silken tofu – Ali Does It Herself

Tofu Feature Month: Tofu-Spinach Calzones

[Note from Photographer’s Ego: Yes, I know these pictures fail to follow that number one rule of food photography: use natural light! I will be building myself a light box soon, not to fret.]

This will be our final tofu recipe for you folks for a while. Our digestive systems are not used to so much soy and they have unequivocally had enough. The Pie especially so. Poor man. Pity him that his wife cooks new things for him on a regular basis. Tsk.

The last time the Pie and I attempted calzones, we ended up with floor pizza. I was determined to get it right this time. The recipe below, with some modifications, comes from the Savvy Vegetarian, and it’s pretty easy. The dough is nice and stretchy, and I could definitely use it again for a calzone with a different filling, which is exciting! The yield for this is 10 hand-hold-able calzones, and I halved it (because there’s only the Pie and myself — Gren doesn’t get people food).

For the dough:

In a small bowl, dissolve 1 teaspoon granulated sugar in 1 1/4 cups warm water. Stir in 2 teaspoons active dry yeast and allow that to sit for 10 minutes.

Or until it gets all foamy.

In a larger bowl, add 1/2 teaspoon salt to 3 cups flour and mix well.

Rub in (exactly how it sounds) 1 tablespoon olive oil. Rub it between your fingers until there are no large clumps left.

Stir the water/yeast mixture into the flour until it forms a shaggy ball. Make sure to get all the floury goodness at the bottom of the bowl.

On a floured surface, knead the ball for about 10 minutes. The more you knead it, the tackier it will get, so you will need to add more flour on occasion. Also, keep in mind that the more you knead it, the more elastic it will be (because you worked all the gluten together). You want your dough to be nice and stretchy.

Place the dough in an oiled bowl, cover it with a clean cloth and set it in a warm place to rise for about an hour.

For the filling:

Dice up 1/4 cup onion, and about 8 mushrooms and toss them in a frying pan with 2 tablespoons olive oil and 2 tablespoons minced garlic. Sauté until soft.

In a small bowl, mix up 1 tablespoon flour, 1 tablespoon powdered vegetable stock, 1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram, 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano, 1 teaspoon dried basil, a pinch of cayenne, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper.

Toss that on the vegetables in the pan and stir it around.

Plop in 16 ounces fresh baby spinach (you can use frozen spinach, if you thaw it and drain it first), as well as 2 12-ounce packages of firm silken tofu and a dash of soy sauce. You can break up the tofu before you toss it in, but it gave me something to do while I waited for the spinach to wilt.

I had some leftover chèvre, 8 ounces worth, so I tossed that in as well. So if you’d like to add that to this recipe, chuck in 8-16 ounces goat’s cheese and stir it around until well-incorporated and completely melted.

Remove the mixture from the heat.

Calzone Assembly and Baking:

Preheat your oven to 425°F.

Punch down your dough. Literally.

Divide it into 10 equal parts, rolled into balls (remember, my recipe is halved, that’s why you only see five).

On a floured surface, roll each ball out into a 6″ round.

Divide the filling into 10 equal parts and place each portion on a round, slightly to one side.

Wet the edges of the dough with your finger and fold over each round to make a half circle.

Squish down the edges with your finger and crimp with a fork to seal them.

Place the calzones on a baking sheet. You can brush them with oil and sprinkle them with salt if you like, for a crusty, salty top. I chose to cook ours on our pizza stone, which I put in the oven when I turned it on. Cut two diagonal slices in the top of each calzone to let the steam escape.

Bake for 15-25 minutes, until the dough is golden brown and the filling bubbles up through the holes.

Be careful, they’re HOT!

Tofu Feature Month: Dark Chocolate Mousse

Who says that tofu only belongs on the savoury side of life?

This chocolate dessert is quick and easier than doing it the hard way.

The original recipe I had called for carob powder, but I didn’t have any, so I chopped up dark chocolate and melted it instead. I figured it would make a smoother treat that way.

In a blender, combine 1 package soft silken tofu, 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, 1/2 melted dark chocolate, and 1/2 cup soy milk. Add between 2 and 6 tablespoons of sugar (I did 2, the recipe I had called for 6, and that seemed like a lot). Blend that until it’s smooth. It might take some stirring to dislodge pockets of cocoa powder.

Pour into parfait cups or layer in a tall glass. I tried to layer with marshmallows, but of course they floated when I tried to pour more chocolate on top. Yes, I am an idiot.

And the fresh raspberries I put on top sank.

Chill until firm(er) and serve.

To be honest, I was not a fan of this dessert. Firstly, it was most decidedly not a mousse — that frothy, floating concoction that I know and love. This was more like a heavy pudding. And the smoothness of the tofu did nothing to hide the chalky feeling of undissolved cocoa powder sliding down my gullet. It tasted fine, but the texture was all wrong. In this case, I would stick with real dairy and straight chocolate.

Tofu Feature Month: Roasted Vegetable Lasagna

Today we are going to use tofu to replace ricotta cheese in a healthy and hearty lasagna. This recipe makes for 2 dishes of pasta, so you can freeze one and then thaw it for cooking at a later date.

Start with your roasting vegetables. Preheat your oven to 450°F.

Slice up 2 Italian eggplants (or one small regular one), 1 zucchini, and 2 red peppers.

Make the pieces relatively small so you don’t have to cut them up too much when you eat them.

