Mexican Chocolate Tofu Pudding

The Gastronomer emailed me this Mark Bittman recipe a full three years ago; when she requested a special dessert this weekend, I remembered it and decided it was pudding time! It's pretty cool: you start out with a block of soft tofu and some melted chocolate, add a few spices, blend it all up, and after chilling in the refrigerator for a bit, the result is a silky smooth pudding that I would have sworn was made with cream and eggs like this one.  I'm usually not that into chocolate, but I do love desserts with a spicy kick.  A few spoonfuls of pudding made for an extremely satisfying conclusion to my dinner tonight.

For another creative use of tofu, check out this pesto recipe.

Recipe by Mark Bittman, published in The New York Times.

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 pound silken tofu
• 8 ounces high-quality bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, melted in a double broiler
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon chili powder / cayenne pepper, or more to taste
• Chocolate shavings (optional)

In a small pot, combine sugar with 3/4 cup water; bring to a boil and cook until sugar is dissolved, stirring occasionally. Cool slightly.  Put all ingredients except for chocolate shavings in a blender and purée until completely smooth, stopping machine to scrape down its sides if necessary. Divide among 4 to 6 ramekins and chill for at least 30 minutes. If you like, garnish with chocolate shavings before serving [I used white chocolate for visual contrast].

Yield: 4 to 8 servings, depending on how much chocolate you can handle in one sitting
Estimated Start-to-Finish Time: 40 minutes (including 30 minutes chilling time)
Actual Start-to-Finish Time: 1 hour (including 30 minutes chilling time).  I spent a significant fraction of this time figuring out how to melt the chocolate.  The second time around it will be a good deal quicker.
Substitutions: I was a bit unsure of what Bittman meant by "chili powder".  The chili powder in our spice cabinet is the type used to make chili (the chunky bean and meat stew)--it contains garlic and several other ingredients in addition to hot peppers.  I thought this would probably be an odd flavor profile to add to a dessert, so I used cayenne pepper instead.  Half a teaspoon made the pudding plenty spicy.

Orange-Fennel Salad

The centerpiece of this easy winter salad from Cooking Light's series of recipes with five ingredients or less just might be one of my top five favorite vegetables.  Interestingly, fennel is also an herb and a spice, which perhaps gives it an unfair advantage over its veggie competitors, but I won't count that against it--it's right up there behind corn, carrots, and artichokes and neck and neck with other more obscure flora like upright elephant ears in my personal power rankings.  I find its crispy bulb, dill-like fronds, and licorice-tinged flavor to be positively delightful.  The salad was intended to accompany sauteed snapper but, true to form, we ate it with shrimp instead.

Recipe by Cooking Light, January/February 2010

• 2 oranges
• 1 medium fennel bulb with stalks
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Peel and section oranges over a bowl, reserving 2 tablespoons juice. Thinly slice fennel bulb; chop 1 teaspoon fronds. Discard stalks. Place orange sections and sliced fennel in a medium bowl. Combine reserved juice, fronds, olive oil, salt, and pepper in a small bowl, stirring with a whisk. Drizzle juice mixture over fennel mixture; toss well to coat.  Serve with your choice of simply prepared seafood.

Yield: 4 servings
Estimated Start-to-Finish Time: Not Given
Actual Start-to-Finish Time: 30 minutes

Middle Eastern Lentil Soup

For days when you feel like eating extra healthy, you really can't beat a lentil soup. Every 35 g serving of green lentils has 11 g of fiber, 10 g of protein, and no fat. Pretty incredible. I chose this recipe, courtesy of fatfreevegan.com, because of it contains a stellar array of spices---I always get excited about diving into our spice cabinet. When I first finished making it and dug into a bowl, I found it to be a bit unsatisfying; the total absence of sweetness or richness hit me harder than I had anticipated. However, it held up better the next day, when I wasn't so tired from cooking and in need of some truly hearty sustenance. It would make a meager entree, but as a side dish or replacing a salad before a meal, this soup is really quite delicious.

Recipe adapted from fatfreevegan.com

• 2 cups chopped onion
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 zucchini, chopped in 1/4 - 1/2 inch pieces
• Other vegetables such as eggplant, if desired
  
• 5 1/2 cups water
• 1/2 teaspoon coriander
• 1/4 teaspoon cardamom
• 1 teaspoon ground turmeric
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 1/2 cups lentils
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley (optional)
• 3/4 teaspoon salt, or to taste
  
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice or 1 teaspoon sumac

In a large pot, sauté the onion and garlic in 1/2 cup of the water for about 3 minutes. Add the zucchini and any additional vegetables and saute for 3 more minutes. Stir in the spices and cook for 1 minute. Add the lentils and the remaining water. Simmer the soup for about 30 minutes, or until the lentils are cooked (the time may depend on what kind of lentils you are using). Stir in the salt, and add the parsley. Just before serving, stir in the lemon juice or sprinkle each bowl of soup with a little sumac.

