Tag Archives: tofu

Tofu, Kale & Bacon Stir-Fry

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Ordinarily, when stir-frying tofu, I use the drain and freeze technique to prevent it from turning to mush. But I did not have such luxuries on Monday night, so I went for a quick press followed by a slow cook in order to remove the moisture before incorporating other ingredients. A little bacon fat didn’t hurt.

Tofu, Kale & Bacon Stir-Fry

Bring a large skillet up to medium-low heat with a piece of thick-cut bacon. Flip every so often. Meanwhile, place half a block of extra firm tofu on some paper towels to drain, pressing and flipping to extract as much water as possible. Slice a small red onion pole to pole. When the bacon is firm but not overly crisp, remove it to a paper towel. Slice the tofu into thick matchsticks and add to the pan. Drizzle some soy sauce over the top and let sit until the pieces are browned and lightly crusted. Rinse a couple of handfuls of kale, de-stem and chop roughly. Rotate the tofu and continue cooking until quite firm and somewhat leathery. Slide to the side, crank the heat up to medium, and add a little neutral cooking oil along with the onion. Grind a good dose of Szechuan peppercorns over the top. Cook, stirring occasionally, until onion is limp and nicely charred. Slide to the side and add a little more oil, the kale, and a nice pour of soy sauce and chili oil. Slowly incorporate everything together and cook until the kale is crisp-tender. Chop the bacon and sprinkle over the top. Some scallions would be nice if you’ve got ’em. Maybe a little sesame oil.

Tofu Kale Bacon Stir-Fry

Garlic-Ginger Tofu & Collards

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The weather this weekend has been nothing short of glorious. After a long, hard winter, New Yorkers are eager for sundresses and sandals, outdoor drinking, and fresh vegetables. Alas, yesterday’s farmers’ market foray yielded less greenery than I had hoped. I did manage to pick up a couple bunches of small, tender collard greens and a clamshell of spring onion shoots.

The rest of Saturday was spent drinking Bloody Marys, craft beer and some ill-advised whiskey in a series of Brooklyn backyards. We capped the day off with a couple of hours of dancing to 60s soul tunes.

I awoke early this morning with a distinct craving for fried pork dumplings, perhaps with a moo shu chaser. But this didn’t seem like the best way to regain my health after a weekend of possibly excessive imbibing. And so I set about crafting a healthier dish that would take advantage of my farmers’ market bounty and satisfy my salt and spice craving.

Garlic-Ginger Tofu & Collards

  • 2 tablespoons tamari or soy sauce
  • 2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
  • 1 tablespoon sesame oil
  • 1/2 tablespoon fish sauce
  • 1 tablespoon Sriracha
  • 1 one-inch piece of ginger, minced
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 large pinch sugar
  • 1 container extra firm tofu, drained and sliced into strips
  • 3 tablespoons canola or other neutral oil
  • 1 bunch collards, stemmed and roughly chopped
  • 1 small handful spring onion shoots or a few scallions, thinly sliced

Combine the first eight ingredients in a shallow bowl. Add the tofu and stir gently to coat. (In a perfect world, you would have done this before you were ravenous so that the tofu had plenty of time to soak up the marinade, but my lunch was still pretty tasty.) Bring the oil up to medium heat in a large skillet. Lay the tofu pieces in, cooking them in two batches if necessary so as not to crowd the pan. Let the tofu cook undisturbed until nicely browned, rotate the pieces and continue to cook until they are firm and mostly browned. Lay the tofu pieces on a paper towel to drain and add your collards to the skillet along with the remaining tofu marinade. Cook until the collards are wilted and most of the liquid has boiled off. Stir in the onion shoots or scallions and remove from the heat.

Rice would be the obvious accompaniment, but I went with quinoa cooked with chicken stock and satueed leeks. It was good. The leftovers should make for a bright spot in tomorrow’s workday.

Garlic-Ginger Tofu and Collards

Turnip, Shiitake, Leek and Tofu Stir-Fry

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Turns out working full time while going to graduate school is challenging. One of the articles we discussed in class tonight was about New York Jews and Chinese Food. I got home around 8:00 with Chinese food on the brain and a determination to cook some of the vegetables that were rapidly deteriorating in my crisper.

