Dgourmac's Blog

It was time for a tofu and stir fry again.  When you are vegan, you actually look forward to one of these meals.  I’ve been wanting to make a recipe I had come across almost a year ago, since it uses fermented black beans — one of my favorite ingredients.  Since Barbara was taking care of our grandsons this afternoon, and I also had some cool ingredients for a stir fry as well, I was happy to give it a try.

Step number one was to mix a small marinade of salt, olive oil and paprika to coat a pound of tofu cubes, cut from a block of Trader Joe’s organic firm tofu.  These were placed on a sheet of parchment paper lining a roasting tray.

Meanwhile, I did the prep work for the tofu dish and the stir fry:

tofu dish:

• preheat the oven to 450º F.
• chop garlic, coarsely chop fermented black beans
• mix water and arrowroot powder
• cut a leek into 1″ segments (not 2″ as per recipe)

stir fry:

• cut 1 sweet potato into 3/4″ dice, toss with olive oil and Chinese five spice powder
• take out of the refrigerator some interesting leftover ingredients from last night’s pizza; these included sliced zucchini, cremini mushrooms, and shitakes
• cut into small slices one Asian eggplant
• wash some new Asian greens from the farmers market, and slice into 1-inch strips; these included baby bok choy and one Japanese green whose name I can’t remember
• chop up some garlic and a few stalks of lemongrass
• thinly slice several scallions

Prepped vegetables

Fermented black beans

The tofu was then roasted for 30 minutes, turning each piece over once, and set aside.  With my favorite wok over high heat, I cooked the fermented black beans and garlic for less than a minute, added the leeks and browned them, added the water and cooked until leeks were tender.  Adding the arrowroot and water mixture and cooking that down produced a nice thick sauce, to which the roasted tofu cubes were added.

In the meantime I also roasted the sweet potato cubes in the oven.  They took a little less time than the tofu and were also turned once.  The wok was used to stir fry all the vegetables individually, starting with the garlic and lemongrass, then mushrooms, followed by eggplant, zucchini, Asian greens, and scallions — removing each to their bowls before proceeding to the next one.  In the last step I threw all the ingredients of the stir fry into the wok, added a tablespoon of Nama Shoyu (soy sauce) plus some of the arrowroot in water mixture, and cooked a minute or two.  Here is the finished product:

Two photos for the tofu dish: (1) brown bean sauce and leeks in wok, and (2) final dish.

The wine might surprise you.  Given the rich flavors of the garlic and fermented black bean sauce and the five spice powder with the sweet potato, I was confident that a dark, rich red wine could work.  Once again, I turned to my recent visit to Social Wines, in this case a 2010 Domaine La Brune from Beaumes de Venise.  This is a dry Grenache (66%) and Syrah (34%) blend from the Rhône Valley.  I had opened the bottle two days before, but decided it did not go with the meal at that time.  When I tried it tonight, I was thrilled with how good it was and how well it matched the meal.

Sometimes I take the easy route — not often, but tonight was one occasion.  Supper was a simple affair: Bobby Flay’s version of a Grilled Asparagus Panzanella Salad and some leftover spaghetti enlivened with a few fresh vegetables and legumes.  I had downloaded one of Bobby Flay’s cookbooks to my iPad awhile ago, but had not looked at it in some time.  Last night I decided to upgrade from iOS 5 directly to iOS 7.0.2 on my old iPad, and while I was testing things out after the upgrade, I ran across the recipe.  Tonight, after Sarah and the grandsons left, I decided to make it, since I had all the ingredients.  Below is the Internet version of what was in the cookbook.  One adaptation: I used one yellow heirloom tomato and one fresh San Marzano from the farmer’s market, instead of the cherry tomatoes.

The other dish was pasta.  Barbara had made a good whole wheat spaghetti dish last night, with just garlic, parsley and oil, and we had about a pint left over.  To fill out the dish, I first sautéed a chopped celery stalk and one diced leek in olive oil with salt and pepper.  As the leek was beginning to brown, I added a 1/4 cup of white wine and cooked it down almost completely, then added a handful of Cavolo Nero (already boiled and chopped), plus about a cup of Chef Paul’s black-eyed peas in broth with a little tomato and cooked kale.  With all the vegetables simmering away in the sauté pan, I threw in the leftover spaghetti and a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, heated it all up and served.

Red wine or white would work with this meal.  You also know I am predominantly a red-wine guy.  However, variety is the spice of life, so I selected another of Jan D’Amore’s gems, a Lazio Occhipinti wine made from red Aleatico grapes — but vinified as a white wine (vinificato in bianco).  The wine is appropriately named Alter Ego.  Unusual, bright, and delicious — also a good counterpoint to all the vinegar in the Panzanella.

If you really want to understand the essence of food I love best, accompany me on my short visit to Southern Italy this afternoon (1-3 PM).  The meal begins last night with a brief excursion through Giorgio Locatelli’s Made in Sicily.   I was captivated by a simple dish, Cicoria e aglio.  Italy has so many different forms of chicory, I can’t begin to count them, but I made a mental note, and after the farmers market today, I went to Idylwilde Farms and bought a head of frisée, one of those chicories.  Here is the recipe:

Last week at the farmers market, I had purchased two chili peppers from a local grower, one medium hot, long red pepper, and one mild jalapeño, which I used in this dish.  Not having garlic oil was no problem; I chopped up one clove of garlic, and I sautéed it slowly with the chopped pepper in olive oil, prior to adding the blanched frisée.  Here are the results:

Since chicory and beans were meant for each other, I heated some of the marvelous Controne white beans from two days ago, with just a little olive oil, salt and pepper, and bean water, then added them to the Cicoria.

The warmth of the chiles, the luscious slightly-bitter flavor of the frisée, and the bite of the garlic was superb.  Here is my second helping:

These were spectacularly matched with a Calabrian red wine, Savuto, from Jan D’Amore.

If you haven’t tried Gaglioppo, Greco Nero, Nerello Capuccio, and Maglicco Canino before (I imagine Sangiovese is one you have had before), I can heartily recommend this blend.

That should have been a complete lunch.  And in many ways it was.  However, I had also been reading Lidia Bastianich’s cookbook, Lidia Cooks from the Heart of Italy, late last night, and there were several dishes I was eager to try.  Since Barbara was out for the afternoon, this was my chance to use all of the banished ingredients, especially peppers, hot and sweet, plus lots of oil and salt.

I made two more dishes: Potato with Pepperoncino (from Basilicata) and Peppers, Olives and Fontina Cheese Salad (from Valle d’Aosta).  The first was remarkably simple: cook a russet potato in boiling, salted water (in this case leftover from blanching the Chicory), until tender.  Cool it, cut into 1/3″ slices, add sea salt, and then top with olive oil in which chopped garlic and finely ground Calabrian peppers were sautéed.  Magnifico!:

The salad was a little more complex, but not much.  Drizzle a little olive oil and salt on some sweet peppers (I had one red and one yellow in the refrigerator drawer), roast on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper, turning once or twice, in a 350º F. oven for about 40 minutes, until the skins are wrinkled and lightly browned.  Cool the peppers, peel and seed them, cut into 1/4″ strips.  Then pit and chop a cup of green olives, adding to the pepper in a bowl.  Finally, cut some Italian Fontina cheese in 1/4″ strips, adding to the bowl.  The recipe called for a vinaigrette, but I just added olive oil, apple cider vinegar and salt, and we were done!  Another glass of the Savuto, and all is well.

Of course, at the end of a meal — lunch or dinner — a good espresso is just right.