Archives for the 'food' Category
Marinated tofu - deconstructed stir-fry
Tofu is okay…if it’s not prepare well it can be nasty. But steep it in vibrantly seasoned marinade and pan fry it until the edges are crisp…then you have a tasty pile of flavor. I’m a Top Chef watcher and when goofy-hair-guy rendered some beef fat and then marinated the tofu in it, I thought it was genius…of course I probably would have gone with pork fat…whatever.
This meal is a deconstructed stir-fry. I’m a fan of this method because it allows each component’s flavor to shine brightly. Also it plates much prettier than a jumbled stir-fry, and sometimes that’s important too.
Here’s a simple guide on how to create the marinated tofu and the deconstructed stir-fry:
1. In a blender jar add 1/4 cup soy sauce, 1/4 cup rice vinegar, 1 teaspoon chili oil, 1 teaspoon sesame oil, 1/2 a shallot, 3 cloves garlic, 2″ x 2″ knob of fresh ginger (cut into pieces). Let this rip on medium speed until the ginger, shallot, and garlic are emulsified. Pour 1/3 of it into a dish. Slice a firm-style block of tofu into 12 pieces and arrange the tofu on top of it, pour the remaining marinade over the tops of the tofu.
2. Prep the remaining components. In my case I sliced 2 huge white mushrooms and 2 green onions. I diced 3 cloves of garlic and another 2″ x 2″ knob of ginger.
3. Chop and wash/spin the bok choy. Preheat the oven to 150°.
4. Heat a skillet up over a medium flame and once it’s hot add two or three tablespoons of neutral oil, like canola. Once that comes up to heat carefully transfer the tofu into the hot skillet, piece by piece, being careful to watch out for the spattering oil.
5. Now this is the hard part…don’t do a thing. Don’t try to flip them, don’t try to pry them up and look at them…just let them cook for about 5 to 7 minutes and then you can look…chances are they’ll need another 5 minutes or so. Then using a spatula, gently flip each one and let the other side brown. I think my batch probably took 15 - 18 minutes total, this is the most time-consuming part of this dish. While the tofu cooked I unloaded the dishwasher and cleaned up the kitchen.
6. Once the tofu is deep, beautiful brown, remove it from the skillet. Take the skillet over to the sink and douse it with water and clean it up…it’ll clean easy while it’s hot, but once it cools down it’s a bitch.
7. Put the skillet back on the burner with high heat this time. Let it heat up for 5 minutes or so. In the meantime, put the tofu in the oven to stay warm.
8. Now that the skillet is hot add 1 tablespoon of oil and the diced garlic and ginger. Then add the mushrooms and salt them. At this point you might think you need more oil but actually add some water. The pan should be so hot that it should vaporize immediately and it acts as a tool to move the mushrooms around the pan. This should portion should take about one minute to cook.
9. Remove the mushrooms, garlic, and ginger. Add the bok choy to the pan (still on high heat). Shake or stir the pan to keep the bok choy moving and salt it. Again, you can add some water to create some non-stick action with it’s vapors. This portion should take about 1 minute.
10. Slide the bok choy to the coolest part of the skillet and add the green onions. Toss a little canola (1 teaspoon) on them if you like and salt them. Shake or stir and remove from the heat.
11. I plated this meal by making a mound of bok choy, encircled with the mushrooms, I arranged the tofu on top and garnished it with a bok choy leaf. Then I tangled the onions over the whole thing. It was awesome! The garlic and the ginger really perked up the bland mushrooms, the bok choy was delicate and sweetly tasted of spring and the onions are always addicting. Low calorie, low carb and delicious.
Ramps…oh my!!!!
When spring attempts to kick off the winter’s covers and finally, grudgingly, hauls her ass out out of that bed she’s been lolling in for far to long, well I don’t mind admitting that I get more giddy than I usually am…yes indeed folks, I get giddier! I start using exclamation marks far more than a woman with my good sense (cough) should and then there’s that almost irresistible urge to use a word that must not be spoken or written by me…you know the three-letter word, it begins with y and ends with m and well, that’s as close as I’ll actually get to saying it out loud or writing it. Honestly it’s not that I dislike the actual word it’s just that it’s been so overused by a certain brunette on Food Network, and I’ll have none of that, thank you.
But yesterday when I opened the crate of our first CSA spring share delivery I was overjoyed because I could smell ramps. I pawed my way past bag after bag of tender succulent greens like a kid looking for a prize in a box of cereal and finally there it was, the holy grail of spring-time, a bunch of ramps. That word popped into my mind and I quickly edited myself and moved on. Giddier, remember? It’s not me, it’s spring fever, right?
Ramps are technically wild leeks and they’re available for harvest for only a week or two in the spring which is probably why I, and others, covet them so much. Because they’re so precious and so flavorful I feel compelled to use them well. Often I serve then up as a bed for some slowly cooked, creamy scrambled eggs but this year I’m giddy so I made a green pizza.
This is so simple. Make the pizza crust and let it rise over night in the frig. Remove it from the frig and stretch it out as you like it, and then place it on a piece of parchment. Cut the ramp leafs from the stem and bulb and slice them into strips. Cut the roots off the end of the ramps and then split them vertically into long strips. Add these to the the leaf strips. I also chopped a large handful of arugala and I added some chives too. Toss this all with olive oil and arrange it on the pizza crust. Add sea salt, some goat cheese and bacon lardons. Bake it in a 425º oven until golden brown.
Yes indeedy, this pizza is worth getting giddy about…the ramps and the bacon got kind of smoky in the hot oven and the crust was chewy yet crisp. The only mistake I made was too much cheese on the pizza…actually it would be good with no cheese at all too.
More giddiness…tonight we see Iron Man and while we’re out watching the movie TivBob will be recording a new BStar and a new Dr. Who….oh I can’t stand it!!!!
Pork tenderloin with roasted beets and salsify
A quick and easy dinner is just what a Monday night calls for. My favorite way to cook pork tenderloin is in an obscenely hot oven (500°) for about 10 minutes or until the internal temp in the thickest part is 140°. But that requires either a clean oven or the doors and windows wide open to let the smoke out of the house. Since it was raining/snowing/sleeting I decided to forgo my favorite method, instead I cut the tenderloin into medallions and sautéd it in some olive oil. I finished them off with a huge splash of lemon juice and then plated them with some of the pan juices dribbled across the top.
Salsify is also known as oyster plant apparently because someone, somewhere thought that it tasted like an oyster. Well I didn’t get that flavor note but it did taste vaguely nutty and sort of reminded me of a sunchoke. It’s a difficult root to peel because it’s tough and the white sap that exuded as I peeled and chopped was sticky and difficult to get off my hands. It’s also necessary to drop the peeled root in acidulated water immediately or it will turn brown.
Once I got the salsify peeled and chopped I gave it a spin around the bowl with some good olive oil and then I tossed it with some dijon mustard, lemon juice, and yuzu honey. The beets were tossed in that mix too. I roasted the two roots in a 425° oven for about 20 minutes and they came out tender and sweet yet with a tiny bite from the mustard. I’ve been cooking beets like this for years and we’ve always loved them but the recent addition of the yuzu honey has been genius even if I do saw so myself. Even though the salsify was fun to try, I doubt that I’ll be in a hurry to use it again. It’s sappiness and extra steps made it more work than it was worth…at least flavor-wise.
Do you seek out new products to try? What has been your favorite find? For me it’s anything with Yuzu in it.
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