Ma-la Tofu

Umami and her Ma-la postings started me craving for some, though honestly I should be avoiding the stuff like the plague, my stomach being pretty delicate after a week of non-stop Indian curries, and my diet screaming out : "Stop! No oil..."

Then I was in a Viet-run Asienladen and my eyes fell upon a packet of ready-made Ma-la spice paste. Made in China. If you can read Chinese (like I can - surprise surprise, actually I'm the one who's suprised), it claimed to be authentic Szechuan leh. So I bought it lor. Some more got sell Singapore-made Silken and not-so-silky Tofu. Wah, what a find. Je ne veux pas être chauvine, but Singapore-made Tofu in all textures is ze best.

So today, I braced myself and starting reading the instructions (only in Chinese, mind you). Actually, I probably wouldn't be able to write them, but I can certainly read them. So I made my Ma-La Twin Tofu and it was quite good though not oily enough. Somehow it lacks a little oomph when it's not oily enough. But spicy enough it was, I started hiccuping after just the first mouthful...

In the evening, I added some Tung Hoon (Mung Bean vermicelli) and believe it or not, my 2 babies finished them up (with their glasses of water in the hand).

Otherwise, it must really get my temperature up, for when I discovered that Baby Girl had broken a DVD (the Disney cartoon "Valiant") with Baby Boy's toy hammer, I didn't even hesitate, I took out my mother's rattan cane and gave her a few strokes of the cane. It did me some good. It's the kind of thing where once you get started, you just had to hit anything within reach that moved. She was getting uncontrollable nowadays, just doing whatever she wanted. The next time it could be the Plasma TV or her brother's head. And this yet another mess was the last straw for the month. She must learn to obey. If I cannot talk her into it, then I must try my mother's old method. Voilà.