Yield: 4 servings
Estimated Start-to-Finish time: Not given
Actual Start-to-Finish time: 1 hour 5 minutes
Substitutions: The original recipe called for red lentils, but I couldn't find any so I used normal yellow/green ones, which are much more fibrous anyway. I didn't have any coriander or turmeric on hand, and I decided that purchasing one new spice for this simple weeknight recipe was enough. Deeming turmeric to be more important (if nothing else, the color of the dish would have been totally different without it), I left out the coriander. I added a bit of extra cumin to replace it. I took the easy way out and used lemon juice instead of sumac. If I make this again, I might try to find some---I'm curious what it's like.

Braised Tofu in Caramel Sauce

I absolutely love sweet Chinese sauces, so when The Gastronomer saw this recipe on The New York Times website, she knew it was perfect for me. This was my first foray into caramelizing sugar; unfortunately I haven’t quite mastered it yet. The first time I cooked it a bit too long and the end product tasted slightly burnt, while the second time I was overly conservative and ended up with a sauce that was tasty but ridiculously sweet. It didn’t help that descriptions in the recipe weren’t terribly clear.

Despite my imperfect sauce, we enjoyed the dish and were impressed by how well the tofu soaked up the flavors. The Gastronomer makes caramelizing look so easy when she makes Vietnamese thit kho—I suppose I’ll learn eventually.

Recipe by The New York Times Magazine

• 1 1-pound block firm tofu
• 1 cup white sugar
• 5 shallots, peeled and minced
• 4 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
• 2 tablespoons peeled and minced ginger
• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1/2 bunch scallions, white and light-green parts only, thinly sliced
• Freshly ground black pepper
• Cooked jasmine rice, for serving (optional).
  

Slice the tofu in half along its length and then each portion into two thick slices. Place the slices between paper towels to drain, replacing towels as needed.

Meanwhile, dissolve the sugar in 1/4 cup water and cook in a small saucepan over medium-low heat until small bubbles begin to appear around the edges of the pan. Carefully swirl the solution, but do not stir. Continue to heat, as bubbles move inward toward the center of the pan [it didn't happen like this when I made it] and the solution turns darker, 20 to 35 minutes, until the syrup has become a deep, golden caramel color. Carefully add 1/2 cup water to this mixture. (It will sputter violently. If some sugar crystallizes at this point, carefully stir the mixture with a metal spoon. The sugar will remelt.) Turn off the heat and allow to cool slightly.

Transfer the caramel sauce to a wide saucepan, turn the heat to medium and add the shallots, cooking for about 2 minutes. Add the garlic and ginger and stir again, cooking for about 1 minute. Now stir in the soy sauce. Simmer and stir until the mixture is viscous and the vegetables are well coated, about 10 minutes.

Place the tofu in the sauce in a single layer and simmer uncovered for 7 minutes. Using a spatula, turn the pieces over. Simmer for 3 or 4 minutes more and then transfer to a warmed platter. Pour the sauce over the tofu and sprinkle with scallions and black pepper. Serve with white rice.

Yield: 4 servings
Estimated start-to-finish time: Not given
Actual start-to-finish time: 1 hour 30 minutes
Substitutions: I used onions instead of shallots and cooked them for 4 minutes instead of 2 to make sure their flavor wasn't too sharp.

Water Chestnut, Arugula, and Endive Salad

Back when I lived in Philadelphia, my aunt learned that I liked Susanna Foo’s restaurant and gave me two of her cookbooks for Christmas. More than two years later, I still had not attempted a recipe from the books—in my inexperienced, cautious state, attempting to replicate the offerings of a high-end Chinese restaurant simply seemed like too intimidating a challenge. Finally this past spring, after building confidence by allowing the America’s Test Kitchen’s chefs to hold my hand through the preparation of a series of three-course meals, I felt ready to attempt a Susanna Foo dinner.

After reading Susanna’s glowing feature on raw fresh water chestnuts, I decided to tackle this salad first. Indeed, the water chestnuts made the dish—they really are something special. If you’ve never tried them, go to a Chinese grocery store and look for small, hard brown fruits covered in dirt. Avoid any that have soft spots, as it means that they are bruised and going bad. Wash them and then peel with a paring knife. They can be stored, peeled, in a bowl of water in the fridge for 1-2 weeks.

The “honeyed” walnuts in this recipe are disproportionately labor intensive. They have a light, crispy texture and unique flavor, and they definitely add to the total package, but you could make a respectable salad with plain old toasted walnuts and save yourself a lot of time.

