Crispy Oven-Baked Tofu

I have never been one who enjoys tofu. It's squishy and flavorless, but this recipe has totally changed my mind about it! It does take a little advanced preparation, but it's worth it. I have adapted the recipe from Cookie and Kate's blog and just used the flavors I like. If the tofu in the shop looks dubious, just remember that you're going to squeeze out a lot of the water and cook it at really high heat. I personally prefer the packets of tofu labeled "soya paneer."

 

Crispy Oven-Baked Tofu

1 block tofu
1 tsp ginger paste
1 Tbs soy sauce*
1 tsp sesame oil
2 tsp olive oil
1 Tbs corn starch

Begin by slicing the block through the middle parallel to your cutting board. Then slice lengthwise and width-wise (like a grid) to create small blocks of tofu. On a plate lined with folded paper towels or a tea towel, spread out the small cubes in a single layer. Add more paper towels or the other end of the tea towel to the top. Place another plate on top and weigh it down. I like to put a cast iron skillet on top. Let sit for 30 minutes to squeeze out moisture. 

Mix the other liquid ingredients in a bowl. After draining add the tofu to the bowl. The longer this marinates the better the flavor. I usually leave it 10 minutes to a few hours in the fridge. Just before baking, toss in the corn starch until all the powder is absorbed. 

Preheat oven to 200 C. On a foil lined baking sheet spread a little oil to prevent the tofu sticking. Spread the tofu out on the pan and put in the oven for 25 to 30 minutes. Toss the baked tofu half way through cooking to promote even browning. Enjoy hot and crispy! 

*Use gluten-free tamari to make this gluten free. 

If you want to use this tofu in another dish, then you may just want to stick to the oil, soy sauce, and cornstarch. The original poster suggests it can soak up whatever sauce is in the main dish better that way.

Cranberry Sauce

This one is for all my American friends who are either going without cranberry sauce or eating expired cans of it this holiday season--the struggle is real! Yesterday I found this recipe from Hip Pressure Cooking and gave it a try. It is 100% doable with what is usually available and is super easy. No, it doesn't taste exactly like what's in the can, but neither does the delicious cranberry sauce that comes from fresh cranberries.

Cranberry Sauce
1 cup dried cranberries
3/4 cup water
3/4 cup cranberry drink (Real brand or other tart variety)
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon orange zest (optional)

To your pressure cooker, add cranberries, water, cranberry juice, lemon juice, and orange zest if using. I used a couple pieces of candied orange peel. Close the lid and cook over med-high heat until you get the first blow of the pressure cooker. Turn the heat down to medium-low, enough to keep it at high pressure, but not continuously blowing. Cook at this pressure for 3 minutes. Remove from heat and slowly release the pressure in short bursts. The original writer recommends stopping if anything other than steam comes out.

Once pressure is released, remove the lid carefully. Holding the pot at an angle, use an immersion blender to pulse the mixture, but do not puree it unless you're aiming for a more "jellied" type sauce. Return the cooker to the stove on low heat with the lid off until you can pull a spoon across the bottom and leave a clean trail. Transfer the finished product to a container and either serve warm or chill for up to 5 days.

Roasted Winter Vegetables

Yes, I've been intending to post this one for a while, and I am getting to it now that winter is drawing to a close. Ahhh...these vegetable are still around though so go ahead and give it a try. The original inspiration came from Simply in Season, one of my favorite seasonal cooking cookbooks. It's such a valuable book to have living in a place where most foods are just seasonally available. Be sure to include at least one "sweet" vegetable in your mix for that rich, caramel flavor. I used beets and carrots, and they pair beautifully! Kohlrabi and turnips also work well in this one. Omit the vinegar if you want to be sure it's truly gluten-free.

Not the best photo, but you get the idea, right?

