Vegetable Tofu Soup

1 shallot, sliced thinly
A fistful of diced spring onions
Two handfuls of fresh spinach
1 birds eye chilli, deseeded and sliced thinly
1 tube of Silken Tofu
Half a dozen cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
2 vegetable cubes
2 eggs, beaten together with 1 tsp of soy sauce
900ml water
A bit of Coriander, Paprika, Cayenne Pepper, and Soy sauce to taste

Heat some vegetable oil in your pot. Fry everything except the tofu (starting with the shallots, and then add the rest progressively) in the oil for a few minutes until it starts to brown and reduce into a kind of mush. Pour in the water and allow to simmer as long as you can humanly wait. Start stirring as you pour in the egg and stop abruptly once the entire egg mixture is in the pot and wait for half a minute while the egg sets into strands. Slide the tofu in and bring to a boil.

THERE, TOFU SOUP FROM SCRATCH.

All manners of variations can be made on this recipe. Just start it off with some shallots, and a vegetable cube for every 400-450ml of water, and throw in any other vegetables and spices you have to go with the tofu. Egg is a bonus.

Pan-frying Tofu/Tau Kwa

The secret to pan-frying tofu?

Press and dry with a kitchen towel. You don't need to use any oil to fry it, the point is to dry out the skin and heat the tofu through completely so its cooked. The process should be neat and elegant.

Spicy Tofu Soup

Made this a while ago because I thought it would be nice to eat some tofu. Recently discovered the awesomeness of SILKEN TOFU. DELICIOUS SILKEN TOFU IN VEGETABLE BROTH! The dill adds an interesting dimension, although to be honest I added the dill because now i have used up all the Turmeric from making curries out of everything.

4 cloves garlic
2 carrots
2 tomatoes
2 onions
1 packet of Silken Tofu
1.5 Vegetable Stock Cube
1 tsp cumin
Some coriander
Chilli Flakes
1 tsp dill weed

1. Cut up all the vegetables
2. Fry all vegetable components in a bit of olive oil
3. Add the spices. If it is getting very dry at this point, put in a bit of water.
4. After onions and vegetables are slightly softened, add around 2 litres of water
5. Now cut up the tofu while its in the box. Then throw it all in.
   
6. Bring to a boil, then simmer for as long as you want.
   
7. DONE
   

Tom Yam Soup

NTUC sells "Tom Yam sets" consisting of the various things you will require to make a tom yam soup! I had never made a tom yam soup from scratch before, and I used very vague measurements for this, but it turned out brilliant. (with the total cost of ingredients being less than $6)

Along with 2 litres of water, I put in:

• Garlic, roughly cut up
  
• Lemongrass (the white bits were pounded into mash, the long hard green bits i left intact)
• Lime Leaves (torn up by hand)
• 1 lime (cut up and squeezed into the water)
  
• 3 small green chillies
  
• 2 dried red chillies
  
• about a dozen unshelled prawns
• a bag of fresh fishballs
• silken tofu
• tomatoes, sliced
• a sprinkling of coriander if you have some
  
• 1 chicken stock cube (if i could have used real chicken stock i would have!)

I put all the vegetables in along with the stock cube and allowed it to steep for as long as I could humanly bear, while I deshelled the prawns (i removed only the body shell but retained the head because the flavour is in the head!) and deveined them (all the gunk you find inside prawns!).

Finally after a long simmer, I brought it to a boil, and gently added in the tofu and fishballs followed by the prawns. You don't have to cook the prawns very long as they overcook easily, but cook them until they are pink all the way through. Simmer for a while more and serve.