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Two in one
By Ann | March 27, 2008
If you look closely at the photo above, you will see that I oh-so-cleverly combined two recipes into one meal last night, knocking the official recipe count of The Martha Stewart Living Cookbook: The New Classics down to 27!
Part I of the meal was a refreshing dish of soba noodles with tofu, avocado, and snow peas, from the “pasta, rice and grains” chapter. This dish was oddly fussy. First, you make a simple syrup flavored with ginger and jalapeno, which is then mixed into a soy-lime juice dressing — except you only use 2 teaspoons of the syrup, and there is no mention of what to do with the excess. Save it? Drizzle it on ice cream? I chucked it. Meanwhile, scallions, cucumber and snow peas must be thinly julienned. The soba noodles need to be cooked (I overcooked them, again!) and cooled. By the time I had tossed everything together, I felt totally frazzled.
The noodles had a delicate, sweet-tart flavor vaguely reminiscent of Thai, Vietnamese or maybe Japanese cuisine, but this was another one of those overly polite Martha dishes that seemed to lack something. Like pizazz.
Part II of the meal was broiled black pepper tofu from the “meatless main dishes” chapter, a recipe quite similar to my own tofu steaks, except — dare I say it? — Martha’s method may be better than mine. The recipe calls for pressing the excess water out of the raw tofu, but frazzled by the soba noodle preperation, I skipped that step. The tofu is cut into long triangles — which I admit are more attractive than my blocky rectangles — and marinated in a baking dish in soy sauce, sesame oil and black pepper, an excellent addition. In the future, I would also include a touch of sugar or sake to encourage browning. The tofu is then broiled in the same baking dish, healthier than my pan-frying method, and easier to clean up, too. You’re supposed to serve this with a soy-lemon dressing, but I was too tired and hungry to make it, and anyway I honestly think it would have been overkill.
Topics: Cooking the Books |
2 Responses to “Two in one”
Comments
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March 27th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Ann rightly commented during dinner that the tofu tasted somewhat eggy. I agreed — but it was only a hint, and it was not bad. What I liked in particular about this double dish was that all the flavors complemented each other so well. It was a happy moment when I managed to get some snow pea, avocado, cucumber, tofu and noodle all pinched in the same single grasp of my chopsticks! In any case, I’m liking Marth-Dog!
March 28th, 2008 at 4:22 am
hi ann, am new here and this is a super cool blog, will be back for sure
happy weekend