Turnip, Shiitake, Leek and Tofu Stir-Fry

  • 6-8 dried shiitake mushrooms
  • 2 tablespoons high-heat cooking oil (peanut, canola, etc.)
  • 2 large leeks, white and light green portions sliced and rinsed thoroughly
  • 6-8 small turnips cut into 1/4″ half-moons
  • 1 block drained and frozen* extra firm tofu, cut into fat sticks
  • 1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
  • 2-3 tablespoons tamari or soy sauce
  • 1-2 tablespoons Sriracha or other chili sauce
  • 1 teaspoon sesame oil
  • Sichuan peppercorns (black would work too, but you’ll miss that fun tingling)
  • 1 teaspoon concentrated chicken stock or 1 small cube chicken bouillon (Use vegetable stock/bouillon to make this dish vegan.)
  • 1 small bunch flat-leaf parsley or cilantro
  1. Start your rice to cooking. (My new favorite is brown Jasmine rice.) Pour a cup of boiling water over the shiitakes and let sit, weighing down with a jar to keep them submerged. (Be sure not to discard this liquid!)
  2. Add a couple of tablespoons of oil to a wok or sauté pan over medium heat. (I opted for a tablespoon of canola oil and a tablespoon of chile oil.) Add the leeks, stirring frequently until they start to brown. Toss the turnips in and continue stirring until they have softened. Slice your rehydrated shiitakes, add them in and keep cooking.
  3. Add the tofu, vinegar, soy sauce, Sriracha, sesame oil, ground peppercorns, chicken stock/bouillon and the liquid left from your mushrooms, stirring to combine. Let simmer stirring occasionally until your rice is done. Toss the chopped parsley or cilantro in at the last moment.

I had planned to eat this accompanied by a Brooklyn Pilsner that had mysteriously appeared in my refrigerator. But, by the time I sat down to eat, the beer had just as mysteriously disappeared.

* See A Salad for Sailing for a brief discussion of this most excellent technique.

A Salad for Sailing

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I spent the day on a 75-year-old wooden sailboat owned by dear friends that’s docked in Oyster Bay. My sister Eliana, who’s staying with me for a couple of weeks, is vegan, so I got up early to pull together a protein-packed salad that doesn’t require refrigeration.

A couple of months ago I stumbled across a new technique for preparing tofu. When you freeze tofu, it takes on a radically different texture. Ideally, you would press it to release as much liquid as possible and then wrap it in cheesecloth before freezing it, but I’ve gotten decent results by just tossing a drained block into the freezer in a plastic container. When you take it out, the tofu will have yellowed and developed air pockets where the water has been sucked out. If you then simmer it in liquid, the tofu holds together much better and also takes on the flavor of the liquid.

Kale and Quinoa Salad with Candied Five-Spice Tofu

  • 1/2 container firm tofu – frozen, defrosted and cubed
  • 1 red onion
  • 1 kohlrabi bulb, peeled and cubed
  • 1/4 cup soy sauce
  • 2 tbsp sesame oil
  • 1 tbsp fish sauce (can be omitted for vegans)
  • 1/2 tbsp Chinese five-spice powder (or some combination of cinnamon, star anise, anise seed, ginger, cloves and/or fennel)
  • 1 pinch cayenne pepper
  • 2 tbsp Mirin
  • 1 tbsp sugar (honey or agave would work here too, though honey’s not technically vegan)
  • black pepper

Bring above ingredients minus the kohlrabi to a boil, lower heat and let simmer for 20 minutes or so, stirring occasionally. Add the kohlrabi about halfway through. If you need more liquid, add some water. When onions have wilted and tofu is a nice brown color, remove the solids and boil the liquid until it takes on a syrupy consistency.

  • 1/2 cup quinoa, prepared according to package
  • 1 head kale, thinly sliced
  • 2 apples, cubed
  • 1 bunch scallions, thinly sliced (white and light green portions only)
  • 2 tbsp rice wine vinegar
  • 2 tbsp sesame seeds
  • 1/4 cup shelled sunflower seeds

Combine above ingredients with all of your cooked items, stirring gently to combine. Give it a taste and adjust the seasoning with soy sauce, black pepper, sesame oil and/or rice wine vinegar.

It was a glorious day on Oyster Bay–sunny and 85 degrees. Some ospreys had had their way with the boat, so we started our voyage by scrubbing fish guts and other icky stuff stuff off of the deck. Somehow, this did not diminish our appetites. We ate lunch on the mooring.

The wind picked up in the afternoon and we spent a few glorious hours touring Oyster Bay, catching up on our lives and reminiscing about the books we read in high school. (Eliana’s summer reading is The Great Gatsby, which just happens to be set near where we were sailing.) Shooting the breeze, indeed.