Asian Tofu and Snow Peas in Simmer Sauce

This two step recipe is super easy (and enhanceable) once you get the hang of it. It can be doubled to serve hungry guests, and can be served with steamed quinoa (quick), or brown rice (a bit longer). It is kind of like homemade take-out Chinese food!  This recipe is adapted from the Ginger Shrimp with Snow Peas recipe from the excellent cookbook Seriously Simple, Easy Recipes for Creative Cooks, by Diane Rossen Worthington (Chronicle Books, 2002).

Serves: 4

Cook Time: Marination- 30min-5 hours. Cooking: up to 20  min.

Ingredients:

Marinade:

1 Tblsp cornstarch

1 Tblsp soy sauce

1 Tblsp toasted sesame oil

1 Tblsp fresh minced ginger

1 Tblsp fresh minced garlic

2 lbs firm organic tofu (no GMO’s), cut into 1” cubes

Sauce:

1/3 cup sake

2 Tblsp rice wine vinegar

1 Tblsp miso paste (optional)

2 Tblsp soy sauce

2 tsp sugar (try rapadura or brown sugar)

4 scallions (thinly sliced)

1 Tblsp minced fresh ginger

1 Tblsp minced fresh garlic

1/3 cup water

Stir-fry:

4 Tblsp oil (coconut, sesame, peanut or olive), to cook

½ lb snow peas, cleaned

Equipment: large skillet for browning the tofu + stir fry

Instructions:

-          Make sure you have quinoa or brown rice ready to cook, and time that cooking ahead so that the stir fry and the grain will be done roughly the same time.

-          In a glass pie plate, mix the marinade ingredients. Gently place the cubed tofu in the marinade, turning to coat (might have to stack a pyramid of tofu). Make sure each tofu cube is coated in marinade at one point or another. Refrigerate from 30 minutes up to 5 hours. Pull from refrigerator 10 minutes before you will start cooking, to let it warm up a bit.

-          In a small bowl, blend the sauce ingredients, and set aside (if you use the miso, the trick to get it to combine easily with the rest is to mix it first in the bowl with 2-3 Tblsp of the sake, to make it a thin paste- then slowly add the rest of the liquid while mixing pretty vigorously.)

-          When you are ready to start cooking the stir fry, remove the marinating tofu from the fridge, and heat a large skillet with 1 Tblsp of oil, and saute the snow peas for 2 minutes. Remove from pan, and set aside in a bowl.

-          Keeping the pan hot over medium heat, add the other 3 Tblsp of oil. Place the well-coated tofu cubes in the pan (do all of them if they’ll fit), and let sit for 1 minute without turning (scrape any extra starchy marinade into the pan and let it sit and cook, too). Check one tofu after a minute, to see if it has started to brown and has formed a crust. If it has, turn all of the cubes with a spatula. If not, wait another 30 seconds to a minute or so. Turn all the cubes within the first 5 minutes.

-          Once the tofu cubes have been browned on at least two sides, add the bowl of sauce, and cook for another 4 minutes or so, stirring frequently to keep things from sticking to the sides and breaking up clumps of cornstarch. Add the cooked snow peas during the last minute, tossing to coat.

-          Serve when the sauce no longer has a starchy consistency (when the cornstarch has ‘cooked out’), over hot steamed quinoa or brown rice.

-          If you have any left over (doubtful!), it’s best eaten within two days.