Roasted Winter Vegetables
4 cups mixed winter vegetables, cut into 1 inch pieces
3-4 small onions, peeled, root and stem ends removed
1 bulb garlic, top sliced off but otherwise intact
1 Tablespoon oil
1 teaspoon salt
Fresh black pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons dried herbs of choice (rosemary, oregano, thyme, parsley)
1-2 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar (optional)

Lay the vegetables out on a baking tray and sprinkle with oil and other seasonings. Place onions together in a piece of foil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and toss with some oil. Wrap the foil up. Place the garlic bulb in another piece of foil with a light sprinkling of oil. Wrap that up. Place both foil packets on the pan with the vegetables. Roast in a 220C/425F oven for 30-45 minutes until vegetables are tender and golden. 20 minutes into cooking, remove the foil from the onions to permit browning. After the vegetables are cooked, squeeze the contents of the garlic bulb into a bowl. Toss in the vegetables and a splash of balsamic vinegar. The vegetables should have a shiny glaze once mixed. Enjoy warm or chilled.

Chickpea Salad

Salads....I love that a salad can really be just about anything you want it to be. I especially appreciate salads that you can make when good lettuce is either not available or not in your house that day. This chickpea salad is really not much of a recipe, but hopefully it will be an inspiration to you. This salad works well as the protein for a vegetarian meal. You can make it as simple or deluxe as you like, but here are the basics of what I do. You can use dried chickpeas or canned ones that you've rinsed and drained. You just need to add more salt if you've started from dried chickpeas.

Chickpea Salad
2 cups cooked chickpeas, drained
1 cup tomatoes, diced or chopped
1 cup red onion, sliced thinly
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1-2 Tablespoons vinegar (cider, red wine, or balsamic)
Salt and pepper, to taste

Optional add-ons:
1-2 cups fresh rocket/arugula
1 teaspoon dried herbs (basil, oregano, rosemary)
Crumbled cheese (feta, paneer, or even parmesan)
Fresh herbs (mint or basil)
Cucumber, chopped

Toss everything into a bowl. Adjust seasonings, vinegar, and oil to taste. Allow to chill and marinate at least 30 minutes before serving. 

Garlic Sesame Green Beans

Tonight we had these as an accompaniment to a Thai Chicken Curry, and they were such a huge hit with my kids I wanted to share them right away. If you like super soft green beans, you'll need to increase blanching time as these are deliciously crisp. To save time, you could blanch your green beans in advance and store them in the fridge. If you're not much into clean up, you can blanch the beans, toast sesame seeds, and fry the beans all in the same pan like I did.

Garlic Sesame Green Beans
500g/~1 lb green beans, ends trimmed
1-2 Tablespoons oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
1 Tablespoon sesame seeds
2 teaspoons soy sauce
Salt to taste

Drop trimmed green beans into salted boiling water and cook for 3 minutes. Drain the beans (using the pan lid) and drop into cold water to stop cooking. Toast the sesame seeds over medium heat in the dry pan until they are crackling, shaking the pan occasionally to prevent burning. Set the seeds aside. Heat the cooking oil in the pan over medium-high heat. Add the garlic, stirring constantly to prevent burning. As soon as you see a little gold, toss in the beans and sesame oil. Fry for several minutes with the lid on, stirring occasionally. Add the soy sauce near the end of cooking. At this point you should have crispy brown garlic clinging to the beans. Turn off the heat and toss the sesame seeds into the beans.

Herb and Pomegranate Salad

I promised this little Mediterranean salad back when I posted the Moroccan Chickpea Stew, but I never got around to posting it. If you have a very narrow definition of what constitutes a salad, this may not be for you, but I found it to be so refreshing alongside a Mediterranean-spiced main. This recipe first caught my eye while I was reading BBC Good Food (Oct. 2013, Asian ed.), my favorite magazine, over the holidays. It was part of the front page picture, and it looked gorgeous. Having given it a try with a few tweaks, I think it's a winner. Vary the amounts of herbs according to your taste to get something that works for those at your dinner table.

