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CHARRED CAULIFLOWER AND CRISPY TOFU WITH SWEET PEANUT SAUCE - p. 156
I made a few changes in the cooking method. The cauliflower is supposed to be charred in a skillet, but I air-fried it. The tofu is dredged in seasoned chickpea flour and is supposed to be pan-fried in the same skillet as the cauliflower, but I deep fried it. I dredged the shallots in the remainder of the chickpea flower and fried them right behind the tofu. The peanut sauce is supposed to be cooked in a saucepan, I used less water and just whisked everything in a bowl, no cooking. I also tweaked the ingredients in the sauce a bit. Used ground chiles instead of flakes, and upped the amount. There is supposed to be a hard boiled egg served with this dish, but I just skipped it. The remaining two components are just some cucumber and sprouts - those are raw. Next time I might broil the cauliflower in the oven, and air fry the tofu in the Breville SmartOven. We liked this, but I feel I could play around with it a bit and get it more dialed in to my taste.
I’m not going to go back and post all the recipes I’ve already made from this book, but I am going to hit on the ones that I remember well enough to comment on. This one definitely left an impression. A good one! It’s kind a hybrid Korean stew. We’ve got kimchi, gochujang, and gochugaru providing the flavoring. I used my homemade kimchi (from an Edward Lee recipe) that was well-aged. Soft tofu, zucchini, onion, garlic, and scallions provide the bulk. This is really simple to make, if you have the ingredients, and absolutely delicious.
I mentioned this recipe in the nomination thread. In this ingenious riff on mapo tofu, eggplant cooked soft plays the role of silken tofu, while crumbled firm tofu plays the role of ground meat. I really liked this, but thought the seasoning was not quite on par with my normal versions of mapo tofu, so I’d tweak it a bit going forward.
I made this last June when I had zucchini out the wazoo, and I was on the zucchini-with-every-meal plan. It has a gluten-free and vegan option written into the recipe, so I didn’t have to worry about converting it. Yuzu juice in the cake and in the glaze made this cake just different enough to be special. The cake worked beautifully and I enjoyed it. It made a great first breakfast when I had to get up early for the first test firing of my kiln. Picture is horrible, but it was taken at 5 am.
CAULIFLOWER AND KALE PESTO PASTA SALAD WITH(OUT) BURRATA - p. 152
I didn’t have high expectations for this dish, I just slapped it on the to-make list and bought the ingredients because I figured there would be a night when things got out of hand and I would need something quick and easy. Last night was that night. I closed up the studio early enough and was all set to cook a couple dishes from Dakshin, but I had an unplanned phone call, and a long and not very pleasant discussion, so after that, I just wanted something simple. So I was glad to have this recipe ready to go.
I changed the cooking order a bit. I never understand why an author will have you cook pasta before make the sauce for said pasta. Even for a pasta salad, it doesn’t make sense. So I started with the pesto. You oil and season some cauliflower and roast it in the oven for 10 minutes. Add some similarly oiled and seasoned kale at that point and roast for another 10 minutes. You put a portion of the cauliflower and kale in a blender or food processor along with some toasted walnuts, garlic, lemon zest, lemon juice, salt, and olive oil, and blend to make a pesto. I used the mini processor attachment for my stick blender. While the cats were getting fed, I boiled the pasta, drained it, and rinsed under cold water. To serve, you mix the pasta with the pesto, some more lemon zest and juice, and the remaining kale, cauliflower, and toasted walnuts. You are supposed to plop a ball of burrata on top, but I omitted it.
Turns out, this recipe is more than the sum of its parts. It was delicious. I did not miss the burrata at all, it isn’t needed here. I feel like the walnuts do enough that the dish doesn’t want any kind of cheese - it would just muddy the flavors. One change I did make was to put more of the kale than called for into the pesto. Not sure it made that much difference, but the recipe had you only put 30 grams of the cooked kale into the pesto, which is not much at all. And I just wanted a greener pesto. This was garlicky, and with a great contrast of textures from the walnuts and just tender cauliflower against the pasta. Not the prettiest dish, as you can see from the photo, but tasted much better than it looked.
I’ve made red-cooked tofu before, but it has usually been a bit disappointing (the version in Phoenix Claws and Jade Trees comes to mind), so I approached this recipe with modest expectations.
