What's This Spicy Chinese "Mapo Tofu"?

My mom has made mapo tofu since I was itty bitty.  I'm not a huge fan of spicy food but since you eat this with plain white rice, it cuts down on that upfront hit and the flavors are so good, you'll make yourself handle it.  Mapo Tofu is a traditional chinese dish - main ingredients are tofu, pork and black bean sauce/paste. You can find this dish in most chinese restaurants.

Once I started to cook for myself, I'd find myself craving my mom's dishes and end up calling her to tell me how to make it for dinner.  This is one of those recipes that when your mom makes it, it always taste SO much better.  Don't get me wrong, what I made was tasty but somehow, it just wasn't the same.  

Since it normally calls for ground pork, which I don't normally buy, I like to substitute with ground turkey. However, turkey doesnt have that fatty content like pork so to bump up the flavors I like to first incorporate it with soy sauce and garlic powder.  This step you can omit if you'd like. 

Also, since I just mentioned I'm not a fan of highly spicy food, the below is based on my taste. I admit, I'm weak. I'm sure you will want to almost double the chili sauce and black bean sauce as you taste throughout the cooking process. For the chili sauce, I linked to what I use in this dish, and you should be able to find this as well as the black bean sauce in most asian grocery store.  

Spicy MaPo Tofu

Adapted from mom's recipe

Serves 5-6

1 container of soft tofu, cut into cubes (make sure it's not the super soft/silky type)

1/2 lb ground turkey (original recipe calls for ground pork but I tend to replace with turkey)

1/4 cup soy sauce (or less)
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tbsp tapioca flour (you can use cornstarch or rice flour as well)
2 cloves of garlic minced
1 tsp minched ginger

4 tsp red chili garlic sauce

1/2 cup chicken broth (you can substitute with water if you don't have)

4 tsp black bean sauce/paste

2 tbsp cornstarch mixed with 2 tbsp water
1 scallion, chopped
S&P

1. Mix the ground turkey with soy sauce, tapioca flour, salt and pepper.  This dish is best served with rice (especially when the sauce gets on every grain of rice = happy place) so cook that first and it will be ready when you finish making this dish.

2. In a hot, deep pan with oil, cook the ground turky and break up into small pieces - cook for about 2-3 minutes.  Turn heat down to medium and add in the ginger and the garlic - it's okay if the turkey is not all the way cooked. 

3. Add in 1/4 to 1/2 cup of chicken broth, chili sauce and black bean sauce. Give it a good mix and let it sit for 2-3 minutes.  You can taste and always add in more chili sauce based on how your desired spice level.

4. Next, add the tofu.

5. Making sure your cornstarch and water combo is mixed, slowly add to the pan and give it a good mix. Let this cook for a few more minutes.  Taste and if you want more spice, add more hot sauce, salt or pepper. 

5. Sprinkly on top with chopped green onions. This is best served with hot white rice. 

Easy Chicken Drumsticks w/Ginger Apricot Marinade

Chicken is one of the easiest things to cook. I also love that it is so versatile. I had several drumsticks defrosting in the fridge and came across this recipe from Sassy Radish. Voila! Dinner of ginger apricot chicken is it!

What’s my favorite chicken dish? Wingstop lemon pepper chicken wings with their fries that are sprinkled with salt and sugar. Who knew sugar on fries could be so good? Ugh, I can’t tell you how much I love fried chicken wings. If I could eat these at least once a week without gaining any weight, hands on, I would. Heck, I’d eat them twice or three times a week.

This dish is fast and most importantly easy. I can make the marinade the night before and then when I get home from work, just pop them in the oven and cook some rice. 30 minutes later, I have a delicious dinner!

I suggested this dish to my sister who was not as big a fan as me. However, she didn’t pour the marinade with the chicken in the pan to cook. I think that makes a big difference. Not only does it help with a great glaze coating, but I opened and spooned the marinade over the chicken twice while I was cooking. Again, can I say YUM?

Apricot-Glazed Sriracha Ginger Chicken
From Sassy Radish who loosely adapted from Gourmet

1. For ingredients, click here for list. The only difference I did was use a different type of hot sauce instead of Sriracha and I only used drumsticks.

2. Peel garlic and ginger. Add to food processor and chop, chop! Add the apricot jam, soy sauce, water and hot sauce. Grind until well blended.
3. Wash and dry the drumsticks. I can’t tell you how important it is to rinse meat you buy from the grocery store. You never know what’s it has gone through. Put in plastic bag and add the marinade. Let sit for at least an hour. I usually like to do it the night before and let it sit overnight.