Another high-class paper plate dinner

Herb and Pomegranate Salad
1 cucumber, deseeded and finely chopped
Arils of 1 pomegranate
3 medium tomatoes, diced finely
1 small bunch of each fresh parsley, mint, and dill
Juice and zest of 1 lemon
1 Tablespoon balsamic vinegar or pomegranate molasses
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 tsp sugar or honey

In the bottom of the salad bowl, combine the lemon juice and zest, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and sugar. Whisk until you get a loose emulsion. Here you can also add a generous sprinkling of salt and pepper. To this mixture, add all the other salad ingredients and toss until the dressing coats everything. Taste again to adjust seasoning. If it does not taste like much, increase the salt to bring out the other flavors more.

Note: I thought the dill might overpower my salad so I only used parsley and mint. You can experiment to see what you like.

Faux Sweet Potato Casserole

Ah, the week of Thanksgiving—quite possibly one of my favorite weeks of the year! I dream of all the delicious food I get to consume. Last year, I was just a little too busy to do much posting around the end of November, but I did a quick roundup linking you to some of my favorite recipes for this time of year. This time, I’m going to attempt to share a few in advance to hopefully give the American readers some inspiration for turkey day and others some ideas for Christmas dinner.

Sweet potatoes (the orange-fleshed ones) are a classic this time of year, especially in the Southern U.S. where I come from. I went a number of years going without them and other years trying to make the white sweet ones work for this dish. Finally, I came up with a pretend sweet potato solution that involves blending other vegetables that look and taste similar to sweet ‘taters. This is the result of that experimentation!
 

“Sweet Potato” Casserole 
3 pounds (or about 1.5 kg) pumpkin and carrots, cooked and pureed

½ cup milk
½ cup brown sugar
¼ cup/64g butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla
½ tsp cinnamon
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup chopped nuts (walnuts, cashews, or both)
½ cup marshmallows (optional)
½ cup shredded coconut (optional)

For the puree, you can either steam, pressure cook, or roast the vegetables. Use about half of each kind to make the total amount. Once pureed and cooled, add the milk, brown sugar, melted butter, vanilla, cinnamon, and beaten eggs to a bowl with the puree and stir to combine. Pour into a greased baking dish. Sprinkle chopped nuts over the top. Bake uncovered in a 170C/350F degree oven for about 25 minutes. If you’d like, you can stop there. For that extra gooey, marshmallow goodness, cut marshmallows into smaller pieces to make mini-marshmallows. Sprinkle marshmallows (and coconut if desired) on top of the nuts, and bake another 5-10 minutes until the marshmallows melt and begin to brown.

This is the PERFECT holiday side because it gives you the excuse to eat dessert twice. After all, this is made of vegetables, right?! Thanks for your inspiration Neely's!

Cheesy Garlic Biscuits

Biscuits – like fluffy American biscuits—that’s definitely something I miss being away from my Southern roots. We’re biscuit people. We can’t help it. If you’re not American, our biscuits are deliciously flaky, savory, crisp outside, soft inside, buttery treats. There’s a seafood restaurant in America that serves a very specific type of cheesy garlicky biscuit as table fodder, and they’re absolutely addicting. This is the closest version I can come up with for them after tweaking several copycat recipes that I found. They’re also drop biscuits so no rolling and cutting makes these easier to prepare for an ordinary meal. 

Golden biscuit goodness!

Cheesy Garlic Biscuits

1 cup flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/8 teaspoon red chili powder (optional)

1/2 cup grated cheese

1/2 cup buttermilk (sub sour milk)

1/4 cup melted (regular salted) butter

 Topping:

1 Tablespoon melted butter

1 clove garlic, minced

1/2 teaspoon dried herbs like parsley or an Italian mix (x 3 for fresh herbs)

First combine the dry ingredients, including the garlic and cheese. Allow the melted butter to cool for about 5 minutes then add it to the buttermilk, stirring until you start to get little clumps. If you're short on time, just dump these two into the dry ingredients separately, stirring a little after each addition. Mix all the ingredients until you have a uniform, wet dough. Preheat the oven to 225C/435F. Once the oven is hot, the dough should have begun to look more dry and less liquidy. Drop biscuits by the rounded tablespoon onto a flat pan, leaving about 2 inches of space between each. Add the last clove of garlic to the tablespoon of melted butter. Brush the tops of the biscuits with the garlic butter then sprinkle lightly with the dried herbs. Bake for about 12 minutes or until the tops and bottoms just begin to turn golden.

