feel food club

Chinese

Super Easy 20-Minute Sticky Orange Tofu

by Kommentar verfassen

Put all our prejudices aside and make this recipe. If you used to think tofu is boring, you will be proven differently. We have got the sweet and slightly spicy flavours of orange and chilli combined in a sticky sauce that covers the tofu. Definitely not your average tofu.

Orange Tofu is a dish that originally is made with chicken instead of tofu and therefore also called orange chicken. Orange Chicken originated in China, where it is rarely found in traditional restaurants today. It got really popular in the US through Panda Express. There the chicken is battered, then fried and then tossed in a orange sauce, which thickens and caramelizes. 

What’s special about this dish?

It is a vegan version if the orange chicken and a mich healthier one too. It is not battered and deep fried and also not tossed in a sauce loaded with white refined sugar. It is a much healthier, easier and quicket version of the original and still tastes really intense and good! So you could say that it rather is a Chinese inspired dish and less the original one.

Is this dish healthy? 

Yep yep. What is it made of? Well our main ingredient is tofu. Tofu is really high in protein and also comes with some fiber. Then our main „ingredient“ is the orange sauce. This is mainly made from freshly squeezed orange juice, which is a vitamin C bomb. Then we have some soy sauce, vinegar, fresh ginger and garlic and some honey, plus some cornstarch in which the tofu is tossed and then fried in a little hot oil.

Contrary to regular orange chicken, we have rather little fat here because instead of deep frying it, it is simply stir fried in a pan. Also, we are using honey instead of white refined sugar. Honey still contains sugar but less per 100g in comparison to regular sugar and it actually comes with antioxidants. 

How to make this dish:

This is super simple. So, we start by pressing the tofu. To do so we just lay some kitchen paper beneath and on top of a block of tofu and them let something heavy press it down for a few minutes. This will make the liquid drain from the tofu so it gets crispier in the pan later on.

Next we just chop it up into about 1 cm sized cubes. These are then tossed in some cornstarch. The cornstarch binds the remaining liquid and kind of forms a crust when frying. After that, the tofu is fried in some hot oil from each side for about 1-2 minutes till crispy. 

In the meantime we combine the orange juice & zest, soy sauce, honey or maple, cornstarch, ginger, garlic and vinegar in a bowl and then pour it over the tofu and let it simmer on low heat for a few minutes. Because of the cornstarch the sauce will thicken and the honey makes it caramelise. That already pretty much is it, we now only have to divide it onto plates or bowls and garnish with some greens!

Meal prep friendly

You can easily make this dish in advance and reheat it. If you have a stove I would prepare everything in advance and store the tofu and sauce separately and heat it up together whenever you want to have it. If you do not have a stove when eating it, you can simply heat it up in the microwave all together. Maybe you’ll then need to add a little water.

Print

Super Easy 20-Minute Sticky Orange Tofu

Easy, delicious and healthy. A vegan and lighter version of the american-chinese classic and let me tell you, it at least is as delicious!

Course dinner, lunch, Main Course
Cuisine American, Chinese
Prep Time 10 Minuten
Cook Time 10 Minuten
Total Time 20 Minuten
Servings 2 servings

What you will need

  • 300 g tofu
  • 4 tbsp cornstarch
  • some rice or quinoa to serve with

For the sauce:

  • 1 orange zest & juice
  • 2 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1 garlic clove
  • 1 cm ginger
  • 1 tbsp cornstarch
  • 60 g honey or maple
  • 1 tbsp vinegar

How to

  1. Lay the tofu onto some kitchen paper and cover it iwth some more. Lay something heavy on top and let it press for abou 5-10 minutes, so as much liquid as possible goes out in order for the tofu to become crispy when frying. Then cut into 1 cm sized cubes and toss it in the cornstarch

  2. In the meantime grate the orange, then press it. Combine it with the remaining ingredients for the sauce.

  3. Heat up the oil in a pan and fry the tofu on each side for about 1-2 minutes until crispy and golden. Turn the heat down to medium heat and pour in the orange sauce. Give everything a good mix and let simmer for about 3-4 minutes until it has thickend a bit.

  4. Serve with some rice or quinoa and garnish with some cilantro! Serve and enjoy!

Honestly, this dish is so quick, so easy to make and so good! You’ll really, really love it and it is so so simple! I hope you’ll like it as much as we do and have a great time cooking it!

