Tofu Fried Rice with Garlic Bok Choy

Every so often I get bored of meat and feel the need to exercise my creative culinary mind to come up with tasty vegetarian dishes. During my university days I was a vegetarian and I remember what it was like. There were some days when I was completely satisfied (belly and mind) with my meals and others when I felt like I was eating a meat based dish without the meat. I hated that feeling like my plate was missing a vital ingredient. So when I make veggie or veg friendly (ie has lots of vegetables and only a tiny bit of meat for an added dimension) I try to make it complete in its flavours. 

I bought a pack of tofu so I could convert everyday dishes vegetarian. The first thing I made was tofu green curry with noddles. That worked quite well with the bamboo shoots and some broccoli to add different textures. 

Then I carried on with the Asian theme to make tofu fried rice. This was adapted from Ching-He Huang's Chinese Food Made Easy cookbook where she used chicken to cook her fried rice.

The real flavour from this dish comes from the dried Chinese Mushrooms which add a very meaty depth to the dish that would be pretty two-dimensional without it. So I really don't think it needs the chicken to carry it off, the tofu added a separate texture and absorbed a lot of the flavours.

To go with it I felt it needed some greens, so I used the bok choy I had from my vegbox to make a quick garlic bok choy stir fry. The white bits were really hard and needed a lot of cooking and I found they browned quite quickly as they absorbed the oil from the frying pan. Normally I chop the bok choy up to cook the bit bit first then toss the green bits at the end to wilt them. So this was a new method for me and I found it a little difficult to manage. I was doing this in a regular frying pan, not a wok so I'm not sure if that made a difference.

The result did go very well with the fried rice. The garlic changed the flavour and it really needed the extra vegetables. The spices in this dish are my default go-to spices when I come to make a quick fried rice.

Ingredients
for the tofu fried rice
1 inch Ginger, grated
2 Shallots, finely chopped
3 dried Chinese Mushrooms, pre soaked in water
140g Tofu
1/2 tbsp Rice Wine
1/2 tsp ground Five-Spice
2 tbsp Soy sauce
1 tbsp Sesame oil
1 spring Onion, sliced
1 cup cooked Rice
Oil

for the garlic bok choy
3 cloves Garlic, crushed and chopped
1 bunch of Bok Choy
Oil

Recipe
for the tofu fried rice
Fry tofu, ginger, shallots, and Chinese mushrooms in hot wok until onions have turned translucent and tofu have browned. Add half the soy sauce to season.

Add rice, mix well and stir fry for a minute. Season with more soy sauce, sesame oil and black pepper.

for the garlic bok choy
Heat frying pan with oil. Add bok choy and garlic. Stir Fry until stems are translucent and leaves have wilted.

Assemble plate with bok choy, rice and sprinkle sliced spring onion over rice. Eat.