Pengtun Cooking- Rice Noodle, Broccoli, and Tofu Stir-fry

So, it’s been a good long while, I realize, since I posted a recipe for a chocolate zucchini rice cooker cake and an intention to write up more recipes. However, better late than never.

This is not a rice cooker recipe. It’s not actually served with rice but rather with what is probably among my very favorite foods in China, 二丝 (ersi). The Dali area is famous for its ersi, thick and glutinous rice noodles that are often served in broth with meat sauce for breakfast but are also lovely stir-fried.

I realized this week that, at this point, for me to use a recipe for fried rice or a stir-fry seems as silly a notion as using a recipe for a sandwich. Aside from baking adventures and occasional pancakes and curry and the like, everything I make comes out of the wok. I no longer think about the order of putting things in, the temperature needed, or amounts of rice wine/vinegar/soy sauce/sesame oil/etc. And I can’t imagine a kitchen without a wok ever existing in my future.

Really, quite a bit’s changed about my eating habits this year, and a lot of it’s not for the better. I eat more sugar, fewer whole grains, and, I’m sure, a ton of pesticides. But I love the market and eat a heck of a lot of fresh produce. In fact, I imagine that the people at the grocery store think that all I eat is sugar and rice and oatmeal, because veggies, fruit, tofu, eggs, and noodles are all easily found elsewhere. My eating manners have also changed. We Heqing fellows joke about how we’ve turned into country bumpkins, slurping from our bowls. And I eat pretty much everything except oatmeal and baked goods with chopsticks. Those two get spoons. Yes. Baked goods too. I was skyping with my family about a month ago, and they were extremely perplexed to see me scooping banana bread out of a bowl, with a spoon. Oops.

Anyway, pretty early on in the year, I discovered that ersi stir-fried with broccoli, tofu, ginger, and garlic is a truly awesome dish, and I’ve made it probably at least once a week since.

Because I’ve never run into anything like ersi in the states, I’m not sure exactly how this should be replicated in an American kitchen, but I think a pad-thai type sort of noodle would work. Everything else is easily findable in American stores, although one of the things I’ll miss most about China is buying my tofu and noodles fresh at the market, along with huge hunks of ginger, garlic, and broccoli direct from the Baizu farmers. Amounts are, obviously, approximate, and really don’t matter—just use however much of each as you like.

Noodle, Broccoli, and Tofu Stir-fry

Ingredients

-A cup or so of broccoli stem and florets, chopped roughly

-Half a cup of tofu, moisture squeezed out and diced

-a large handful of fresh rice noodles (or an equivalent amount of dried rice noodles, cooked)

-about 2 cloves garlic, diced

-a half inch piece of ginger, diced

-a tablespoon of roasted peanuts, chopped or whole

-rice vinegar to taste (maybe a teaspoon)

-soy sauce to taste (1-2 teaspoons)

-a drizzle of sesame oil

-sesame seeds to garnish

-oil for the wok

-water

Procedure

1) If you want your tofu crispy, fry it first and remove from the wok. I’m bad at frying things, so no tips here.

2) Heat the wok over medium-high and add perhaps a teaspoon of cooking oil (I use peanut here, but I assume anything would work), along with a pinch of salt. Swirl to coat.

3) When the oil’s spitting a little, put in the broccoli, garlic, and ginger and stir-fry briefly, tossing about so it doesn’t burn. If your wok starts to smoke, you might need to add a touch more oil.

4) After a minute or two, turn the heat up a little bit and add a couple tablespoons of water. Stir-fry, letting the broccoli absorb the water and turn a lovely shade of green. Try a piece and add another tablespoon of water if it’s still really crunchy. You want it a little crunchier than how you like to eat it. Turn the heat back down to medium.

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5) If you haven’t fried the tofu, put it in now and stir-fry briefly before adding the rice noodles. Stir-fry for a minute or so and then, if using fresh noodles, add another tablespoon or so of water so they’ll soften. Stir in a circle to keep the noodles from sticking, and add your vinegar, soy sauce, peanuts, and sesame seeds.

6) Continue to stir until ingredients are incorporated and the noodles and tofu are cooked through.

7) Serve, topped with a drizzle of sesame oil and more sesame seeds, if desired. Sometimes, I also add chopped scallions, but it’s just as good without.

