Easy Fusion Food

Image by Trang Pham from Pixabay

Easy Curry Tofu

Last time after I talked about easy tofu dishes, I realized that I forgot about curry tofu, which is my favorite. It is so easy to do. Cut tofu into small pieces (half bit size) and microwave it on a flat plate on high for 2 to 3 minutes. Water would come out of tofu. Dump the water. Usually I will move tofu to a new flat bowl and mix with whatever curry sauce you have. Microwave on high for five minutes–You might want to pause it in the middle and stir it to make sure all the tofu chunks are coated in curry. The curry sauce should bring as little liquid as possible since tofu chunks will continue to seep out water.

My Revised Jollof Rice, Risotto, Caribbean Rice, Or Spanish Rice Recipe

I revised other rice recipes by using a rice cooker. The tricky part of this recipe is the amount of water. Rice cannot be fully cooked if the liquid is not enough; and it will become soggy when the liquid is too much. Usually in a rice cooker, one cup of rice will need one cup of water–I usually add a little bit more than that since I like softer rice.

Mix your favorite meat and vegetable together in a frying pan and add all your favorite ingredients, but only cook for five minutes. Make sure that there are a cup of liquid (or a little less) sipping out. If there’s not enough liquid, you want to add some stock in.

Cook two cups of rice in a rice cooking, but only add one cup of water. And you have to watch carefully. As soon as the water is about to dry up (since you didn’t put enough in the first place), you add everything from the frying pan to the rice cooker.

The whole thing now will be cooked in the rice cooker. Please make sure you don’t stir in the beginning. The meat and vegetable should be staying on top of the rice for most of the cooking process. Only at the end, when the rice and everything else is fully cooked will you mix them together.

Sticky Rice Chicken

This can be cooked with plain white rice too, though it tastes better with sticky rice. The trick to this dish is again the amount of water. What happens to the last dish also happens here too. Too much water, the rice becomes soggy, while with insufficient water, rice cannot be cooked through. The rice should be immersed in cold water for at least an hour to get it soaked. Chicken can be cut into small or big pieces and marinated in your favorite sauce, preferably overnight.

Put the soaked rice (two cups) in a big bowl, add clean water until the water cover the rice and there are about 0.7 cm (which is about one third of an inch) water on top of the rice. Here it depends on your taste. If you like tough rice, you want to add a little less water and if you want soft rice, you can add more. There’s a bit of experiment that you have to perform with water here. The first several times, you may add too much or not enough, but after the first several tries, you will know how much to add.

Steam the big bowl of rice in a steamer. After the steam come up, the water in the bowl gets dried up quickly, you will add the chicken on top of the rice. Continue to steam for half an hour.

Rice Pizza

I use the Vietnamese rice paper. Usually I use two sheets of rice paper, and use egg batter as glue in between the two sheets. One can add stock or water to the egg to dilute it. Then spread the egg in between two sheets. Make sure the egg is spread to all the surface. Any surface that’s not covered by the egg will grow very tough in the pan.

Put the two sheets of rice paper glued by egg batter in a pan. Add your favorite veggies and meats and bean sprouts on top. Make sure all surface of the rice paper has to be covered by the toppings. If not, the surface will become so tough that it is not chewable. I usually cook the veggie and the meat first because the rice paper is so quickly cooked that it doesn’t leave the time for the topping to be cooked through. So the topping has to be already cooked before it is mounted on the rice paper.

Parsley Dumpling

I love the flavor of this dumpling and it is the true fusion food. Usually dumplings are made of minced pork and shredded vegetables. Here parsley is used instead of veggie. And it has a distinct flavor.