Three Cup Chicken and Stir fry Tofu

Posting two days in a row...wow...

Today (rather a few days ago), I decide to try to two dishes - Three Cup Chicken and my Mom's Stir Fry tofu...

Dish 1: Stir Fry Tofu with Grounded Pork

"Lessons Learned"

1. Just because the butcher gives you more than your requested amount of meat doesn't mean you have to use it all in your dish.

I had wanted 1/4 of a pound of grounded pork and I think I got a little under half a pound. Living so close to the market, I no longer like to keep frozen meat in the fridge. ...so I used it all in this dish. Bad idea.... This tofu dish came out to be more of a meat dish than a tofu dish....sigh.

2. Don't cut your tofu into small pieces. Not sure why, but as I was cutting my tofu up, the pieces got smaller and smaller. Bad idea...small pieces of tofu (especially the soft ones) break apart too easily while cooking.

Not sure if it was a combination of both of these mistakes but this dish didn't taste all that great. I mean, it was definitely edible. It just didn't taste like my mom's version.

The next time I make this simple dish, I will use less meat and much bigger pieces of tofu. Hopefully, that will make it better.

Dish 2: Three Cup Chicken

Yes, it looks a lot darker than it should look. I am thinking it's because I used dark soy sauce..or maybe too much soy sauce.

Don't let the looks deceive you though. This dish was quite tasty. The chicken was tender and very flavorful. The next time I make this though, I will reduce the amount of soy sauce used.

Notes: I originally wanted to get drumsticks and chop them up into three pieces. I politely asked the butcher to cut it for me and he said "no cut". Well, damn you, you mean old man. Anyway, I decided to get the sticks anyway. ...and when I got home, I gave the chopping a good old try.

Chop 1 - no good...it did not break the bone.
Chop 2 - it actually broke the bone (mind you, this is the top of the drumstick, where there is barely any meat to cut through).
Chop 3 (at the heart of the drumstick)...I barely made a dent.

Now, it could be that I was too chicken (haha) to chop too hard or I didn't have the right set of tools but either way, I ended up just cutting the meat off, which turned out great. I got dark chicken without any bones. I will definitely do that again the next time I make this.