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02/14/2008: "Ma Bo Tofu happiness"
mood: Pleased
Made Ma Bo Tofu for dinner tonight and it turned out surprisingly well! I don't normally consider myself a good cook since I take huge liberties with the recipes I follow, if "follow" can even be the right word to use when I do radical stuff like completely substitute ingredients and never measure things accurately (It's can be a pain to not have measuring cups and spoons in our flat). As a result I'm often dissatisfied with the stuff I cook since of course it never turns out the way it should. (K and S probably remember the time I made claypot rice for our fireworks "picnic" and I kept lamenting the sorry state of my dish to the point that they [very nicely] told me to stop. :p)
But this time the Ma Bo Tofu actually tastes pretty good! :D Though I was quite surprised at the recipe; most of the Ma Bo Tofu I've eaten has been of the really spicy variety, so I'd always thought it was originally an extremely spicy dish in and of itself. This recipe turned out to be pretty tame, though - the only amount of chilli that was in it was a teaspoon of chilli flakes!
Anyway, here are some pics of the Ma Bo Tofu. I know it doesn't look particularly nice, what with the mashed up tofu and the brown colour and all, but at least it tastes fine. :D
The original recipe didn't call for veg, but since Ga Mok always complains when we make dinner that has no veg (she's been a good influence on my eating habits. ^_^), I threw in a few handfuls of long beans to make up for the lack. I ended up cooking them for a bit too long, though, so they turned slightly yellow... hopefuly I didn't boil the nutrients out of them since that would have totally defeated the purpose of adding them in in the first place. ^_^;; Also, the original recipe called for pork but since we had minced beef in the freezer I thought I'd use that instead. The substitution did no harm and in fact it actually tasted really yummy to me since I'm a huge beef fan. :D
Overall, a dish I'm finally satisfied with! Thank you for the lovely recipe, Yan Can Cook. *kisses her recipe book and runs away before T can yell at her for not using his real name*.