4. Oven to 400 degrees. Put chicken and the marinade into pan. Bake for 30 minutes. I checked at 10 minutes and spooned some of the marinade on top. Did it again at 20 minutes. Make sure chicken is done at 30 minutes – cook longer if it’s still a tad pink or if you poke it with a knife and red juices come out, cook another 5 minutes or so.
5. I served this with rice, which is good to balance out the sweetness of the chicken. Next time, these would go very well with some green beans.

Lobster and Corn Chowder

I have wanted to try this recipe for a long time but since this is such a decant recipe, I needed several mouths to feed. Last weekend, my sister and soon to be brother-in-law came into town to celebrate Chinese Father’s Day and this was a perfect chance for me to make this dish. It definitely didn’t disappoint but man, was it a lot of work! Similar to mussels in white wine, dipping toasted French bread into the soup was even yummier. This wasn’t the healthiest dish either…..with lots of cream and whole milk, but isn’t that alway the case? Mmm hmmmm.

Would I make this again? I don’t know if this was worth the time or if I did something that was way too complicated. If I can buy pre-cooked lobster, that would probably shave 30 minutes off the prep time, but, the real time consuming part was extracting all the meat from the shells. This took us another 25 minutes and there were three of us too! Also, this was a pricey meal so not sure I’d make this again unless it was a very special occasion. And, while this was so good, you probably need a side dish as well.

So….I probably won’t be making this for a while and I wish I had a team to help prep food because, Barefoot Contessa, you made this look waaaaay too easy!

Lobster and Corn Chowder
Recipe by Barefoot Contessa

1. Click here for the ingredients. I’m not posting since this was my first time to make it and didn’t change a thing. Clean the lobsters with a quick scrub and remove the bands on the clinchers. In a big pot, add some water and put the lobsters in to steam for roughly 15 minutes. I reserved the water/broth for later. Take them out and cool for 10 minutes.

2. Take all the mean from the lobsters – shells, claws, everything – and don’t throw away the shells. One tip for the small legs instead of wasting them, I use a rolling pin and start from one end and roll out the meat to the tip – a tip from Alton Brown (love him!). Use the back of a knife on the claws. Cute the meat into big chunks.

3. Cut corn from cobs and keep kernels for later and cob for the next step. In a big pot, melt butter and add the onions until glassy. Add the sherry and paprika. Add the milk, cream, wine, lobster shells, corn cob and bring to a simmer. Cover with a small peek and let it cook for a good 30 minutes.

4. After 15 minutes, start another big pot and brown the bacon (I used Pancetta bacon). Take the bacon out and then add the potatoes, onions, celery, corn kernels, salt and pepper. Cook for maybe 5-8 minutes until smells all yummy.

5. So take the stock and remove all the shells and cobs. I drained it slightly to not get any shells.
6. I also added in roughly two cups of the lobster broth (from when I boiled/cooked the lobster) and cooked for another 10 minutes. Add the stock to the veggies pot and let it cook for another 15 minutes until potatoes are done.
7. Add lobster, chives (which I didn’t do) and bacon. Now enjoy with the rest of the wine that you didn’t use for this dish!

Seafood Etouffee

Yum. I love crawfish etouffee. When I saw my folks a few weekends ago, they wanted pan cook some fish. They just add salt and cook. Bleh - just wasn't feeling it.

While driving to the grocery store with Ross, I thought of etouffee and it wasn't hard to toss the folk's fish dish out the for evening. We saw some squid at the store and thought it wouldn't hurt to add that as well. I've only made etouffee once before. It was good but not stellar - meaning, I wasn't itching to eat it again for dinner the next night.

So in my search for a new recipe, I remembered that Ross' mom gave me a wonderful christmas present - a Brennan's cook book signed by three chefs from the New Orleans restaurant! So this was my first time to cook something from this cookbook and wow, was it no disappointment. I used a majority of the ingredients (omitted the Worchestershire sauce which I don't like very much), omitted thyme leaves, added some additional seasoning and more seafood (shrimp and squid).

Seafood Etoufee (6 servings)

from Brennan's cookbook (with omitted/added ingredients mentioned above)

1 1/2 sticks butter

1 chopped onion

3 cloves minced garlic

2 celery stalks chopped

1 canned tomatoes

S&P

1 lb crawfish tails (I used the entire bag I bought)

1 lb shrimp (peeled, deveined and cut down if they are large shrimp)

1 lb squid (I just used the entire bag I bought)

1 tbspn paprika

2 bay leaves

3 tbspn flour (I actually used a lot more than this to thicken my sauce - you can used and add more as you cook)

2 cups chicken stock

Pinch of cayenne pepper

Pinch of cajun seasoning

Dash of hot sauce

chopped parsley for garnish

white rice

Squeeze of lemon

1. Melt butter in a large saucepan and cook the onions and celery until glassy. Add garlic and cook for a little bit more.

