Udon Noodles with Sesame Crusted Tofu

An actual recipe tonight! Our local Sobey's just started carrying udon noodles so I thought I would whip up a quick noodle dish. We all thought it was pretty good and the sesame seeds were a nice touch. If you are against the frying of the tofu, you could just toast the sesame seeds and add them to the dish along with the sauces. The rice vinegar caught my eye in the cupboard whilst I was assembling some ingredients and I am glad it did. I really need to use it more because it adds a nice brightness to the dish without being overpowering.

INGREDIENTS
- udon noodles (I used 3 175g pkgs (i.e. those small packages you seen in Asian grocery stores))
- 1 pkg tofu, cubed
- 1/3 cup sesame seeds
- 2 tbsp cornstarch
- oil for frying
- 1 small red pepper, thinly sliced
- 1 small orange pepper, thinly sliced
- 1" piece of ginger, minced
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 1/4 cup rice vinegar
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- 2 tbsp hoisin sauce
- 4 green onions, thinly sliced

METHOD
1. Cook noodles according to the directions on the package.
2. Place tofu in a bowl and add sesame seeds. Toss until most of the seeds are stuck on the tofu (you don't need full coverage here). Add cornstarch and gently toss until tofu is coated. If you still have some seeds in the bottom of the bowl, dump the tofu out on a cookie sheet and roll the cubes in the excess seeds.
3. Fry tofu in some oil over medium heat until nicely golden. Turn regularly to brown all sides. You don't need a lot of oil here. Start with a relatively thin layer and add more as needed. Remove tofu from pan/wok and drain.
4. Add peppers, ginger and garlic to the pan (there should be just a bit of oil left) and stir fry for 3-4 mins, until softened and fragrant. Add noodles to the pan/wok and fry for a min.
5. Add vinegar, soy sauce, and hoisin sauce and mix well. Add tofu and mix well. Cook until sauce thickens/soaks into the noodles. Adjust flavours/wetness to your liking by adding more of any of the three ingredients.
6. Remove from heat. Garnish with green onions. Serve.

CONTEST UPDATE
There is still time to win a copy of The Vegan Dad Cookbook! In one day a staggering 340 people have correctly identified the mystery utensil and been entered into the draw. One measly cookbook seems so small in light of all those entrants. Maybe I should offer copies of the e-book as well . . . .

AND . . .
Have I mentioned the shad flies before? Every year at this time shad flies descend on our fair city. They rely on fresh water for their reproductive cycle, and because we live by a big lake we have learned to coexist. When we woke up this morning they were coating the house. It's pretty crazy to walk downtown and see thousands and thousands of shad flies covering just about everything. They are very docile and don't munch on the greenery, and kids love playing with them (did I mention they were docile?).

Vegan Dad Cookbook Contest!

Since I have not been posting many recipes lately I thought I would spice things up with a contest. Yes, you can win your very own copy of The Vegan Dad Cookbook! All you need to do is tell me what kitchen utensil is pictured above. Here is the deal:

1. Email your answer to the address listed in the bottom right column of this blog.

2. Correct answers will be entered into a draw to win one physical copy of The Vegan Dad Cookbook. A winner will be chosen via a random number generator.

3. Only one submission per email address, please.

4. Contest is open from June 29, 2009 to July 6, 2009, 10:00 am EST.

5. Contest open to residents of Canada and the continental U.S.

Sourdough Bread

At long last I have made a successful sourdough bread! After repeated failures (and I do mean repeated), the wild yeast gods have finally smiled upon my kitchen. My guess is that the weather is now much more favourable to make a sourdough starter. My previous attempts had been in the winter when the average temperature in my kitchen was about 18 degrees Celsius and the outside temperature was so ridiculously low that absolutely nothing could survive. The past week, however, has been hot and sunny and hovering around 30 degrees. The end result: sourdough bread!

