Mushroom Tofu

A lot of the people in Seattle have been forgetting what month it is. Yes, it is in fact May, but the weather hasn't been too kind to us, and the temperature had been somewhere from 10 to 18 degrees celcius, except this past weekend, the temperature was 31 degrees celcius.

We had some tofu and mushroom that had been in the fridge for some time, and wanted something warm, so I decided to improvise and make mushroom and tofu with sweet thick sauce.

IN JAPANESE: Mushroom to Tofu no ankake
CATEGORY: Vegetable
COOKING METHOD: Boiled
DIFFICULTY: Medium
SERVES: 4 people
LENGTH OF TIME: 15 min

INGREDIENTS:
1 package of Tofu (cut in blocks)
1/2 lb of mushroom sliced (15-20 mushroom)
2 TBsp Soy Sauce
2 TBsp Sake
2 TBsp Mirin
1 half inch piece of ginger (see TIP: Ginger)
1 tsp of dashi powder
1 cup of water
1 TBsp of corn starch
1 green onion (optional)

HOW TO:
On a heated wok, add about a table spoon of vegetable oil, and when the oil is also heated, add the sliced mushroom and cook.

When the mushrooms look fully cooked, lower the heat to low-medium and add the blocks of tofu. You are mostly trying to warm up the tofu, so there's no need to stir too hard and destroy the tofu.

Add the soy sauce, sake, mirin and the shredded ginger and stir the wok gently not to break the tofu (instead of using chopsticks or spatula, just lift up the wok and twirl it around). Once that sauce gets mixed, add a cup of water and some dashi powder.

While that water heats up in the wok, take 1 Tablespoon of corn starch and mix that with enough water (about 2 Tablespoons should do it) so all the powder dissolves.

When the water (more like soup now) begins to boil, slowly add the dissolved corn starch to the wok and stir gently. As the wok continue to boil, the soup should get thicker.

Serve on a bowl with chopped green onions on top