Plum and garlic "spare ribs" (tofu) + make your own plum sauce, if you must
I’ve been working for the last three years at a place that is truly terrible. It has been spared the title of “worst place I’ve ever worked” just because I always got paid on time (and not in cash), and my boss never called me after hours to scream at me. It was a different sort of terrible. For the last two years I was, more or less, my own boss. This sounds great, I guess, to some people who are not me, but I do not have an entrepreneurial spirit. At work, I would much rather just be told what to do. Also, the real downside of this is that my last day is Wednesday and nobody in my team has like… said “bye, we’ll miss you,” which would have been nice to hear even if it wasn’t true. Anyway, I got laid off (boo) but because I’m union (yay) we negotiated a great severance (extra celebration) so I am going to be traveling for like a month and a half starting in early February. I’m terrified, because my goal for my professional life has always been “stably doing something that isn’t hurting the world” but for the foreseeable future I will be un-stably doing nothing except running out the clock on my COBRA payments and hoping I get a new job before my severance runs out, and also I guess going abroad for a longish time, mostly to see pro-wrestling, but also maybe to improve my Korean, idk.
So, uh, the cooking that I have coming down the pipeline is Budget Food. Then again, most things sort of fall under “budget food” if you use tofu and not meat. Peanut oil is a luxury (twice as expensive as canola oil), but a necessary one, since this recipe is fried. This is inspired by a recipe for fried and braised ribs in All Under Heaven. My biggest issue with that recipe was always, well, the ribs. Ribs are tough for me. Noah loves them, probably one of his favorite foods, I really, really dislike them. Way too many textures happening there.
The sauce calls for plum sauce, which I could definitely buy if I went into Chinatown, but it’s really cold in New York lately, and slippery, and I don’t want to spend 6$ to go into Manhattan to buy a 3$ jar of sauce. It’s a funny thing though, because all the recipes for plum sauce online are for like, the plum sauce that it seems people put over pork loin at Christmas (??? or something??), like food that a Tudor king would eat, type of stuff. Even if you add “Chinese” to try to distinguish it you still get recipes that insist on using pounds and pounds of regular plums, which doesn’t seem right, because the ingredients on the back of the Koon Chun jar (helpfully documented by the Woks of Life) really clearly say salted plums which are not at all like fresh plums from a tree. I even read one recipe that was like “I know that plum sauce uses salted plums, but fresh plums are better, so I am using those.” Like, okay so you know? You are aware? Like, fresh plums might be better (might being key here) but they are definitely not even a little the same. So I compared a bunch of recipes, and then basically looked at the ingredients on the back of the jar, accepted that I didn’t have… any of them, as written, and went from there. Salted chili? well, I have chilis… Salted plums? I do have umeboshi at home… salted garlic? I have garlic… and salt… (The recipe also lists yams, but for me this was a big ??? so I decided not to think about the yams.)
I don’t mean all of this as, like, an advertisement for making your own plum sauce. I just want to be really clear on that point. I’m not making my own plum sauce because I think I am better than whatever is in plum sauce, but rather, because I am lazy. It sounds like I am begging for compliments when I say that I am cooking because I am lazy, but you have to consider that it was really cold outside, and if I go to Chinatown I will want to buy treats, and I am trying to save money. This is me doing cost savings and also, kindly, for Noah not buying yet another jar of sauce that I only need for one recipe. I am being efficient.
Plum sauce
For if you have umeboshi but not plum sauce, like, from a jar.
4 umeboshi (why four? well, that’s how many I had, and there weren’t any at the grocery store by me)
less than 1/3 cup granulated sugar
big tablespoon of apricot preserves
1/3 cup of water
1 dried red chili, cracked in half with most of the seeds taken out
1/4 tsp (didn’t measure, but it wasn’t a lot) of grated ginger
1 tsp or so of chopped garlic
pinch salt
Add everything to a small pan. Cook, bubbling away, for 20 minutes or so, until thick and sticky(?). Remove the pits from the plums and take out the chili halves, and squish everything really well.
This makes a sauce that is salty, sweet, and lightly spicy. If you want it more spicy, obviously add more spicy when you’re cooking it. I didn’t get the impression from reading the back of the jar that plum sauce was very spicy, but idk.
Plum and garlic tofu
1 block firm tofu
1 tbs rice wine, white liquor (like baiju, not white rum), or water
1/4 cup water
3 tbs plum sauce
1 tbs rice vinegar
1.5 tbs black vinegar
1 tbs garlic
2 tbs soy sauce
1/2 cup or so peanut oil
2 scallions
Cut tofu into cubes (I just like this shape best for frying). Sprinkle with salt, and let sit for 30 minutes or so. Pat dry. Not sure if this is necessary, but honestly having the tofu as dry as possible is crucial.
Open your windows or turn on your fan. (do not forget this)
Heat wok very high, add oil, heat until bubbling. Basically you are shallow frying it. A flat bottomed wok is great for this, you could obviously use a frying pan but I think you’d need a lot more oil. Add tofu, I fried in two batches. Fry, flipping every so often, until golden brown and crispy. Remove, to a paper towel to drain. Fry the second batch of tofu. Remove that. I fried it a second time afterwards, not sure if that did anything. The second fry was very quick, and just recrisped stuff and got everything a touch more golden.
Remove tofu to drain, pour oil into something that won’t melt (key). Add the sauce ingredients to the pan mix well, add the tofu to the pan. Cook, bubbling vigorously, until sauce is thickened and glossy. Add chopped scallions.
I asked Noah what he thought and he said “it’s a lot of garlic.” I didn’t have a problem with the amount of garlic, but if this is a concern for you, I guess know that “it’s a lot of garlic.” Overall it’s basically a really really good sweet and sour tofu recipe. It’s got a fruity sort of sweetness. It’s quite nice, I think. I made it with “southern style” green beans and potatoes, linked below. It’s a truly perfect recipe.