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.

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

Video

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.

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