Pengtun Cooking- Chocolate Zucchini Cake with Clementine-Honey Glaze

It’s been awhile without a post, I know, but things have gotten suddenly super busy around here. This is one of the few lulls I’ve had for awhile. I do intend to write about my day-to-day stuff soon, but for now I’m just sharing this, since I started it a week ago and only need to finish it up.

It occurs to me that, as much as I’ve alluded to my various cooking adventures, I have yet to actually do any sort of cooking/baking-focused posts. When I got here, I spent a lot of time googling all things rice cooker baking-related. I didn’t find a ton. I haven’t found much info in general that connects to foodie cooking in limited kitchens. However, I’ve experimented, and while some experiments have been less than successful, others have been glorious. Thus, I’m beginning today the dissemination of said successes. Granted, I have neither measuring cups nor temperatures nor actual baking/cooking times, so everything is very approximate, but perhaps these recipes will serve as inspiration for others in my shoes. Rice cooker baking is possible, it’s not a disaster to experiment with, and sometimes it turns out quite well indeed.

I begin with this cake because it was, aside from banana bread, perhaps my most successful rice cooker endeavor yet.

Chocolate-Zucchini Cake with Clementine-Honey Glaze

• Half a large zucchini (about 1 cup), grated
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• ¼ cup milk (I used whole, ‘cause it’s what’s here, but I bet other types would work too)
• 2-3 TBS vegetable oil, plus more to grease the rice cooker (Note: I realize that this is very little oil, and if I were baking in a traditional oven I would likely increase it, but the steaming process doesn’t require as much. Plus, milk here is all whole milk, so there’s additional fat content there)
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• ½ tsp salt
• a scant ¼ cup cocoa powder
• dash cinnamon
• about 1-1 ½ cups flour. How much will depend. You want a thick but easily pourable batter.
• about 1 large chocolate bar (3-4 oz, maybe?) chopped. Or you could use ½-3/4 cups chocolate chips, if you’re in a place with such things

Quick breads and cakes are things you’re supposed to be careful with. You’re supposed to mix the wets and dries separately, combining swiftly so as to keep the baking soda from reacting before getting into the oven. I have never been so precise, but especially since entering my new abode all such procedure has gone out the window.

I usually start with the egg, because that way I can beat it before adding anything else. Then I throw in the sugars and oil and milk and mix. I would also have added vanilla extract if I had it at the time, but I didn’t. After that, it’s time for the dries. You can mix them separately, which makes incorporating the cocoa powder a bit easier, or just throw the dries into the big bowl one by one.

Finally, mix in the grated zucchini and the chocolate chips/chunks. You should have a thick but pourable batter. If it's too watery, add more flour. If too thick, add milk or oil. Transfer to your greased rice cooker (or, y’know, a loaf pan, if you are in possession of an oven), spreading to even out the batter if necessary, and start the cook cycle.

I usually end up doing two cook cycles, with period of maybe 15 minutes in between while the cooker cools down. Every rice cooker is different though; some even have cake cycles. Sometimes my cakes don’t cook through before the bottom burns, but I’ve found that flipping the cake, while yielding a more evenly-cooked baked good, is usually less than conducive to keeping said cake in one piece. Depending on whether the cake is one to be shared or to be gobbled in private the “to flip or not to flip” debate can lead to different conclusions. However, this cake cooked through so well that flipping was unnecessary. Luck, perhaps, or maybe it was just the zucchini thanking me for using it in such an utterly unexpected way (as far as Chinese born-and-raised zucchini are concerned).

Once the cake is done, flip it onto a plate. I usually do this by using the rice server to loosen the cake as much as possible, very quickly flipping removing the rice pan and turning it upside-down, praying all the while that the cake drops out.

Glaze:

• One small Clementine (or perhaps ¼ of a typical orange), juiced, peel reserved
• 2-3 TBS sugar
• 2-3 TBS water
• 3-4 TBS milk
• 1 TBS honey
• dash cinnamon

Combine the sugar, water, Clementine peel, and juice in a saucepan (or skillet, since that’s what I had) and simmer, adding the milk after the sugar is mostly melted. Watch it carefully, stirring to keep from burning (quite a feat, on a hot plate), and add more milk or sugar as necessary to reach a thin syrupy texture.

Use a toothpick to poke holes all over the top of the cake, then spoon the glaze on. Eat and be blissful.

So there you have it. If anybody out there is another budding rice cooker baker, I’d love to hear about it. We can swap horror/success stories. And hopefully the next time some poor displaced American foodie googles rice cooker baking, he/she’ll have a few more options.