Steamed Tofu with prawn
Yesterday I went to the supermarket opposite my house, Sainsbury’s, and was really happy to find that they are now selling tofu. One of my favourite things to cook with but one of the more inconvenient things is Tofu, inconvenient as it means I have to go to the Chinese supermarket. Tofu is one of the greatest things to come out of Chinese cuisine. It’s incredibly health and has high protein, vitamins, calcium and minerals but it’s also low in calories, sodium and fat.
Research has also shown that tofu is great for combating heart disease and is good for ladies when they’re going through their menopause.
So, with all those great benefits, why can’t we buy tofu in every supermarket in the UK? I think it’s because people don’t know how to cook tofu or they had bad experiences with a tofu dish that has been cooked incorrectly. For example, my husband was talking to his colleagues and they said when they tried to cook tofu it turned into a sloppy mess. Cooked properly it should keep it’s shape and texture.
Tofu is a very common ingredient in Chinese and Taiwanese cooking. We cook Tofu in many different cooking ways including stir-fry, pan fry, steam, stew, deep fry and more.
So, here is my recipe for my tofu dish today. It’s called “steamed tofu with prawn”. The preparation time for this dish is around 20 minutes. It’s quick to make, simple, healthy and cooked without any oil at all. How great is that?! Next time people who try to call Chinese food unhealthy might start thinking again. People in western society often think Chinese food is about sweet and sour, prawn toasts, msg, fat etc but in actual fact good Chinese food is nothing like this.
Credits: Preparation photos were taken by myself but final photos were taken by Chris at: http://www.chrisradleyphotography.com
Steamed Tofu with prawn
Ingredients
Ingredients
- 250 g prawn
- 500 g tofu
- 1 piece ginger chop finely
Seasonings for prawns
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp rice wine
- 1 tsp soy sauce
- 1/4 tsp pepper powder
Seasonings for sauce
- 1/2 cup water
- 1 tbsp oyster sauce
- 1/2 stock cube
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1 tsp potato powder
Instructions
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Take out the tofu from package and dry it. Sprinkle a couple pinches of salt on the tofu and leave for a couple minutes.
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Cut the tofu into 1 cm thick pieces. Use a cookie cutter to cut the tofu and use a teaspoon to dig a small hole in central of tofu.
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Use a food processor to process the prawn with all the seasonings.
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Roll the prawn mixture from step 3 into a small ball and put in the central of tofu.
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Steam the tofu with full power for 10 minutes.
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Mix all the seasonings for sauce in a small saucepan and bring it to boil. You must stir it occasionally while it cook.
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Pour appropriate among of sauce on top of tofu and ready to serve.
Wow, flower tofu!! It’s very pretty. I’ve made something similar before but it was layered and there were some chopped century eggs. 🙂
Hello Swee San,
Thank you very much for your comment. 😀
I just found you from Spicie Foodie, wow this is the cutest thing, they would make great appetizers.
-Gina-
Hello Gina,
Thank you for visit my blog and your lovely comment. 🙂 I’m really appreciate it
I love steamed tofu. Yours look so pretty with the cut-out flower shapes. I also like the shrimp stuffing.
Hello Biren,
Many thanks for your comment.
First I want to tell you how pretty they look :)Sadly that is true that in the west we have a bad or generic idea about what Chinese food is really suppose to be like. I’m no expert but I hate when it’s “watered down” to fit local palettes, it isn’t Chinese food anymore. Tofu can be such a great tasty treat, as you said when prepared correctly. Only recently have I learn how versatile it can be and have begun to really enjoy tofu. This has to gone on my (long) list to try 🙂 Thanks for sharing and I hope you are staying warm!
Hi Nancy,
Many thanks for your comment. I felt sad too when I came to the UK and ate “watered down” western-Chinese food. One of the main problems with Chinese restaurants is they use they same sauce; everything tastes the same. Our local Chinese restaurant has an advert saying 95% of restaurants here use sauces by the same company but 95% of the Chinese restaurants are really crap. Everything here is sweet and sour, black bean sauce, prawn crackers etc but we use these sparingly. As a note in China/Taiwan we’ve never heard of this brand that these restaurants use.
Tofu is one of my favourite ingredients to use with food. There are different kinds of tofu and people here don’t generally like it but don’t know how to prepare it. In the future I will be adding more tofu recipes to my blog.
Hope you are well also and also I want to order your book but the delivery time from Amazon in the US is up to six weeks. Are you selling it anywhere in Europe (Amazon UK for example)?
I made this today with my friend. It was DELICIOUS, but I put too much stock into the sauce. haha…
Can’t wait to try your other recipes!
Thank you Emily. That’s great news for me that you like my steamed tofu with prawn recipe. 😀
One of my favourite dishes that we’ve done recently. I like the simple setup but it really works.
Yeah, it’s delicious.