Sunday Lunch - Coconut Rice, Tofu and Eggplant

Ever since I have bought the Essential Asian Cookbook (published by Konemann) I have been cooking Asian food almost everyday, depending on what is in the fridge and what I can adapt.

These two recipes are also from the book and very simple to make. I, of course made substitutions, and so should you!

The Coconut Rice is very simple to make. Really. Almost Idiot-proof.

You need to fry some sliced shallots and ginger, then add curry leaf, turmeric powder, rice and fry for 2 mins, then add coconut milk (double the quantity of rice), salt, lower the flame, cover and cook until the rice is fully cooked.



This also is not too tough, depending on how much adaptation you are willing to make. I did away with the sweet-spicy sauce in the recipe and used plum sauce and chilli flakes. It worked for me. First, I fried the tofu golden brown, roasted the eggplant and burnt it. Those are the black bits you can see. Then you need to stir fry crushed garlic and grated ginger, add the plum sauce when the garlic and ginger are golden brown, and the chilli flakes, some fish sauce, the tofu and eggplant and cook it for another 3-4 minutes.



I suck at plating, so I don't even attempt it. I topped the coconut rice with boiled egg, fried onions (that you can't see too well in the pic), cucumber and chilli soaked in vinegar as recommended in the book and this was really a complete meal in itself.



The eggplant-tofu required just some chopped green shallots. I ate it with the coconut rice but it would have tasted better with plain steamed rice. However, on its own it had a sweet, hot, smoky flavour and the eggplant and tofu textures complemented each other really well.