This is a relatively fast and super easy vegetable dish to make. It can be made with carrots only, if you don't like parsnips, or parsnips only though I have never made it that way (there would be a mutiny on my hands if I tried). With a bowl of rice, I don't think I could ever get tired of it.
Ingredients:
4 medium carrots
1 medium parsnip
120 g atsuage tofu
1 tbsp of oil
3 tbsp sake
3 tbsp rice vinegar
3 tsp sugar
3 tbsp soy sauce
1/4 c toasted sesame seeds
1 tsp sesame oil
Julienne the carrots and parsnips to matchsticks about 6 cm long. Cut up the tofu into similar sized strips as the root veggies. Mix up sake, vinegar, sugar, and soy sauce in a container until sugar fully dissolves. Put sesame seeds into a mortar and pestle and grind up until mostly all broken (about 1 minute). Heat up oil in a pan on medium high heat and throw in the carrots, parsnips, and tofu. Toss everything around in the pan so the oil coats the veggies. Fry until carrots are just barely soft but still mostly crunchy. Add liquid mix and cook while stirring vegetables until the liquid is almost completely cooked off. Take off heat and add crushed sesame seeds and drizzle sesame oil over top. Mix until the sesame seeds and oil coat everything evenly. Enjoy!
