Jerk Tofu with Rice and Beans

I love Jamaican food.  There’s a place in Nashville (located, a bit oddly, in the farmer’s market) called Jamaicaway, which has a really fantastic vegetarian Jamaican menu–think curried seitan with fried plantains–and which I miss terribly.  Most of my other take-out cravings are things I’ve forced myself to learn to cook at home, since there are only so many trips to the Thai restaurant that one person can take in a week.  But Jamaican food has been an exception, since its lower levels of popularity make finding instructions (either in print or on TV) a bit harder to come by.  BUT, for Christmas, I received the very exciting cookbook, Delicious Jamaica: Vegetarian Cuisine, and we were in business.

Since this recipe is a little more complicated than others I’ve done–and since my usual cooking method of winging it isn’t exactly an option with a cuisine I don’t know well–I’m going to be quoting a lot more directly from the actual recipe I used.  Which you may or may not enjoy.  (NOTE: Let me know in the comments!  I write only for your pleasure, obviously.)

To start, I had to marinate the sliced tofu in Jerk seasoning, while the dry black beans soaked.

Jerk Seasoning:

• 1 large onion, chopped
• 4 scallions, chopped
• 1 hot pepper, chopped
• 2 tsp. honey
• 2 Tbsp. tamari (I subbed soy sauce)
• 1 Tbsp. cider vinegar
• 2 Tbsp. coconut oil (I subbed coconut milk solids)
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. ground thyme
• 1 tsp. ground allspice

I combined all the ingredients in a food processor and blended until achieving a moist paste/puree, about half of which I used to coat the block of sliced  tofu before leaving it in the fridge to marinate, covered, for an hour or so.

While the tofu was marinating, I got started on the rice and beans.  Traditionally, the Jamaican version is really rice and red peas, but since 1) I couldn’t find these and 2) their texture is something closer to beans than green peas, I substituted black beans.  Here’s what I did:

Rice and Beans

In a large pot, combine the following:

• 2 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 3 cups water
• 1.5 cups coconut milk
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 cup of dry black beans that have been soaked for at least 4 hours

Bring all of this to a boil and cook for about an hour, or until the beans are nearly cooked.  When they have just a bit of a bite to them, add the following:

• 1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes
• 2 scallions, chopped
• 1/4 tsp. thyme
• 2 cups rice
• 1/2 tsp. allspice
• 2 bay leaves (I left these out because I didn’t have any, and it was still great.)
• About an additional cup of water (the original recipe says “as much water as needed to cook the rice”)

Bring everything back up to a boil, (and, if your tastebuds are anything like mine, add a little more salt) reduce the heat to a simmer and cook until the rice is done, about 20 minutes.

Once this was going on, we were ready to get the tofu into the oven.  The book suggests cooking it at 350, but I think this is a terrible idea, since you’ll never get any texture to your tofu with such a low heat.  So here’s what I did:

• Preheat the oven to 450
• Remove excess Jerk seasoning
• Brush each tofu slab with a little BBQ sauce on top of the Jerk
• Place the saucy slabs in a single layer on a parchment-lined baking sheet
• Bake for 15 minutes on each side, or until the outside of the tofu gets a nice texture.

When everything was done, I served the tofu over the rice and beans, and added some sliced avocado to top it, just because I like it.  In the end, I was really pleased with the flavor, especially of the rice and beans.  The coconut milk gave it a nice richness, which went well with the various spices of the Jerk.  The Jerk itself was good, but had room for improvement, I think.  The rub on its own had a pretty strong raw onion flavor (perhaps unsurprisingly), and coating the tofu with BBQ sauce post-Jerk-marinating was a bit awkward, since both were a bit sticky and we seemed to lose a little of the Jerk.  If I were going to make it again, I might try cooking the Jerk a bit on the stove top to reduce the raw onion taste, and maybe even adding a bit of BBQ sauce to it at that stage, rather than treating them as two separate sauces.

On the whole, though, I thought this new Jamaican endeavor was a success.  Stay tuned, though, since NEXT TIME: we attempt an elaborate Lebanese dish made by Josh’s grandmother.