Enjoy!
Love,
Katie // Une Petite Cuisinière

Super Easy Saucy Hoisin Chickpea and Quinoa Bowl

by Kommentar verfassen

Bowls really have been the greatest invention ever. You can just take one, take your favorite ingredients, throw it all in, mix it and enjoy it. This is pure genius. Endless options and possibilities. And that can also be challenging, because how do you make a good bowl? This bowl definitely is a good one! Tangy and slightly sweet hoisin chickpeas with fluffy quinoa, crunchy veggies and soft avocado. = heaven.

How to make a good bowl?

A bowl always comes together out of several different ingredient groups. We have grains, greens, protein, veggies, fruits (optional), sauce and a topping. When we add something out of every group, we have got a perfectly balanced, healthy and delicious bowl

What’s special about this dish?

It is a bowl like no other – that is what is so great about bowls – everyone is so different. This is kind of an asian inspired bowl with flavours from China because of the hoisin. And since it is veganuary (and a lot of people are doing veganuary) we are making a vegan bowl – and no it is not boring! It is super flavourful, easy to make and packed with nutrients!

Is this dish healthy?

Definitely! You have got a very well balanced dish! As a base we have a mix of quinoa, which is packed with fibre, carbohydrates and protein, and greens, which are loaded with vitamins & nutrients. Then we have the star of the show: the chickpeas. Chickpeas are not only delicious, but also high in fibre and protein and a great source of plant based protein.

The sauce, in which the chickpeas are in, is made out of soy sauce, honey or maple, ginger and garlic and peanut butter, which provides some more protein and healthy fats. And then we also have the fresh veggies, which are very important for us with their nutrients and of course, some avocado (a bowl without avocado just wouldn’t be a bowl). Extra healthy fats and nutrients. As a topping we have spring onions and radishes, which add some more crunch and nutrients.

How to make this dish?

Really really simple. We start by preparing the quinoa (which by the way is the food of the month and you can read more about it here). Then we make the sauce for the chickpeas by blending peanut butter, soy sauce, ginger, lime juice, miso paste, honey and cornstarch

Now we are going to cook the chickpeas and the veggies. The veggies in boiling, salted water and the chickpeas with the sauce in a pan. The sauce will thicken and the chickpeas will absorb the flavour.

To assemble we now just add everything to a bowl, along with the avocado and tomatoes and top it with radishes and spring onions. That already is it!

Meal prep friendly?

Yes it definitely is, I have already had it reheated and it was at least as delicious! Just do not reheat the spring onions, tomatoes, radishes and avocado since they are meant to be eaten raw. And maybe you’ll need to add a splash of water to the chickpeas to thin out the sauce a bit!

I hope you’ll enjoy this bowl at least as much as I do, that you’ll have a fun time cooking and a healthy January!

Print

Super Easy Saucy Hoisin Chickpea and Quinoa Bowl

A delicious, easy & healthy (vegan) bowl recipe that is packed with a tangy, slightly sweet sauce, many fresh and crunchy veggies and fluffy, soft quinoa!

Course bowl, Main Course
Cuisine asian
Prep Time 5 Minuten
Cook Time 10 Minuten
Total Time 15 Minuten
Servings 2 servings
Calories 577 kcal

What you will need

For the chickpeas:

  • 1 can chickpeas
  • 1 tbsp peanut butter
  • 4 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1/2 lime
  • 1 tbsp honey or maple syrup
  • 2 garlic cloves
  • 1 thumb sized piece of ginger
  • 1 tsp cornstarch
  • 1/2 tsp chili paste (optional)

For the rest:

  • 120 g quinoa
  • 1 small head broccoli
  • 100 g edamame beans
  • 1 handful cherry tomatoes
  • 2 stalks spring onions
  • 100 g radishes
  • 1 avocado

How to

  1. To a pot add the quinoa, with a pinch of salt, and twice the amount of water. Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer. Let simmer on medium-low heat until all water in absorbed. Then turn down to low heat and let the quinoa fluff.

  2. In the meantime peel the ginger and garlic, juice the lime and blend them along with all the otehr ingredients for the chickpeas, except the chickpeas themselves. If you do not have a blender, finely grate the garlic and ginger and just stir to combine the other ingredients for the sauce. Add it to a pot along with the drained and washed chickpeas and bring to a boil. Then reduce to a simmer and let it thicken a bit, about 5-8 minutes.

  3. In the meantime bring another pot of water to a boil and cook the broccoli and edmame in it for about 4 minutes, then drain.