2. Add tomatoes (including the juice), S&P, seafood, paprika and bay leaves (you can add in thyme leaves here if you want). Cook for a few minutes. Add flour and quickly stir, making sure not to burn.

3. Slowly add in chicken stock and whisk. Add cayenne. (If you want to add in scallions and Worcestershire sauce, you can do it here). I also added in a little hot sauce and cajun seasoning here.

4. Cover and cook over medium for 15-20 minutes. Stir occasionally. I added in a few more spoonfuls of flour here to thicken the sauce.

5. Add a 2 tablespoon of butter to finish off if you'd like. Add parsley and squeeze an entire lemon. Serve over rice. 6. Eat and then go for another small serving because with this, you can't just eat one bowl!

Leek, Mushroom & Mascarpone Pasta

I absolutely love pasta for everything it is. The many variations, the many flavors and how easy it is to make with whatever leftovers you have in the fridge. Just need the basics of pasta, veggies, cream, herbs and it's hard to mess up a pasta dish. While living in London on a tight budget, there were many a nights where I made rice or pasta with chicken and broccoli. Why? Cheap and always good! A favorite? A simple pasta dish I learned in Spain from one of Hilda's friends - spaghetti, good salt, pepper, good olive oil and italian herb seasoning. Wow. Who knew no sauce for a pasta dish could be so good? Okay, I digress. Don't fear, this dish is so good because of the sauce.

I made this dish for the first time for Ross. He loves this dish, but I guess I should take that with a grain of salt since he loves food and will eat almost anything! This dish originated from Giadda (her original recipe here) and through the past few versions, I've changed it up a little bit with some ingredients I've become very fond of in the past few months...and cream, which if I could put in everything I make without worrying about my health, I probably would!

This was also the first time that I used mascarpone cheese - a big, big fan now thanks to Giadda. I love how using the mascarpone cheese makes the sauce delicious and extra creamy. I also added some cream :) with the mascarpone and it's absolutely wonderful together. Also, since my chicken and dumpling dish, I've become a huge fan of leeks. The combination of shallots and leeks together is surprisingly yummy. After cooking these two down, it adds a sweet, flavorful kit to the pasta and sauce. As for the other cheese, I was not a fan of pecorino cheese the first time I used/had it when I made mushroom appetizers. However, I had some left over in the fridge and adding it to this dish was very good. It has a strong, distinct and very sharp flavor so if you know you don't like it, I would just add more parmesan.

Leek, Mushroom & Mascarpone Pasta

Recipe originally from Giadda with some adaption from yours truly

Serves 4-6

1 box penne or rigatoni pasta (approx. 1 lb)

2 tbsn olive oil

4 shallots, minched

1 leek, sliced (only the white and light green part only, halved length-wise and then slice)

Snow peas (or whatever veggies you have in the fridge)

2 clove garlic, minched

S&P

1 lb button mushrooms, sliced

1/2 cup white wine

1/2 cup chicken broth/stock

8 oz mascarpone cheese (bascially, one entire small container. VERY important its a room temperature)

1/4 cup cream

1/2 cup grated Parmesan

1/2 cup grated Peccorino

Fresh basil, chopped to add on top

1. Cook pasta according to directions on the box. Before cooking pasta, I like to cut all the veggies and prep. 2. While pasta is cooking, heat oil in a pan and add shallots, garlic and leeks to the pan. Season with S&P and let it cook until its get glassy and soft. 3. Add mushrooms and snowpeas. Take a quick taste after a few minutes and add more S&P if needed (usually does). This should cook for about 5-10 minutes until mushrooms and snowpeas are cooked. Make sure to stir occassionally so it does not burn.

4. Add wine and cook until almost all the liquest evaporates. You need to watch this! You'd be surprise how fast the veggies absorb the wine and the wine cooks down. I estimate about 3 minutes.

5. Add chicken broth and cook until stock is slightly reduced. Turn down the heat to medium-low.

6. Once stock cooks down slightly, turn heat to low and add the cream. Cook for 1 more minute.

7. Take off heat and add mascarpone cheese and stir until it is creamy delicious.

8. Add the cook pasta to the pan and mix thoroughly. Add some pasta water if you need. Add both cheese (Peccorino has a very strong, sharp flavor - you can decide to omit this if you don't like this cheese much. Just add more parmesan.)

9. Add the chopped basil on top for garnish! Enjoy! Enjoy with the rest of the white wine you didn't use - so make sure you buy one that you like to drink too!