Plop those in a roasting pan and drizzle lightly with olive oil. Toss thoroughly and roast for about 20-30 minutes, stirring about halfway through, until everything is tender and fragrant. Reduce the heat of the oven to 350°F if you are planning on cooking your lasagna right away.

Next, chop up about half a large yellow onion, and about a dozen mushrooms. Sauté those suckers in a large saucepan with a wee bit of olive oil until they are tender as well.

Add the roasted vegetables and stir them around.

Pour in 2 jars tomato-based pasta sauce and mix that around to warm everything up. I only used one jar of sauce in this recipe and didn’t have quite enough sauce to cover everything, so I definitely recommend two jars. Add in a bit of fresh basil, too, if you’ve got it.

Thaw 1 500g package of frozen spinach.

Add to that 2 packages soft tofu (or firm silken tofu) and squish it around.

I puréed about half of it in a blender for a creamier texture.

Season with salt and pepper. Shoulda used a bigger bowl …

Now, line the bottom of your oblong casserole dishes with noodles. I use the no-cook lasagna because it’s less of a pain in the butt, and with the size of my dishes, each casserole will take 9 noodles. Spread on a generous layer of the roasted vegetables in tomato sauce (I had to be sparing, because I only used the one jar of sauce).

Add another layer of noodles, then a heaping of the tofu/spinach mixture. Use half the stuff for each casserole.

More noodles. The rest of your tomato sauce. Try to cover all the noodles so they don’t dry out while baking. Obviously, that’s not what happened here. But what can you do? I learned from my mistakes.

For a little extra flavour, feel free to top the lasagna with a handful of crumbled feta cheese.

Bake at 350°F for about 30-40 minutes, or until the top of the lasagna is all nice and bubbly. Some lasagna advocates recommend covering the casserole and then uncovering it in the last ten minutes to crispen it up, but I’ve found that’s only helpful if you are working from a frozen casserole. If you plan to freeze this lasagna and eat it later, I suggest you let it thaw completely before cooking.

Now you can eat it. Comfort food that won’t kill you. Genius. Though it probably would have been a better choice NOT to eat it with garlic bread.

Tofu Feature Month: Mapo Tofu

I FINALLY found silken tofu in St. John’s. I’ve been looking for it for what feels like forever. In celebration of my recent discovery, and the Pie’s insistence that he needs to slim down in time for Kristopf’s wedding next July, I have decided to honour the long-standing request of my friend Danger K and start finding new ways to cook with tofu. You might know Danger K: she recently got married (on our wedding anniversary, no less), and she and her husband planned a big fancy wedding by begging, bartering, and borrowing everything they could. Their expenses out of pocket? About two hundred bucks. You can read about the process on their blog, Project Priceless. So they’re a little bit famous back in Ottawa. And I can say that I knew her when. We went to high school together. In fact, she had a huge crush on one of my brothers (DON’T DENY IT DANGER K I HAVE PROOF). Not that I’m going to hold that against her or anything.

So. Cooking with tofu.

My previous experiences cooking with tofu (not in eating it, just cooking it) focused mainly on tossing cubes of it into Broccofu, Peanut Butter Spaghetti, or the occasional stir-fry. There’s nothing wrong with that, but’s not using tofu in all its myriad manifestations. This fall, the Pie and I aim to change our ways, and this recipe is the beginning. September will be a sort of Tofu Feature Month.

Mapo doufu (mapo tofu) is a traditional spicy dish from the Sichuan province of China and involves sautéing tofu pieces in a suspension of a paste made of beans and chilis. What I found particularly interesting about this dish is that I normally think of tofu as a protein-replacement for meat, but this recipe calls for a combination of tofu AND beef or pork. Very unique (for me, at least).

A note on substitutions: this recipe calls for chili bean paste, a spicy gooey mixture of fermented soy beans and chilis (I’m thinking like a super-hot miso). I didn’t have such a thing, so I used black bean paste instead with the chilis, which is why my sauce isn’t that signature reddish colour. The recipe also requires the use of rice wine, which, not being a wine-drinker, I also don’t have, so we used rice wine vinegar instead. Finally, the recipe I used made little sense and required some serious moderation, so I haven’t linked you to it. I wasn’t a huge fan.

Start by making up enough rice for two people.

Drain and pat dry one block soft tofu (I used extra-firm silken tofu because I wanted to see what it was like). Cut it into 1″ cubes.

Slice up 4-5 green onions and save about 1/4 of the green tips (sliced) for garnish.

In a skillet or wok over medium heat, heat 2 tablespoons vegetable oil and sauté 4oz ground beef or pork until cooked. Drain and set aside.

In the same pan, heat 1 tablespoon vegetable oil. Add 1 teaspoon minced ginger, the green onion that isn’t what you saved for garnish, 2 whole dried chilis, and 1 teaspoon ground peppercorns (Sichuan if you’ve got ’em). Cook that for about a minute.

Add the ground meat back in, as well as 3 tablespoons chili bean paste, 2 teaspoons minced garlic, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, 1 tablespoon rice wine, and 2 teaspoons brown sugar. Cook that for another minute or so, just so everything can get acquainted.

Add in the cubed tofu as well as 1/4 cup vegetable stock (or beef, or pork) and let that simmer for 15 minutes. Stir occasionally, but don’t let the tofu fall apart.