Notes: To make 1/2 cup of sour milk, add 2 teaspoons white vinegar to a 1/2 cup measure. Pour in enough milk (NOT hot or you'll get cottage cheese) to make 1/2 cup. Stir briefly then allow to sit for 5 minutes before using. Also, if you have a little cookie scoop or ice cream scoop, that works great for getting uniform biscuit sizes.

Scallion Pancakes

Today at lunch I was talking Korean food with a Korean colleague and remembered these delicious little treats I meant to write about earlier. In our quest to go vegetarian at least half of the week, this is one of the recipes I used to change things up. One of the highlights of my visits to Korean restaurants is the scallion pancakes they give you. The only caveat? You usually only get one for a whole table of people! For a light and easy weeknight dinner, these are super simple, and you can have as many as you'd like.

Given that I'm not Korean, I can't make any claim as to the authenticity of this recipe except that it tastes pretty close to what we get in a restaurant. I adapted this recipe from Kimchi Mom to suit my taste and the amount of work required. Mine don't look as beautiful as hers, but that does not negate the fact that you should try these. Pair this with a little dipping sauce and some Miso Soup, and you've got a delicious dinner on the table in less than 30 minutes. A serious accomplishment in our neck of the woods!

Korean-Style Scallion Pancakes
2 bunches green onions, sliced diagonally
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon sugar
1 1/2 cups cold water
Oil

Mix all the dry ingredients except the onions together in a bowl. Add the green onions and stir to coat evenly with the flour. Add the cold water and stir until the batter is relatively smooth. Heat oil over med-high heat and ladle some of the batter into the pan. I swirl it around a bit to get the pancake thinner. Flip once the edges begin to get some color and cook the other side through. When fully cooked, slice into little pie wedges perfect for dipping!

Note: If you're looking for extra protein in the meal, you could add an egg to the batter without altering the taste or texture too much.

Dipping Sauce
2 Tablespoons soy sauce
1 Tablespoon rice wine vinegar
1 teaspoon sugar
Splash of water

Mix thoroughly to dissolve the sugar. Adjust the amount of water to accommodate the saltiness of your soy sauce.

Simple Celery Dressing

When I first moved overseas, I thought someone needed to send me a box of Stove Top in order to enjoy stuffing. After some trial and error in India as far as bread types, I figured out it's not so hard to do after all. This recipe makes about 10 servings.

Stuffing before baking

Simple Celery Stuffing
1 loaf day-old bread (we use half white half brown for texture)
3/4 cup butter
1 onion, chopped
4 stalks celery, chopped (8 small ones)
2 teaspoons poultry seasoning
Salt and pepper
1 cup broth (1 cup hot water + half an Asian bouillon cube)
1 egg, beaten (optional)
1 cup mushrooms, sliced (optional)

Lay the bread slices out overnight to dry. Cut into cubes. Preheat oven to 170C/350F. Melt butter over medium heat and saute the vegetables in it. If using mushrooms, cook until mushrooms have given up a lot of their liquid. Add the poultry seasoning and salt and pepper. Remove from heat. Toss the bread cubes in the butter mixture to coat evenly. Moisten with vegetable or chicken broth. If you like tightly bound dressing, add a beaten egg to the broth before pouring over the bread. This will hold it all together. Pour mixture into a greased casserole and press down lightly to pack the dressing together. Bake uncovered for 30-40 minutes or until top becomes golden. Alternatively, you can microwave it on high for 6-7 minutes, depending on your microwave.