Recipe by Susanna Foo Chinese Cuisine

“Honeyed” Walnuts

• 1 pound shelled walnut halves
• 1 ½ cup sugar
• About 1 ½ cups water
• 2 tablespoons corn oil (vegetable oil works fine)
• Wash the walnuts in lots of running water. Soak them for 10 to 15 minutes in water to cover; drain well.
  

Fill a large pot with water and bring to a boil. Add the nuts and cook for 10 minutes, or until the water turns dark and the nuts are beige-white in color. Drain and rinse under cool water until the water runs clear; drain.

Bring the sugar and 1 ½ cups water to boil in a medium pot over medium-high heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Add the walnuts, reduce the heat to low and stir well with a wooden spoon. Simmer the nuts in the syrup for about 15 minutes, stirring often, until they are well-coated with the syrup. Add ¼ cup hot water if the syrup becomes too sticky. Turn off the heat and let the nuts cool in the syrup for another 10 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Strain off the excess syrup and toss the nuts with the oil. Spread the nuts on a large nonstick baking sheet. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until they are crisp and dry. If they are not yet crisp, bake them a little longer.

The nuts can be stored in a tightly closed container at room temperature for 1 to 2 days or frozen in a sealed plastic bag for up to 3 months.

Water Chestnut, Arugula, and Endive Salad

For Dressing:

• 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• 1 teaspoon peeled, minced gingerroot
• 1 teaspoon coarse or kosher salt
• Freshly ground pepper
  

For Salad:

• 1 pound fresh water chestnuts, peeled and washed
• 2 Belgian endives
• ¼ pound tender baby arugula, stems removed, washed and dried
• ½ cup “Honeyed” Walnuts (optional; the above recipe will make much more than this)
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh chervil leaves, for garnish (optional)
  

Combine all of the ingredients for the vinaigrette and stir well to blend. Set aside.

Cut each water chestnut into thin slices and set aside in a bowl of cold water until needed, to keep them from turning brown.

Cut off the stem end of the Belgian endives. Remove the large outer leaves (you will need 12 of them). Cut each leaf in half lengthwise and place in a large bowl filled with ice water to crisp the leaves. Julienne the remaining smaller inner leaves and immerse them in another bowl of ice water.

Just before serving, drain and dry the water chestnuts and the julienned endive. Place them in a bowl, add the vinaigrette, and mix well.

Place 4 of the halved endive leaves around the perimeter of each of 6 salad plates. Mound some arugula in the center of each plate. Spoon the water chestnut mixture over the top and garnish with the walnuts, if using. Decorate with the chervil leaves, if using.

Yield: 6 servings
Estimated Start-to-Finish Time: Not given
Actual Start-to-Finish Time: 1 hour 45 minutes

Mustard and Panko-Crusted Tofu with Kale and Yams

It seems appropriate to follow up a barbecuing post with an uber-healthy vegan recipe. Looking for an alternative to our usual Asian tofu preparations, The Gastronomer and I stumbled upon this recipe on epicurious.com. Aided by The Gastronomer's brilliant suggestion to supplement the prescribed mustard coating on the tofu with Panko bread crumbs, it turned out wonderfully.

Recipe adapted from Bon Appetit, September 2007, courtesy of Epicurious.

• 1 14-ounce package firm tofu
• 1/4 cup spicy apple mustard
• About 1 cup Panko bread crumbs
• Vegetable oil
  
• 1/2 medium onion, chopped
  
• 2 tablespoon minced peeled fresh ginger
• 1 bunch kale, stem cut from each leaf, leaves thinly sliced crosswise (about 8 cups)
• 1 medium red-skinned sweet potato (yam; about 12 ounces), peeled, halved lengthwise, thinly sliced crosswise
• 2-3 tablespoons fresh lime juice

Cut tofu into eight 1/2-inch-thick slices. Squeeze the slices between two paper towels to remove some of the moisture from the tofu. Spread both sides of each tofu slice with mustard, then cover them with breadcrumbs (this is easy to accomplish by pouring some breadcrumbs on a plate, then placing the tofu slices on the plate and flipping them over, taking care not to break up the tofu).

Heat about 2 tablespoons vegetable oil in large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onion and ginger and sauté 4-5 minutes. Add the kale, sweet potato, and lime juice. Cover, reduce heat to low, and cook until the potatoes are tender and the kale is wilted, 10-20 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat a small amount of vegetable oil in another large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add the tofu; cover and cook until the bread crumbs are golden, about 2 minutes per side .

Arrange kale and sweet potato mixture on a plate. Overlap tofu slices atop vegetables and serve.

Yield: 4 servings
Estimated Start-to-Finish Time: Not given
Actual Start-to-Finish Time: 1 hour 20 minutes
Substitutions: The original recipe called for 1/2 cup whole grain Dijon mustard--I chose to use spicy apple mustard and found 1/4 cup to be sufficient. I love ginger and used at least 2 tablespoons, while the original recipe only called for 1.