Cashew Tofu

This is another delicious recipe from one of my favorite cookbooks, Great Food Fast. I make this dish about once a month with jasmine rice, and I have gradually made a number of changes to improve it (sorry Martha!).

The first change, which I made the first time I prepared it, was to add a few small sliced zucchinis. As is, the recipe doesn’t contain a green veggie, and, well, you can’t have that! The zucchini was an instant hit, and I’ve always added it. 

The next time I made it, we decided that the sweetness of the hoisin sauce needed something to balance it. So, I doubled the amount of rice wine vinegar and steeped ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes in the vinegar, draining them off just before adding the vinegar to the dish. The red pepper flakes don’t really make the dish spicy, but the little bit of heat does balance out the cloying sweetness of the sauce.

Lastly, and, to me, most importantly, I got rid of the chicken. Personally, I’m not a huge fan of chicken, and I absolutely hate the way it tastes when reheated. (I feel I read somewhere recently that chicken is weirdly altered in the microwave... if I remember the source I’ll post it.) So, I’ve replaced the 1½ lb. chicken breast the recipe calls for with 2 lb. firm organic tofu, which I press for a few hours under my Le Creuset and 20 lb. of dumbbells for a wonderfully firm texture.

Not only is the tofu much less expensive than chicken, especially comparing organic to organic, but it gets nice and crispy, takes on the flavor of the sauce and reheats much better. 

Now, the dish is pretty perfect! One last note: it’s worth shopping around for hoisin sauce and experimenting a bit. The range of what you can get in the conventional grocery store is limited, and some are better than others. Soon, I vow to make it to Boulder to the Asian Market and try sauces from there. I imagine I’ll be hooked!