Recipe of the Week: Ginger Garlic Comfort Food
by Kelly Rossiter, Toronto on 01.13.06
This is our favourite tofu recipe and we have been making it for over 20 years now. It was the recipe that convinced our children that tofu was edible. We have made it for family dinners, elegant dinner parties and pot luck suppers. We have served it as a side dish, part of a buffet, as a whole meal over rice with a vegetable and if you are lucky enough to have any left it’s still great the next day. The recipe is simple to prepare using common ingredients and it’s delicious. We have been asked for the recipe by so many people, we thought we would share it with our Treehugger readers.
Ginger Garlic Tofu
1 lb (450 g) tofu (We prefer a softer tofu for this. We wouldn’t use extra firm)
¼ cup vegetable oil
2 tbsp dark sesame oil
2 ½ cups onions, chopped
4 large cloves garlic, pressed (you can mince it for a stronger garlic taste)
3 tbsp fresh ginger root, grated
1 ½ cups vegetable stock or water
5 tsp cornstarch
1/3 cup soy sauce
2 tbsp wine vinegar
1 tbsp honey
2 tsp Szechuan chili sauce
3 scallions, chopped
2 tbsp toasted sesame seeds
1. Cut tofu into 8 pieces and blot dry
2. Heat vegetable oil and sesame oil in pan and sauté onions, garlic and ginger for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Dissolve cornstarch in the water and add to the onions, along with the soy sauce, vinegar, honey and chili sauce. Simmer for 5 minutes.
3. Pour a thin layer of sauce in the bottom of a small casserole. Arrange half of the tofu slices in the dish. Continue layering sauce and tofu, ending with sauce. Bake at 350 degrees F (180 degrees C) for 20-25 minutes.
4. Garnish with scallions and sesame seeds.
Serves 4
This recipe appeared in Hot and Spicy Cooking by Cynthia Wine.- out of print but available used at ::Amazon
