My Mind Patch: Braised Thawed-Frozen Tofu in Angelica Root Flavour

If you love braised soya bean cakes and angelica root or 当归 eggs, you most probably would love this dish 😋 Using porous thawed-frozen soya bean cakes helps to absorb the angelica root flavored stock faster and more readily. And the firmer and slightly chewy texture also prevented the soya bean cakes from breaking during stirring and cooking.

Using a mini rice cooker and yosenabe sauce to cook the dish help to make the cooking process simpler. And most importantly, the dish was still very delicious 😋

Servings: 2 to 3 persons

Equipment: mini rice cooker

Ingredients

280g small soy bean cake, 2 cakes

1 dried shiitake mushroom, soaked and sliced, keep the mushroom water

2 small kampong eggs

Braising Stock

About 300~350g water

About 40ml mushroom water

35g Kikkoman Yosenabe sauce

5cm white scallion

2 slices angelica root 当归片

2 cubes rock sugar

a little dark soya sauce for adding colour

Directions

1. Freeze 2 small soya bean cake in their packaging for about 3 to 4 hours, or till totally solidified. Then thaw them in room temperature till totally softened.

I usually will keep a fresh pack of soya bean cakes in the freezer, so I can thaw them any time to cook them.

Cut the thawed-frozen soy bean cake into 8 pieces for each cake. Set aside.

2. Prepare two hard-boiled eggs by steaming. As the eggs I used were smaller in size, I only needed to start the countdown timer at 10 minutes instead of 15 minutes recommended in the recipe.

Peel the eggs and set aside.

3. Pour all the Braising Stock ingredients into the inner pot of a mini rice cooker. Start the cooking process. Do not lock the lid, and stay close to the mini rice cooker before the content boils!

When the stock starts to boil, add cut soya bean cakes and hard boiled eggs to the stock.

When the content start to boil again, switch the cooking mode to "food warming" mode. Lock the lid after the boiling has subsided. Let the content simmer for about 30 to 60 minutes. Stir the content occasionally to ensure uniform coating of the stock to the soya bean cakes and eggs.