If you don't have poultry seasoning, this is what I use to make mine:

2 1/4 tsp dried sage, crumbled
3/4 tsp dried thyme, crumbled
3/4 tsp pepper

Works as a rub for the buttered/oil skin of chicken, too. If you can't get sage, try using rosemary instead.

Corn Casserole

Okay. I've never been a huge fan of corn casseroles, but I know some people really like them. Last Thanksgiving, my sister-in-law Pam made one that's really simple and delicious. To be technical, where I come from this is called cawn puddin'. The original recipe calls for a box of Jiffy cornbread mix, which we obviously don't have here. You could probably be lazy and just dump everything into one container without any problems. To be safe, I still mix the Jiffy bread separately in case there's some binding that naturally happens in the box that might be missed.

Corn Casserole
1 can cream style corn
1 can plain corn (or about 2 cups frozen), drained
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 cup sour cream or plain yogurt

Cornbread mix:
2/3 cup flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
3 Tablespoons sugar
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons oil

Preheat oven to 170C/350F. In a bowl mix the 2 cans of corn, butter, and sour cream. In a separate bowl combine the cornbread ingredients and stir to thoroughly mix them. Mix the dry bowl into the corn mixture. Pour into a greased casserole dish. At this point, some people top with cheese so you can do that if you like. Bake for about 40 minutes or until the top is golden and it does not jiggle much when shaken.

Note: If you're not so happy about adding another 1/2 cup of butter to your holiday diet, you could reduce the amount to 2 Tablespoons butter and add 2 eggs to the batter. Use the 2 Tablespoons of butter to dot the top of the casserole before baking.

Savory Greens

I love, love, love dark leafy greens as mentioned in previous posts. I know not everyone does, but they're so incredibly good for you that you really should give them a try. Here's a very basic, adaptable version of savory greens that incorporates vitamin C to give your body the boost to absorb all that good iron. This recipe is portioned to be a small side for 4 people. I would generally make almost double for my family because we all like greens so much.

As a general rule, the smaller smooth-leafed varieties are milder in flavor, and big hearty leaves have stronger, sometimes bitter, flavors. Those happen to be my favorites. Bok choy has a very mild flavor and also tastes great prepared this way. You should note that the more delicate the leaf, the smaller it becomes in cooking so 2 bunches of something small would cook into less than 1/2 cup of greens. So, even if you're not a huge fan, I'd advocate giving greens another chance if only because they're little nutrient powerhouses.

Savory Greens
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
2-4 bunches greens
3-4 small cherry-sized tomatoes
1 Tablespoon oil

Clean the greens really well with water. Cut the greens into 1 inch slices. If using a larger leaf green, cut both length wise and crosswise. Using a mortar and pestle, grind the tomatoes into a paste. Heat the oil over medium heat in a frying pan. Add in the garlic, careful to keep it moving so it does not burn. Once it starts to change to golden, toss in the tomatoes and cook until they start to look more saucy and less like raw tomatoes. Toss in the greens and saute until wilted. If you're using a thick-stemmed variety, you may want to saute the stems a few minutes before the leaves because they require longer cooking times. Salt to taste.

Goma Ae

One of my absolute favorite Japanese sides is goma ae. It's made either with spinach or green beans, both of which are delicious! Pairing this with a bowl of miso soup and some rice is a wonderful light meal in my opinion. Just think about all those great probiotics you can be getting from the miso soup, too! Very handy for the ol' digestive tract when you're living in South Asia.

Goma Ae
200g green beans, trimmed and cut into 1 inch pieces
5 Tablespoons sesame seeds
1 Tablespoon sugar
1.5 teaspoons soy sauce
1 Tablespoon dashi stock (this is why it works with the soup, just scoop it from the stock)

Steam the beans with a little salt until crisp tender. Drop into an ice water bath immediately after cooking. Toast the sesame seeds in a frying pan until fragrant. Grind the sesame seeds and sugar into a paste in a blender (dry grinding attachment if you have one). Add the soy sauce and dashi stock (or water) to the dry. Toss the green beans and sesame sauce together.