I followed the recipe in The Bread Baker's Apprentice and will once again admonish all home bakers to get a copy of this book. I also took the advice on Peter Reinhart's baking blog to use pineapple juice for the first two days of the seed culture (read the full post to find out why). Here is my seed culture. The tape indicates the initial amount in the measuring cup, and you can see how much it grew. After dishing off some extra starter on a fellow home baking enthusiast, I proceeded to make a basic sourdough loaf and a New York Deli Rye. My one mistake was leaving the dough too wet, which is why the loaves spread out more than I would have liked, but I was happy with the results of this first try. The sourdough has a nice flavour, not too strong, and the rye loaf (an onion rye) is absolutely divine. I made reubens tonight, of course.

Malaysian Sweet and Sour Tofu

Here is the other dish I made with the clay pot tofu (a lot of tofu, I know). I rooted around online looking at some recipes, and they all were pretty much the same. I adapted the recipe here. The tofu is fried with a cornstarch coating, but you can opt out of this step and just coat the tofu in the sauce. I never use Ener-G egg replacer, but it caught my eye at the bulk food store the other day. I thought it made a nice light and crispy batter.

INGREDIENTS

Marinade

- 1 pkg tofu, cubed

- 2 tsp soy sauce

- 1 tsp cooking sherry

- 1/2 tsp ground ginger

Batter

- Ener-G egg replacer for 2 eggs

- 1 tbsp flour

- 1 tbsp cornstarch

- 1/2 tsp salt

- oil for frying

Sauce

- 1/2 cup water

- 1 tbsp cornstarch

- 1/4 cup sugar

- 1/4 cup white vinegar

- 1 tsp soy sauce

- 1 tbsp ketchup

- 1 tomato, cut into wedges

- thinly sliced red pepper

- thinly sliced cucumber

METHOD

1. Mix together marinade ingredients and toss tofu in marinade until coated.

2. Mix together batter ingredients and toss tofu in batter until coated. Fry in 350 degree oil unitl golden on all sides. Drain.

3. Mix water and cornstarch together and pour into a saucepan. Add sugar, vinegar, soy sauce, ketchup and tomato, and bring to bubbling. Add tofu and mix to coat.

4. Garnish with red pepper and cucumber (I didn't have any on hand as you can see) and serve with rice.

Malaysian Clay Pot Tofu

Sorry to say that all the great food people brought over after Vegan Daughter's birth has finally run out. That meant back to the kitchen for me. The weather here has taken a jump up into the high twenties, so that got me thinking about food from more tropical climes. You can bake this in the oven, or, if it is too hot to even think about using the oven, on the BBQ. There is not much spicing here, so the key is a fully flavoured veggie broth and a strong soy sauce.

INGREDIENTS

- 1 pkg tofu (firm or extra firm)

- oil

- 1/2 tsp tumeric

- 1/4 cup grated coconut

- 1 onion, diced

- 2 garlic cloves, chopped

- 1 lemon grass stalk, outer husk and end removed, finely chopped

- 1" chunk of ginger, minced

- 1 green chile, seeded and minced

- 1 -2 tbsp vegetarian oyster sauce, or mushroom soy sauce

- 1 can coconut milk, divided into fatty part and thin/watery part

- 1 1/4 cup vegetable stock

- juice of 1 lime

- 1 tbsp sugar

- 1 tbsp white wine vinegar

- 2 tomatoes, diced

- chopped fresh cilantro

- salt, if needed

METHOD

Preheat oven or BBQ to 400 degrees

1. Fry tofu in a bit of oil over medium heat until nicely golden on all sides. Sprinkle tumeric over tofu and mix well. Add a few splashes of veggie broth to help evenly coat the tofu, then remove from heat. Remove tofu from pan and wipe pan dry.

2. Add coconut to the pan and dry fry for a few mins until it begins to turn golden. Add onion, garlic, lemon grass, ginger and chile with a splash of oil and fry for 4-5 mins, until softened.

3. Add oyster sauce with the thin part of the coconut milk and mix well. Add veggie stock, lime juice, sugar, and vinegar and mix well.

4. Pour mixture into a clay baker and add tofu. Cover and bake for 40 mins, stirring after 25 mins. Add in coconut fat and mix well. Bake for 10 more mins.

5. Remove from oven, stir in diced tomatoes. Adjust seasoning if needed. Garnish with cilantro and serve over rice.