins

Ingredients (serves 1)
° 100g dried udon noodle or wheat flour noodles , cooked
° 25g carrot, shredded
° 25g lettuce, shredded
° 1 (25g) tempeh, diced, mix well with chinese 5 spices salt or BBQ salt and panfried for 1-2 minutes
° 2 shiitake mushrooms, sliced and blanched
° some roasted sesame seeds

Sauce
° 2 tablespoon gochujang (Korean Hot Bean Paste)
° 1 tablespoon light soy sauce
° 1 teaspoon sesame oil
° 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
° 1 tablespoon water
° ½ teaspoon sugar

Method
1. Place all the sauce ingredients into a bowl and mix well. Set aside.
2. Place the noodle on a serving plate and garnish with sesame seed. Arrange shredded carrot, lettuce, tempeh and mushroom. Serve with the sauce.

King Oyster Green Curry

Just a simple pot of green curry with king oyster mushroom which anyone can cook! King oyster mushroom resembles the chicken meat texture and full of nutrients too, and therefore cooked King Oyster Green Curry instead of Green Curry Chicken. Red chilli and tomatoes are added to give it some bright colour. The brand - “Pantainorasingh” contain garlic and therefore not suitable for Buddhist Vegetarian.

Preparation: 10 mins, Cooking time: 10 mins

Ingredients (serves 2)
° 250g king oyster mushroom, cut into chunk
° 1 tomatoes, halved
° 250g “Pantainorasingh” green curry paste, or to taste
° 1 tablespoon olive oil
° 2-3 kaffir lime leaves
° 125ml water
° 125ml fresh coconut milk or soy milk
° small handful basil leaves
° 2 fresh red chilli, seeded and pan fried
° salt and sugar to taste

Method
1. Heat the oil in a wok. Add green curry paste and fry till fragrant.
2. Add in the mushroom and fry for a minute.
3. Throw in the water and bring to a boil and simmer for 3 minutes or until the mushroom are tender. Add in the tomatoes, lime leaves, basil leaves and coconut milk.
4. Garnish with chilli, basil leaves and serve hot with rice.