Jade Tower ( 翡翠塔), or Tofu with Aster Indicus (香乾馬蘭頭)

JS:
This is one of our favourite appetizer dishes when we go to Shanghainese restaurants. I first discovered this dish of tofu and spinach while dining at Top Shanghai, in Richmond, quite some time ago. It doesn't seem like much, but this is a combination that works.

One day, I was browsing through Pei Mei's cookbooks and chanced across something called Jade Tower 翡翠塔. Reading through the recipe and looking at the picture, it seems that this is the dish we had. I kept this information for future reference.

about Fu Pei Mei
http://www.flavorandfortune.com/dataaccess/article.php?ID=379
http://tofuwatch.com/2009/07/decades-later-fu-pei-meis-chinese-recipes-particularly-tofu-still-inspire-who-was-she/

Pei Mei cookbooks

TS:
Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago, we were dining at Suhang restaurant and wanted to order "Jade Tower." We peered long and hard at Suhang's menu, looking carefully through the English names and muddling through the Chinese, but we could not find this dish.

urbanspoon: Suhang Restaurant

JS:
Thankfully, our mother is a regular at Suhang and our server knows that she always orders this dish. Our server thus pointed us to the right item on the menu. The name of this dish on Suhang's menu is totally different from "Jade Tower."

For future reference, Pei Mei's "Jade Tower" is called 香乾馬蘭頭, translated as "Marinated Tofu with Special Vegetables", in Suhang's menu.

(Just a note, 香乾 (xiang gan) literally means "fragrant dry". It's the term used for marinated firm tofu.)



TS:
How can a dish have two completely different, unrelated names?

JS:
I told TS in a confident tone of voice that it could be that "Jade Tower" is simply the poetic name of the dish.

It sounds plausible enough, doesn't it? Given that I saw the dish in the banquet section of Pei Mei's book, I convinced myself that I was of course right.

TS:
It turns out that 馬蘭頭 (malantou) is indeed a "special vegetable."

Googling madly to find the origin of the name -- because I suspected that JS was simply making up answers like she sometimes does -- it turns out that malantou is a plant/vegetable called "Aster indicus," which grows wild in certain parts of China.

Further googling couldn't help me find out more about "Aster indicus." I merely discovered that it's also called boltonia or Kalimeris indicus. The plot thickens.

I still don't know the exact relationship between "jade tower" and "tofu with Aster indicus", but I have to accept that.

In any case, getting to the bottom of the names of this dish took up a lot more time than actually making this dish!



TS:
It's simply a matter of mixing together finely chopped cooked greens and finely chopped firm tofu. A little salt (perhaps sugar) and sesame oil, and that's it.

If this looks familiar, why yes, we did something similar with celery before (Fragrant Celery and Tofu Salad).

Obviously, they don't taste quite the same, one being made from celery while this one with spinach. Also, the recipe called for also simmering the firm tofu for about a minute or so. This resulted in the tofu having a "spongier" texture.

If anyone can find this elusive Aster indicus plant, then by all means, use it. Then you can say your dish is tofu with Aster indicus 香乾馬蘭頭, as opposed to simply being a generic "jade tower."



I have copied the recipe for Jade Tower from Pei Mei's book below. There are also links to others' versions of this tofu and Kalimeris Indica/Boltonia dish.

eatingclub JiangZhe dishes
Jade Tower ( 翡翠塔), or Tofu with Aster Indicus (香乾馬蘭頭)
Wuxi Pork Spareribs (無錫排骨)
"Little Cubby Heads", Lion's Head Meatballs (小獅子頭)
Supreme Lion's Head Meatballs with Crabmeat (清燉蟹粉獅子頭)
Suzhou Deep-fried Fish, or Suzhou Smoked Fish (蘇州燻魚)

Recipe
Jade Tower (翡翠塔)
from Pei Mei's Chinese Cook Book Volume III

Ingredients
400g spinach (or other kind of green vegetable)
150g dried tofu

Seasonings
1/3 teaspoon salt
1/6 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon sesame oil

Trim spinach, blanch and drain quickly. Rinse with cold water, squeeze dry, and chop finely.

Boil dried tofu over low heat for 1 minute. Drain and chop finely once cool to the touch.

Place spinach and dried tofu in a bowl; mix with seasonings. You may use a mold to shape the mixture into a tower; it'll look prettier.


Life is Beautiful!: Kalimeris Indica and Tofu Salad
FoodNo.1: Tossed Dried Beancurd With Boltonia

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Vietnamese Chicken Cabbage Salad (Goi Ga Bap Cai) on Sesame Rice Cracker (Banh Trang Me)

JS:
Going through our blog posts, we realized we didn't have a lot of Vietnamese recipes at all. How could that be? We love Vietnamese food: why haven't we been making it at home? A new blog event, Delicious Vietnam, is certainly an opportunity to rectify this situation.

When I butcher a chicken, I usually have several uses for the legs and thighs and can easily transform them into something palatable. The breasts, however, are a different story. I seem to get stuck in a rut with breasts, opting too often for chicken salad or Thai basil stir-fry.

When I don't feel like eating those two options, I find myself in a race against time, before the meat starts exuding that dreadful chicken BO.



