Usually, we would have those same few dishes for our meals so much so that we got kind of tired of them and most of the time, they were not anything we would look forward to and would just eat for the sake of eating. However, with the pandemic dragging on and on like it is never going to end, my missus has been trying out new recipes that she has come across online. She is particularly fond of this guy’s cooking shows, that much I know.
Of course, there have been some hits and some misses and after being “deprived” of those dishes from our comfort zone in the good ol’ days, I kind of missed eating those. The other day, I asked my missus to cook her soy sauce chicken with Bombay onions and potatoes and I really enjoyed it and on another day, I spotted some tau kua (bean curd cake) in the fridge so I decided to cook another dish that we liked a lot using those. I did blog about it in March last year.
I cut them into halves, cut a slit in the middle and stuffed them with minced meat…
…and I also made some meat balls to simmer with the five cloves of garlic for the soup.
There was an open packet of tau hu kee (bean curd sticks) so I took what was left in it to soak in hot water to soften…
This will go into the soup later.
I fried the stuffed tau kua lightly and once done, I threw them into the soup, adding a handful of tang chai (preserved vegetables), a tablespoon of chicken stock to season and some chopped daun sup (Chinese celery) for the added fragrance.
Once done, I served it…
…garnished with some spring onions from my garden.
Knowing how my girl would enjoy this soup with tang hoon (glass noodles), I took a small pack and soaked it in hot water…
…to soften and that was what she had for lunch that day.
For our vegetable dish that day, I harvested the cangkok manis in my garden and fried it with egg…
We sure enjoyed our lunch that day even though we did not have anything special, just a couple of familiar dishes that we used to cook all the time.
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 
I love those stuffed tofu. I usually eat them on its own with chilli sauce. Just make them not too long ago. Sometimes this simple dishes are the ones I am yearning for.
Yes, me too! Nice to try some fancy canggih stuff sometimes for a change but we remain taat setia to the dishes we grew up eating and loved so well even if we may not be able to cook them as nice as how our mums did before.
Your meatballs look fresh and very inviting. 😀
Fresh meat, straight from the freezer. I enjoy them plain in clear soups.
Hakka styled toufu but I prefer deep fried than steam or cook in soup. Hehe. Add some yellow soy beans to souo, like how the famous Kuching Ta Wan Kung noodle soup does it.
The beans used for making soya bean milk? Never seen that.
You mean you like it dry, deep fried and eat dipped in chili sauce? I guess that is one of the ways to eat yong tofu – dry…or in clear soup…or in curry/tom yam gravy.
I like the minced meat stuffing, I have a pack of fish paste in my freezer, still waiting for the right moment to do it… right moment means having the right ingredients, beancurd, eggplants… etc etc.. Maybe I end up just frying the fish paste and making soup like yours… 🙂
The whole works!!! I was thinking of doing that too but that’s a lot of work. Went to buy fresh own-made fish paste this morning but did not manage to get any. Will try again over the next few days.
We rarely have the time to try new recipes but it always feels like an adventure when we do.
Now with the lockdown, stuck at home all the time, my missus sure has a lot of time for that. Not all hits though, some misses too at times but of course, we’ll never know unless we try.