Dinner for three: Yong Tau Foo

So ever since I’ve moved in to stay with the husband & family post-Wedding, the mil has only been on 2 overseas trip.

As she’s usually the one who runs the kitchen or rather, her kitchen)& loves to cook (although sometimes the recipe she experiments can end up tasting weird or wrong), I’ve hardly cooked a meal for the husband since marriage. Didn’t help that I used to work late too so it was easier just coming home to a ready home-cooked meal.

The first time mil went for a holiday some year and a half back, I was all geared & excited to show the husband that I could cook, even if only a little. After all, which wife doesn’t want to please her husband’s tummy where possible? But because the pots, pans & ingredients were stacked & stuffed in such difficult-to-find locations (the kitchen is a constant mess and mil is a hoarder as well), I ended up needing most of (my) mom’s help when I attempted 2 dishes (we had a really old, difficult to use stove then so controlling the fire was such an agony).

I remember out of the 3 times I attempted cooking again, it was the first when I saw a horrible face on the husband because my salmon was overdone and I forgot to marinate it. But since then, it has improved and proud to say as of yesterday night (yes, hooray mil is abroad again) – I finally managed my first attempt cooking dinner alone (yes, without any help even from my mom) albeit a simple meal.

It was Yong Tau Foo – a very simple, easy to cook dish which I have been craving for, home-cooked style. (YTF means stuffed beancurd and is a Chinese Hakka dish where ingredients are primarily filled with fish meat). 

I happily went supermarket shopping and here’s what I bought:

- ready pack of yong tau foo

- frozen packet of scallops (because I wanted to eat them too)

- additional yong tau foo such as fried beancurd skin and ‘hock chew’ fishball (fishballs with meat inside them) because they are the husband’s favourite

- small pack of baby chye sim vegetables (to add in last)

- anchovies

- red chilli (if you can’t get the YTF sauce, having red cut chilli & soy sauce as a dip is the next best thing in my opinion)

Preparation:

1. Boil water in a pot

2. Throw in anchovies (aka. ikan billis) and soy beans to make the broth sweeter & tastier

3. Add in YTF ingredients

4. Add in vegetables last

5. Simmer for about 30 minutes to really get the flavour in

6. Dish out and enjoy!

I also accompanied YTF dish with Chinese white rice (I love when the soup soaks the rice), and ngoh hiang (a Singaporean dish of five spice pork rolls wrapped with fried beancurd skin).

Dinner tasted really good (beams). We also had mom over as I cooked a little too much. Suffice to say, both diners enjoyed their meals.

:)