  4. Half the cherry tomatoes, finely slice up the spring onions and half and depit the avocado.

  5. Once everything is ready, add it to a bowl and enjoy!

Love,
Katie // Une Petite Cuisinière

Red pepper and carrot egg noodle stir fry with saucy mince

by 2 Kommentare

A quick stir fry always is a go-to option for a dinner on busy nights. Although I have never been to China and had a real traditional one, I am obsessed with the ones I have had and made. I love how versatile they are and how creative one can be with them since always having the same can be boring after a while. Like this one, it is definitely not your average one, nope, but it is a DREAM! And super super quick!

What is stir fry? 

Stir fry actually is a Chinese cooking technique where food is prepared at high heat, continuously stirring and there for frying it quickly. Nowadays stir fry is a term with which one often refers to a dish rather than a cooking technique. The dish consists of vegetables sautéed with some sort of meat, seafood, tofu or tempeh all covered in a tasty sauce and served over rice or noodles or even another grain like quinoa. 

What’s special about this dish?

Usually stir fry is prepared with strips of meat or cubes of tofu. But in this dish we are switching it up and using minced meat. Firstly, it is a nice way to switch thighs up and make it different once in a while and secondly it soaks up the sauce super well, which makes the dish really tasty! 

Also, in regular stir fries you can find a bunch of different vegetables, including lots of greens. But here we only use two different ones. That helps to focus on their flavor and to also mane non veggie lovers be obsessed with this dish! But if you still feel like it, go ahead and add in a handful of spinach! 

Is stir fry healthy?

It actually is pretty healthy! But obviously, it still depends on what you are using. When prepared with something like chicken breast or tofu it actually is healthy but when it‘s made with something like pork belly or fatty meat, it loads up on calories and fats.

Which makes me come to the next point: fat. Stir fries usually are prepared with lots of oil because that is common in the asian cuisine. While oil definitely is not unhealthy (unless you prepare it with an oil that gets poisonous at high temperatures such as olive oil) it comes with a bunch of calories, which you should be aware of. 

The last point you should look out for is the soy sauce. Try to use one that is sodium reduced because a lot of sodium also is bot healthy but pretty common.

How to make it healthier

Try to add in as many veggies as possible and choose a type of protein that does not pack a lot of fat and use a soy reduced soy sauce. If you want to make it super healthy you can even serve it with whole grain rice or noodles.

Substitutes:

Bell Pepper/ Carrots – veggies you have on hand/ in the fridge
Ground chicken – any other ground meat or textured vegetable protein
Egg noodles – ramen, soba noodles, rice noodles 

I really love to make this dish because it is something the whole family loves and it is really versatile. Plus, it comes together in less than 20 minutes and is healthy! Perfect for busy weeks! I hope you enjoy it as much as we do! 

Happy cooking,
Enjoy,
Katie // Une Petite Cusinière

Print

Red pepper and carrot egg noodle stir fry with saucy mince

Saucy and juicy mince on top of soft noodles with crunchy veggies. A dream. Not your normal stir fry but a good one with a nice twist to it.

Course dinner, lunch, Main Course
Cuisine asian, Chinese
Prep Time 10 Minuten
Cook Time 15 Minuten
Total Time 25 Minuten
Servings 4 servings
Calories 625 kcal

What you will need

  • 500 g ground beef
  • 250 g egg noodles
  • 1 red bell pepper
  • 1 yellow/orange bell pepper
  • 3-4 carrots
  • 1 tbsp oil

for the sauce:

  • 4 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1 tbsp oyster sauce
  • 1 tbsp fish sauce
  • 3 tbsp honey
  • 1 tbsp sesame oil
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 2 cm ginger
  • 1 chili (optional but really good)

for garnish:

  • 2 spring onions finely slices
  • fresh cilantro
  • some sesame seeds
  • thinly sliced carrots
  • some lime wedges

How to

  1. Remove the core from the bell peppers. Cut the rest into about 0,5cm thick slices. Peel the carrots and also cut them into thin sticks.

  2. Heat up the oil in a wok pan or a non-stick pan. Once hot add the vegetables and fry on high heat for about 1 minute, then turning it to medium high for another 2-3 minutes.

  3. Add the grounf beef and fry on high heat for about 4-5 minutes, gently mixing through, so everything is well combined and the meat is evenly browned.

  4. Add all of the ingredients for the sauce into a food processor and blend until combined. If you do not have a food processor mix everything in a bowl and grate the garlic and ginger into it.

  5. Prepare the noodles according to package instructions. Add the sauce to the stir fry and let it simmer on low heat for about 3 minutes. Drain the noodles and add them to the stir fry. Mix until combined and the noodles have soaked up the sauce.

  6. Serve in bowls and garnish with the fresh spring onions, cilantro, carrots, sesame seeds and lime. Enjoy!