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Napa cabbage, mushrooms, onions, tofu, Asian sauce


That brown there ↑ is pan sear not sauce. The other brown area is mushroom. The wetness is from the cabbage.



On the heat, singe, off the heat. All the things in the pan are singed on one side, not turned, lifted out of the pan.

This is exactly what I wanted. With South River sweet brown rice miso. There is a thick strongly flavored sauce poured onto the plate. The tofu cubes absorb the sauce so each tofu cube presents two altered sides: a singed side and sauced side. 

Sauce:

In amounts you think are reasonable except where indicated

*  soy sauce or tamari sauce (salt, this is the umami base, contains wheat)
*  mirin (something sweet, sugar will do. )
*  saki
*  fish sauce (anchovy in Western cuisines, depth, extremely strong and disagreeable on its own. Just a few drops. I'd try tamarind paste if I objected to fish sauce, which I don't, but if I did, and tamarind is a good choice besides, Worcestershire has tamarind)
* rice vinegar
* chile pepper flakes
* corn starch
* water

The basic idea of the sauce is something sweet and sour for the cabbage. A base of soy sauce then provides three basic flavors right there: sweet, sour, salt.  Anything beyond this is pure adventure. 

The ingredients are poured into a coffee mug then clamped with the palm of the hand and shaken vigorously to dissolve the cornstarch. The contents are poured into the pan that seared the vegetables and placed on coals at the edge of the campfire. The sauce is fully thickened when the liquid boils. 

Did I just now say coffee mug, hand, and campfire? I'm sorry, I meant to say "glass jar,"  "lid,"  and "microwave."  

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