Vegetarian Soul Dinner

I mentioned in an earlier post that we got several new and exciting cookbooks for Christmas–this meal is one of the first we made using our favorite of the bunch, Bryant Terry’s Vegan Soul Kitchen.  It’s full of really wonderful recipes (complete with soul soundtrack suggestions), which we tend to adapt to make them vegetarian, rather than strictly vegan.  This is partially because we don’t tend to keep things like rice milk on hand, and partially because we’ve never really gotten over our love of butter.

This particular night, we made our own version of Terry’s cumin-cayenne mashed potatoes, greens with lemon-tahini dressing, and rosemary roasted tofu.

I’ll start with the tofu, since it was the simplest.  We cut a package of tofu into large-ish bite size pieces–though, if I were doing this again, I’d recommend going with something a bit larger, since they got pretty crunchy–and gently tossed them in a mixture of olive oil, salt, paprika and rosemary.  We then roasted the tofu in a 450 degree oven for about half an hour.  When they came out, they were golden brown (thanks, Paprika!), with a nice texture and flavor.  Simple, but really good.

We served the tofu over the potatoes, which have quickly become one of my favorite things to make.  While I’m boiling the potatoes (I like yellow or red ones for this), I caramelize an entire yellow or Vidalia onion in olive oil mixed with a bit of salt, a couple of tablespoons of cumin and a little cayenne pepper.  When the potatoes are done, I mash them together with the onion mixture, plus butter and milk (sorry, Bryant Terry and vegans!), and a bit of black pepper for good measure.  The results are seriously amazing.  Your potatoes shall be revolutionized.

The greens we made were a combination of kale and spinach, though the recipe called for Swiss chard.  We started by sauteeing a sliced shallot in butter, then added the greens (minus the stalks) and cooked them for a few minutes.  While this was happening, we made a dressing by mixing tahini with lemon juice, salt, water, minced garlic and balsamic vinegar.  We finished the whole thing by tossing the warm greens in the dressing.  And when we were done?  Well, I really can’t say enough about the virtues of these greens.  Look, I know what you’re thinking:

“That woman is crazy if she thinks I’m putting hummus ingredients on my greens.”

Look, I get it.  I was skeptical too.  In fact, my actual words were, “this is going to taste like we dunked our greens in hummus, and then threw vinegar on them.”  But let me tell you: this is not a bad thing.  I am not going to sit here and claim that the greens didn’t bear a striking taste resemblance to hummus.  Here’s what I will say, though–what if they did? Would that be so bad?  Free your mind, people.  Let your greens be whoever they want to be.  We’ve been letting them be pork-y for years, and lord knows collards don’t taste like fatback in the wild.  Imagine a world in which kale can taste like hummus, tofu can be crunchy and satisfying, and mashed potatoes are earthy, spicy and sweet all at once.

Bryant Terry has seen that world.  I have glimpsed it.  And it is good.

Vegetable Pot Pie

There are moments during the fall and winter months when I want comfort food, but all of my stand-by items like macaroni or soup sound either too heavy or too boring.  I was in just such a mood this week (having just returned from Louisiana, the fattening delicious food capital of the world), so it was with great excitement that I read this new recipe in Vegetarian Times.  It wasn’t quick, but it wasn’t particularly difficult either, which turned out to be fine for a cozy night at home.

I got started by boiling chopped potatoes and carrots in a pot of salty water, and sauteing cubed tofu in canola oil, soy sauce and Tony’s.  After these were done, I set them aside and sauteed the mushrooms, onion and garlic that Josh cut up, and then added some chopped broccoli as well.

When these started to get soft, I pushed them to the side of the giant pot and made a roux in the bottom with oil and flour.  After this came together, I stirred in the vegetables that were already in the pot, plus some veggie stock, soy and hoisin sauces, Worcestershire sauce, sage, thyme, and more Tony’s.  To that I added the tofu, potatoes and carrots I’d previously set aside, and let the whole thing simmer and thicken up a bit.

Meanwhile, Josh was making the crust, which involved cutting butter into flour, adding water, salt, thyme and rosemary (can you tell I don’t bake?).  There was likely something else that happened before he rolled it out, but I leave all bread-like items to him.*

We then put the cooked veggies and their gravy-like sauce into a big baking dish and topped it with the crust, cutting holes to vent it.  After 45 minutes in the oven at 375, it was amazingly tasty–as good as any Chicken Pot Pie I had in my former meat-eating life, I’d venture to say–and certainly worth all the effort.  And as an added bonus, it was definitely cheap to make (when tofu is the priciest single ingredient, I feel that I’m doing pretty well).  So, to sum up: cheap, satisfying, and full of veggies = an unmitigated success.