You cut tofu into triangles and pan-fry it. Set aside. Add more oil to the pan and put some sugar in. Swirl the pan around and let the sugar partially melt. Then add Brussels sprouts, and cook until coated and starting to color. Add dark soy sauce and cook a minute more. Add water, soy sauce, Shaoxing wine, star anise, ginger, scallion, and a dried chile or pepper flakes. Bring to a simmer, cover and cook until the sprouts are completely tender. Serve garnished with more scallion, with rice.
I’m not sure what the difference was, but this version was great. Brussels sprouts were kind of unexpected here, but they were good. I think I’d like this with broccoli rabe or gai lan as well, and may try that in the future.
GRILLED BABY BOK CHOY WITH MISO-GOCHUJANG BUTTER AND CRISPY CHICKPEAS - p. 45
I was a little shy of the quantity of bok choy called for, so my ratio of greens to beans was off. I went ahead and made the full amount of all the other components. You toss chickpeas with chickpea flour, gochugaru, salt, and pepper, then toss in a little oil. These get roasted. Make the miso-gochujang butter by combining those three ingredients in a saucepan along with some grated garlic and ginger, and heat until everything is melted and combined. Cut the bok choy in half lengthwise and toss with the gochujang butter. Then cook it in a skillet or grill pan until charred. As it comes out of the pan, put it back in the bowl with the gochujang butter. You serve this by plating the bok choy with yogurt, the roast chickpeas, some cilantro, and toasted sesame seeds. Serving with rice is suggested as optional.
This was full of flavor and quite spicy. I served with rice, which I feel was necessary - this wouldn’t have felt like a complete meal without it. Because I had less bok choy, I didn’t use quite the full amount of gochujang butter, although proportionately, I used more than what the recipe suggests. The small amount left over should be good tossed wtih noodles, or maybe fried rice.
CARROT AND CANNELLINI BEAN SHEET-PAN DINNER WITH YUZU VINAIGRETTE - p. 134
I’ll preface this write-up by noting that I am not a big fan of roast carrots. At best I find them OK, at worst, inedible. I rate them higher than roast sweet potatoes, but that’s a very low bar. So I’m not sure why I chose this recipe. I guess it was my contrarian nature, challenging the author to make me like roast carrots.
So you roast some carrots, and after 15 minutes you add to the sheet pan some cannellini beans, leek, and sliced lemon. All of this has been tossed with oil, salt and pepper. Roast the whole shebang for another 15-18 minutes (I chose the longer time). Meanwhile, you make a dressing of yuzu juice, EVOO, maple syrup, garlic, salt, and pepper. When the roasting time is up, you toss with the dressing and some toasted sliced almonds and some cilantro.
This is pretty good for a carrot dish. I found myself wishing for more of the yuzu dressing, or at least more yuzu in the dressing - it was specifically the yuzu that I wanted more of. The other change I would make would be to dress the beans and carrots in a bowl, rather than directly on the sheet pan. I feel like the food doesn’t get fully coated when you dress or season it on the sheet pan. I appreciate that the author is trying to minimize bowl-dirtying, but you’ve already dirtied a bowl for seasoning the beans and leeks, so that one could be reused at the end. Anyway, minor quibbles. I don’t know if I’ll actually make this again, but the yuzu was a nice combination with carrot, so that’s my takeaway from this exercise.
I got this from Amazon. I have zero time right now for tracking down specialty items, I’m hardly even going to the store. But one click and I had it the next day.
ROASTED BROCCOLI AND CRISPY CHICKPEAS WITH SICHUAN DUKKAH - p. 68
For this recipe you roast seasoned chickpeas and broccoli (separately). For the “Sichuan dukkah,” you crush toasted coriander seeds and Sichuan peppercorns in a mortar, then crush in some roasted cashews and finally sesame seeds and salt. To assemble the dish, you simply toss the broccoli and chickpeas with the dukkah, and some sesame oil and black vinegar. Super easy. Throw on some green onion to garnish.
This Sichuan dukkah is brilliant. I’m not even that big a dukkah fan, but I just love the Sichuan peppercorns in this. I could put it on anything. I had this made as written one night and liked it, then another night I skipped the chickpeas and tossed the broccoli and dukkah with red lentil pasta, and that was good too. The recipe makes more dukkah than you need, but I went waaay heavy on it, and I recommend you do the same. I got two meals (each for two people) out of the full amount of dukkah.
