It is August 8th and I am hearing little birds outside chirping continuously like hungry chicks. Isn't it kind of late in the season for that?
This is actually a double meal because I am doubly hungry right now. Either the tofu with vegetables or the rib-eye would suffice on their own, but I am having them both.
Oh, snap! I forgot to include a raw tomato with the vegetables and tofu as intended.
The potatoes in the background are the last of the Mexican latkes invented earlier, now no longer in potato cake form. They are just as good now as they were in the beginning, here, re-toasted in a small convection oven.
I do not know what kind of red chile this is. It is moderately hot, which is to say not very hot but not mild either.
Look at my meat.
Look at it, I said! Behold its charred caramelized exterior and its red tumescent interior. Don't get excited, it's a small steak, probably only 4 or 5 ounces.
If a block of tofu were a globe, then this is the third of three segments cut as if latitudes. There is room in the squarish plastic tofu container to be used as a bowl for tofu marinade.
When the tofu is removed from the container holding the intense marinade in order to fry the tofu in the same pan that heated the vegetables, the intensity of the remaining marinade is diluted with water and thickened with corn starch. The effect of the corn starch is not immediately apparent. Corn starch thickens after the liquid boils, but we're getting ahead of ourselves. At this point the marinade liquid is still in the tofu container and not at all thick. It will continue to sit there at the ready while the steak sears and then the tofu sears in sequence. Do not do this, reuse the marinade, in competition on the Food Network or Tyler Florence's head will explode. He is concerned about cross-contamination, but I am not. The liquid will come to a boil eventually so Tyler can just get over himself.
But first, the small steak is fried in the same pan following the vegetables. This is the second sequential use of the same pan for one meal. The steak is removed to rest.
The tofu is fried in the same pan used for the vegetables and for the steak then removed to the same bowl that is holding the vegetables in reserve, freeing up the pan for the sauce. This is the third sequential use of the same pan.
The pan is now a bit of a mess, but now available for the sauce.
The marinade liquid that was diluted with water and containing corn starch, sitting there waiting and ready to go, is dumped into the pan whereupon it instantly boils, immediately deglazes the pan of fond and rapidly thickens. It's a thing of real beauty. The sauce is poured over the tofu and vegetables that are held in reserve.
Noice, eh?
Double-duty marinade and sauce for tofu and vegetables:
* 3 tablespoon soy sauce
* 3 tablespoons Japanese sake
* 3 tablespoons Japanese sweet mirin (use sugar if you don't have mirin)
* 1 teaspoon rice vinegar (or any vinegar)
* 1/4 teaspoon anchovy paste squeezed from a tube (Asian fish sauce, otherwise)
* 1 garlic clove smashed and finely diced and smashed again to smithereens.
* 1 level teaspoon corn starch added after the tofu marinades and has been removed to the fry pan.
You can fry the tofu with the vegetables, but I like to do them separately for total control. Those yellow squashes and courgettes fry really fast, and before you know it, BANG! They're overcooked. Actually, I added the onion segments a few minutes before adding the chunks of squash.
That reminds me, I like to roll the baby squashes like a log as I knock off chips from one end on the bias. That results in irregular wedge cuts that fry inconsistently and are more interesting to me than regular size discs. It's one of those little personal preferences.
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