*If you want more details on this, feel free to pick up this month’s edition of Vegetarian Times; it’s a good one and includes an entire vegan Soul Food meal!

Tofu Tacos

I’ve mentioned before how much I love Mexican food.  I should add, with this post, that this love encompasses all foods even vaguely Mexican, including Tex-Mex, Fresh-Mex, and tofu-centric Mexican spin-offs.  This recipe is an adaptation of the Moosewood Restaurant’s tofu burritos, and it’s currently my favorite thing to make and eat (though I should note that such favorites are subject to my frequently unpredictable whims).  In fact, this is one of those cases in which I think my adaptation makes the recipe even better…which is difficult to accomplish, given my predilection for anything with even the slightest hint of cumin.

I started out by cubing a block of tofu, patting the cubes dry, and then browning them in a few tablespoons of canola oil and a good amount of Spanish-style grill seasoning.  If you’ve ever tried to brown tofu, you know that this process takes a bit of time (because of the significant moisture content), and this may be why the Moosewood recipe doesn’t call for it.  I, however, think that this process improves the taste of tofu by a factor of about eleventy-billion (who doesn’t like fried stuff, right?), so I never skip it.  In other applications, I’ve been known to bake the tofu instead of frying it, but the splurge here is worth it.  And when it comes down to brass tacks, you’re already eating tofu.  So get over yourself.

*Ahem*

Anyway, while the tofu was browning, I sauteed chopped red bell pepper, onion, garlic and jalapeno in a separate skillet.  When these started to get a bit of color, I added paprika, cumin, coriander, and oregano and let it all hang out for a bit.  I then added the browned (crunchy, delicious) tofu, chopped tomatoes, some soy sauce (look, I said it wasn’t exactly traditional), corn and chopped black olives.  When everything had a chance to combine and warm through, we were ready to eat.

I stuffed the tasty mixture into wheat tortillas–it makes up for the frying–and topped the whole thing with sliced avocado and my very own cilantro.  We had rice on the side, but I have to tell you that it wasn’t much to write home about.  I’m still looking for a good Mexican rice recipe that doesn’t involve chicken stock–let me know if you have one.  Rice aside, though, the tacos were amazing, and I can’t wait for lunch today: leftovers.

Red Curry with Tofu

When I first moved to Nashville and Josh was still in Boston, I became obsessed with Thai curries.  At the time, I had no idea how to make them myself, so I became a regular at a Thai take-out place in town.  In fact, I became such a regular that the workers seemed to recognize my voice and order on the phone, and I had to scale back my curry-consumption purely out of embarrassment.  Scaling back, by the way, included the self-admonition not to order more than one curry take-out per week, which at times resulted in rather creative math on my part (“I just had it Tuesday, and today is Sunday, which is really 6 days if you think about it”).

After several months of this and a significant dent in the ole’ bank account, I got a Thai cookbook for Christmas.  It’s in contention for Best Gift Ever, up there with the fantastic burgundy faux-Snakeskin clutch Josh got for me last year.  I cook from it regularly, and at this point I’ve memorized the basic curry recipe, which I use with varied ingredients, depending on what’s available.  After finding the awesome Asian market I mentioned a couple of postings ago, I’m set up for curry-making, with some great paste, plus fish sauce and coconut milk at prices much more reasonable than the regular grocery store.

My favorite thing about curry–and really, about Thai food in general–is the complexity of flavor.  In any Thai curry, you’re looking for a balance of sweet, salty, sour and spicy, along with some combination of traditional aromatics.  Usually this is basil and lemongrass, as well as the aforementioned fish sauce…which in technical cooking lingo probably isn’t an “aromatic” per se, but certainly brings a distinctive smell to the dish.  I actually tone down the fish sauce a little when I make it at home, since Josh finds the “aroma” a bit strong for his liking, but I think it’s delicious either way.  Anyway, the curry I made here is a red one (meaning the paste is made from ground red chiles, among other things), featuring bell peppers, carrots, tofu and basil.  And I don’t mind telling you that it was amazing: spicy and full-flavored, with crispy tofu and a refreshing white rice for contrast.  Yum, indeed.