Garlicky tofu and pechay (Chinese cabbage) stir fry

The food photos I post on Instagram are those that I don’t think anyone would expect to be accompanied by a recipe. It seems I got it wrong. At least, relative to the photo of the tofu and pechay dish that I posted there last night. Had I anticipated the interest, I would have taken photos with a dSLR. But since I only intended to post on Instagram, I photographed the dish with my phone. Not bad, I suppose — the Sony Xperia Z3 Compact takes pretty good photos.

Because my Instagram account is configured to cross-post on Facebook, friends on Facebook asked if there was a recipe for the dish. There is, of course, although I didn’t really do any careful documenting as I was just picking up spices from the fridge and the counter next to the stove as I was cooking. So, the ingredients list below contains approximate amounts. Taste, taste and taste as you cook to make sure you get a good balance of the flavors. 

I used pechay for this dish; you can substitute some other variety of Chinese cabbage (see guide).

Note also that the cooking time given below is very short because I keep fried tofu in the freezer. If you have to start making this dish by deep frying the tofu, the cooking time will be much longer, naturally.

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Finally, if you’re one of those readers who jump to the recipe without reading the introductory notes, too bad you’re missing all the details.

Garlicky tofu and pechay (Chinese cabbage) stir fry

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Course: Main Course

Cuisine: Filipino

Keyword: low fat, vegan

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 5 minutes

Total Time: 10 minutes

Servings: 2

Author: Connie Veneracion

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon cooking oil
• 150 grams firm tofu cut into one-inch cubes and deep fried until golden and crisp
• 1 small onion thinly sliced
• 4 cloves garlic minced
• 1/4 teaspoon grated ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• soy sauce (I used Kikkoman), to taste
• 1 generous pinch sugar
• 2 cups pechay (or similar variety of Chinese cabbage), sliced
• Sriracha to taste
• few drops sesame seed oil

Instructions

• Heat the cooking oil. Add the tofu, garlic, onion, ginger and pepper. Stir fry for half a minute.
• Pour in about a tablespoonful of soy sauce. Add the sugar. Stir fry until the tofu soaks up the liquid.
• Add the pechay.
• Add a little more soy sauce. Pour in the Sriracha. Continue stir frying just until the leaves are wilted.
• Drizzle in a few drops of sesame seed oil. Stir. Serve hot.