Hippy Days: Stir fried Asian vegetables with tofu

You all remember the tofu craze, don't you?   We were eating it in EVERYTHING.  Tofutti (YUCH), tofu ice cream (DOUBLE YUCH), tofu yogurt (oh, God help us all), and so on and so forth.  Annalena once made a lemon cheesecake with tofu instead of cheese.  You could have used it to play basketball.    Problem is, none of us paid attention, and we tried to make tofu fill in for other things.

This, ragazzi, is almost never a good idea.  Tofu has a long history as an important foodstuff, and it was NOT as a tofogurt, a toficecream,  or so forth.

But that, of course, brings us back to a central dilemma:  as an Eastern food, most of us Westerners (bai gwei as we would be called in China),  don't have familiarity with it.  And thus, it leads to stories and jokes.  This is one of Annalena's favorites:  a well dressed older gentleman is walking through a grocery store, and he sees a well dressed woman, "of certain years," with a container of tofu in her shopping cart.  He stops her  "Pardon me ma'am, but I see you have tofu in your cart.  Would you mind sharing your recipe with me."  She smiles "Certainly Sir.  I bring it home, put it in the back of my refrigerator, and six weeks later when it gets moldy, I throw it out."  He smiles  "Thank you. That's my recipe too."

Sue will shake her head and smile and agree.  Are the rest of you fessing up?  Hmmmm.  C'mon, you know who you are.

Annalena is one of you.  No question about it.  Learning how to cook tofu properly first means learning what the different kinds should be used for.  Then, you have to learn how to treat it.  It is not more difficult to cook tofu than anything else, but you do have to know how to do it.

This recipe, which Annalena took from the website of her CSA, does the trick.  It takes a bit of time, but it's not terribly time consuming.  It is very, VERY tasty, and you can do other things with it, like use different vegetables,  or add other proteins, nuts, etc.  But you do have to treat the tofu properly.

And let Annalena state something up front:  tofu is NOT low calorie food, and if you use the firmer varieties, it is NOT low in fat.  It has no cholesterol, and it does not have any animal products in it, so this may be important to some of you.

Let's start with the tofu  here.  Get a pound of the EXTRA FIRM variety.    The first thing you will have to do, is get the water out of it somewhat.  And here's how you do it.  Your tofu will be in the form of one, solid block.  Make two horizontal cuts through it, so you have three thin layers of bean curd.  Now, make vertical cuts so that you've got big, half inch strips.  And now, make cuts perpendicular to the first ones, so you have smaller strips.  Move this, in a block, to a few layers of paper towels.  And then put a few on top.  Leave this for ten minutes.  You'll be doing other things in that ten minutes, and when you come back, you'll be amazed at how much water left the tofu.

While the tofu drains (sounds like an Asian soap opera, doesn't it?).  mix together two tablespoons of low sodium soy sauce, a tablespoon of sesame oil, and a teaspoon or so of white vinegar .  Use rice vinegar if you have it.  Put it aside.

You've still got plenty of time.  Chop up some  Asian vegetables.  Annalena used half of a medium sized Chinese cabbage and a small head of bok choy.  Try to keep the pieces as uniform as possible, but this is one where the precision of a laser is not necessary.  And you will have about 12 cups of veggies, which will shrink dramatically.  Put them in a bowl, because now, we're going to cook our tofu.  You need - you MUST use - for this - a nonstick skillet.  Put 2 tablespoons of oil in the pan. Heat it at a medium/high temperature until it's hot, and then add the bean curd, in one layer.  Don't touch it, for three minutes.  Check the bottom of one piece and see if it's brown.  If it is, then flip the pieces, gently.  If they are not brown, let them cook for longer until they are. Then flip them. When they're brown on that size, use a slotted spoon and move the tofu to a piece of foil.  Annalena wondered why foil, and not paper, but it makes sense.  You know brush and pour the sauce you made, over the tofu.  At this point, the tofu is adsorbent, and it will pick up the sauce.  Paper towel will pick it up faster, but foil will not adsorb it at all.  So, you'll be flavoring your tofu (IF you can keep your hands off of it.  It's tempting. And it's good).

Now, we're going to cook the veggies.  You want to combine a tablespoon of vegetable oil, with a couple of teaspoons of sesame oil.  Annalena does not recommend cooking with dark sesame oil by itself, because it has a low smoke point, and burns.  That's why you've got both here.  Add a few chopped scallions, if you have them, or some garlic scapes.  Something in that family.  Maybe some green garlic, or a leek, whatever.    No more than say, a quarter cup.  Add a tablespoon of minced fresh ginger or more of it if you like the flavor, and finally, a couple of chopped garlic cloves, or more scapes.  Toss this around in the hot oil, for no more than half a minute.  Now add a tablespoon and a half of the soy sauce (same type you used for the tofu), and then a tablespoon of the vinegar.  Add your vegetables.  You may not have room to put them all in at once, and that's ok.  They are going to start collapsing almost immediately.  And when you have more room, add more, until they wilt.  All in all, this will take you less than five minutes.  Put the tofu in the pan, stir everything together, and you're ready.  Especially if you made a pot of rice, or some glass noodles.

If you are so inclined, you can vary this by adding hot peppers when you do the saute', or garnishing with peanuts or some other kind of nut, or even by adding cooked meat if you like.

Please do NOT treat this as a low fat, or even a low calorie dish, because it is neither.  But if you are feeling as if you need a reprieve from meat, and/or that package of tofu in your fridge has been there for 5 weeks, get moving.

Did you pick up on the half a head of Chinese cabbage?  Would Annalena leave you in the dark?  Coming up next:  chinese cabbage coleslaw.  And it is GOOD