TS:
After a quick browse through Wandering Chopsticks, we have killed two birds with one stone by making Vietnamese Chicken Cabbage Salad (Goi Ga Bap Cai).

Chicken


TS:
I was too lazy to poach the chicken breasts, so I cooked them in a pan. So, they're not exactly shredded chicken, but it was all right by me.

Vietnamese Vinegared Onions (Hanh Dam)


TS:
Too bad we didn't have red onions. They would've been prettier. For these pickled onions, it was a matter of adding rice vinegar and sugar to thinly-sliced onions and letting them sit.

Vietnamese Fish Dipping Sauce (Nuoc Mam Cham)


TS:
I normally use our mini food processor for any sort of garlic-choppery, seeing as we like a lot of garlic. But, Wandering Chopsticks recommends using the mortar and pestle. So, Wandering Chopsticks, this mortar and pestle action is just for you! ;)

(Although, I couldn't quite seem to get the garlic ground into a paste. Laziness reared its ugly head once again.)

I mixed together garlic, chile peppers, sugar, fish sauce and vinegar (in lieu of lime juice). I was already in the middle of this prep when I realized that we didn't have any limes in the house! Quel horreur.

Vegetables and Herbs


TS:
I shredded a cabbage head and a couple of carrots. I had half a cucumber in the fridge so I shredded that too.



TS:
Then, I realized that we didn't have cilantro in the house! How is that possible? We did have some Thai basil and some flat-leaf parsley, so that's what I added to the salad.

It was simply a matter of mixing everything together: chicken, hanh dam, nuoc mam cham, shredded vegetables and chopped herbs.



Sesame Rice Cracker (Banh Trang Me)


TS:
There has to be a better English translation because "sesame seed cracker" doesn't quite do these justice.

We first learned about banh trang me on a Food Safari episode. The girl making green papaya salad simply popped one of these in the microwave, then served her salad on it. So, when we saw a package of banh trang me on the aisle while trolling through a Vietnamese supermarket, we snatched it up. This package of sesame rice crackers was fragrant with coconut milk.

Following her lead, here's our chicken cabbage salad on a sesame rice cracker.



Recipe by Wandering Chopsticks:
Goi Ga Bap Cai (Vietnamese Chicken Cabbage Salad)

Vietnamese food at eatingclub vancouver
Squid with Black Pepper
Trout in Vietnamese Caramel Sauce
Pho Bo (Vietnamese Beef Noodle Soup)
Vietnamese Salmon Steaks with Cucumber, Garlic and Ginger
Pho Ga (Vietnamese Chicken Noodle Soup)
Vietnamese Chicken Cabbage Salad (Goi Ga Bap Cai) on Sesame Rice Cracker (Banh Trang Me)
Vietnamese Spring Roll (Cha Gio)
Asparagus and Crab Egg Crêpes

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We are submitting this post to Delicious Vietnam, a blogging event founded by A Food Lover's Journey and Ravenous Couple.

For more information on this first edition of the event, click here.

The round-up will be hosted by Anh of A Food Lover's Journey.

Sage Tea

JS:
I guess it's time to accept I just don't have a green thumb.

For two years now, our so-called garden has been languishing. Most everything we've planted in there garden has failed to reach their best, their full potential. From potatoes to cabbage, sugar peas to carrots, nothing blossomed, nothing thrived. I've had half a mind to dig the darn garden up and build a roasting pit instead.

It seems like the only thing that has taken a liking to our plot of land is sage.

It is indeed the garden's salvation, the only plant that has managed to survive and even thrive in what I'm guessing is a very harsh habitat (though I have no idea why that is so). Our sage plant has wonderful and beautiful-looking leaves and the leaves are oh-so-fragrant.



JS:
Unfortunately, save for the occasional roast chicken or roast turkey with sage butter and very infrequent squash-with-fried-sage dishes, we don't use much sage in cooking.

Thankfully, sage has a great many uses other than in cooking.

That above is a sage tea or infusion, made from steeping sage leaves in hot water. Drinking sage tea has numerous health benefits. There has been an exciting new study that shows sage might help in lowering blood sugar.

Apparently, gargling with a sage solution also has benefits, healing mouth ulcers and canker sores and soothing sore throats. Or, at least drinking a sage infusion alleviates the pain associated with these conditions.

Sage has powerful antiseptic properties and can be used to clean wounds. It can also be used as an aftershave, given its astringent properties. Quite surprisingly, it can be used as an antiperspirant due to its moisture-drying properties, although I'm not too clear as to the mechanics of how one can use sage leaves as an antiperspirant.

Pretty nifty plant, wouldn't you say? Sage, yea.



For more information on sage and its numerous beneficial or medicinal qualities, visit these links.
http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/s/sages-05.html
http://www.gardensablaze.com/HerbSageMed.htm

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For showcasing SAGE, we're submitting this post to Weekend Herb Blogging, a world-wide food blogging event (created by Kalyn's Kitchen, now maintained by Haalo of Cook (almost) Anything at Least Once) with the goal of helping each other learn about cooking with herbs and plant ingredients.

If you'd like to participate, see who's hosting next week. WHB is hosted this week by Lynne of Cafe Lynnylu.