You can also substitute spinach for this. You can boil a bunch of spinach in salted water, plunge it into cold water to preserve color, and chop it into 1 inch pieces. You do need to squeeze the spinach in a towel to reduce the amount of water. Either way this is a gorgeously tasty little side "salad" of sorts.

Brown Rice Salad

In the next few weeks, I hope to brush up on my food photography, but in the meantime, we're still working with unphotographed food. This salad is one of my quick lunch favorites. First, I'll give you the trick to perfect brown rice, and then the way to make this healthy ingredient a little not-so-healthy, but oh-so-delicious!

Perfect Brown Rice
2 cups brown rice
3 cups water

After rinsing the rice, turn on the heat and bring it to a boil uncovered. As soon as it begins to boil, put the lid on the pot, and drop the heat to low. Simmer for 20 minutes. Turn off the heat and keep the lid closed for another 10 minutes. Fluff with a fork.

I prefer my brown rice with a slight chew so 10 minutes is just right, but if you want it softer, you could leave it for the final steam longer. You can also vary the amount of rice, but the ratio should be 1 rice to 1.5 water.

Brown Rice Salad
6 slices bacon (how can we not love that?!)
1 medium red onion, diced
1/2 cup white or red wine vinegar
1/2 cup water
1/4 piece chicken cube
2 teaspoon Dijon mustard (sub regular if you don't have it)
1 teaspoon sugar
3/4 to 1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 Tablespoon fresh dill or 1 teaspoon dried
3 cups cooked brown rice

Cook the bacon until crisp and browned. Set aside to drain on a paper towel. Reserve 1 tablespoon of the grease. Saute the onion in the bacon grease until translucent. Add the vinegar, water, chicken cube, mustard, sugar, salt, and pepper. Stir to combine. Add the rice and crumbled bacon. Cook the rice on low until all the liquid is absorbed. This will take 7-10 minutes. Stir in the dill and cool slightly before serving. At this point, I also like to toss in some cold chopped vegetables like tomatoes or cucumbers just to give a cool contrast to the warm salad.

This is a great make ahead salad that keeps well in the fridge, too. It's perfect for days like today when we decide to come home for lunch after church.

Pumpkin Leaves in Oyster Sauce

My husband bought a clump of weird-looking leaves, and I wasn't sure what to do with them. Turns out, they were pumpkin leaves so I did some searching for Thai pumpkin leaves to go with our Thai Cashew Chicken. I found this recipe on a Thai food website and had surprisingly good results with this interesting food! You could probably do this with just about any type of green leafy vegetable.

Pumpkin Leaves in Oyster Sauce

• 2 cups pumpkin leaves, torn into small pieces
• 2-3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 Tablespoons oyster sauce
• 1 teaspoon soy sauce, less if you're using something like Kikkoman
• 1 teaspoon fish sauce
• 1 Tablespoon oil

1. After rinsing the pumpkin leaves, tear them and their stems into small pieces 1-2 inches. Anything that is too difficult to tear or snap with your fingers will probably be too fibrous to eat. I didn't like the idea of the little spines from the pumpkin in my throat so I also scraped the stems with a knife briefly to get some of those off. 
2. In a wok, heat the oil over high heat. This dish cooks in about 3 minutes so have everything ready. Toss in the garlic and stir constantly to prevent burning.
3. As soon as you notice the color beginning to change, throw in the leaves and stir to get the garlic off the bottom of the pan.
4. Once the leaves begin to wilt, add the soy sauce and fish sauce. It might smell weird, but it tastes great.
5. Stir for about a minute until the leaves have really shrunk and the liquid in the pan has evaporated some. 
6. Stir in the oyster sauce and remove from heat. Add additional soy sauce if necessary. I found using the full amount of Kikkoman soy sauce was too salty so if you are using good quality soy sauce keep that in mind.