*Black Pepper Tofu* from Yotam Ottolenghi in Food52 Genius Recipes > This works.

M

marilynfl

Moderator
Dear Yotam...I have two of his books and didn't even KNOW this was his recipe until I found a linked recipe to post here and there was his name. You could have slapped me with a bunch of scallions when I saw that--for all I know, this recipe in one of the books I own.

Anyway, I was flipping through Food52 Genius Recipes (Thanks Traca! for recommending it; Thanks Kristin The Librarian for ordering it) and saw a tofu recipe that looked really good.

As it so happens, I had a tub of tofu in the refrigerator, bought during one of those "I really should eat something healthier than Kettle Ruffled Black Pepper and Sea Salt Potato Chips" moments.

This, I thought, this would take care of that little problem.

Here's what I DIDN'T use:

***the little red fresh chilies because I have no idea where to find little red fresh chilies in my area. I used a healthy scoop of chili/garlic sauce instead.

***3 TBL of smashed peppercorns. I used a TBL of freshly ground pepper because I HATE biting into large chunks of peppercorn (I'M TALKING TO YOU, INEPT WAITER, WIELDING A PEPPER GRINDER THE LENGTH OF MY ARM)

***Nowhere near as much butter.

(I like this book because there is a sweet little box below each recipe giving you special dispensation to use alternate ingredients and methodology.)

Here's what I ADDED to the recipe:

sliced portabella mushrooms

steamed sugar peas (added when I started to sauté the shallots...big mistake).

What I'll do different tonight (yep, I'm making it again to use up all the ingredients):

Add LOTS MORE mushrooms

ADD LOTS MORE sugar peas and REMEMBER NOT to ADD them until the final few minutes.

I WON'T cut the scallions into 1" slices. I didn't like biting into large chunks of raw onions and overall there were too many. I'll just slice a few into normal 1/4" discs and sprinkle on top.

Mid-recipe I had to stop and look online to see what "dark soy sauce" was. I have Kikkoman Lite soy, Mushroom soy, Sweet soy, Oyster soy & Japanese Soy (super salty) in the pantry--used the Kikkoman, Sweet and Japanese.

By the way, it ends up looking EXACTLY like the photo.

Going to serve it tonight with a kale salad because it needs...something to cut the...cut the...help me out here...there's a word that means a little too rich, a little too...damn, I've been up since 3:00 AM and can literally FEEL my brain cells dying.

http://www.finecooking.com/recipes/black-pepper-tofu.aspx

 
Can't get into Tofu

Tiny little chunks added to certain dishes prepared by others may be okay but I'd rather just eat 2 or 3 less Kettle Ruffled Black Pepper and Sea Salt Potato Chips - make a pile, put 2-3 back into the bag and clip shut. smileys/smile.gif Not into suffering to improve my health/prolong my life. Colleen

 
omg. 11 tablespoons of butter? Just about ANY person can make something taste better. . .

with that much butter!

This looks like a tasty recipe, but 11 tablespoons butter? How genius is that, really? Almost everything tastes better with butter. Except maybe, Kimchi?, but butter. . .

 
Lots of soy sauce too---Mar, did you find it salty? a bit tortured with all those different soys

I think I would have added regular soy and a bit more sugar and done. but then, I have just 2 soy sauces in the pantry, regular Shoyu and lite.

 
answers to all of the above:

Tofu has no taste to me....it's really just something I pick up in a forced effort to expand my cooking repertoire--although I usually end up getting rid of it in a smoothie. In this case, the light dusting of cornstarch pre-fry helps hold the cube shape and provides just the tiniest of bite while the soy mixture and dual onion hit adds ALL the flavor. I can only imagine what a zinger it would be with fresh chilies and the whole cracked peppercorns >> so, all in all, quite happy with how this block of no-taste stuff turned out.

I used mostly Lite soy so it wasn't overly salty...and I only used half of the total liquids since the recipe called for 1.5 pounds of soy and I had slightly less than a pound to play with. Plus there is a sugar component that helps to even out things, along with the sweetness from the caramelized onions.

All that said, I'm glad I added the extra veggies and will probably toss in carrot coins tonight along with the mushrooms and sugar snaps because I love carrots in Asian dishes.

11 TBL of butter is for the full recipe (1.5 pounds of soy) but I only used 4 TBL and it was fine. I think my mushrooms soaked up a lot of that.

I'm also serving it tonight with a lemony kale salad because it was still too rich, even with the added veggies. I think that lemon kick will even things out.

 
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