Skip to main content

Tofu fried rice

 Fried rice is one of my "kitchen sink" dishes: whatever random bits and pieces I have around can easily be tossed in. I'm sure I'll have more of them on here before too long.

In fact, the only ingredients I need to make sure I have for making my fried rice are ginger, soy sauce, and, well, rice. Granted, sesame oil is always a perfect addition, and garlic and eggs are important, too, but I can live without them.

Tonight was fried rice with tofu, ginger, garlic, shallot, baby broccoli, carrot, orange bell pepper, kale, mushrooms, and eggs. I diced a block of super firm tofu, sliced the mushrooms, broccoli, and most of the garlic, diced the bell pepper, julienned the carrot, and minced the ginger, shallot, and a couple of the garlic cloves.

Starting off, I heated my wok up pretty hot and added in some sesame oil. Great flavor, great aroma...it may be my favorite oil, except for the higher price point. Once the oil was heated, I dumped in my minced ginger, garlic, and shallot. 

Once the aromatics were about half-cooked, I dumped in all of the tofu. I seasoned with a little bit of salt, a lot of black pepper, and also a generous shake of nutritional yeast (I usually throw this into most of my vegan dishes because I was told in 2017 that I should do that). I let the tofu brown on one side, then flipped everything and let the other side brown for a bit. At this point, I added in a palmful of red pepper flakes because I like some heat in case you didn't know.

Next came the broccoli and carrot. It took a bit of doing to get it mixed into all that tofu, but you want to get those veggies into the oil so they can cook and get some of the flavor from everything else already in there. After the broccoli and carrot were about half-cooked, I poured in about half a teaspoon of ground wasabi.

Once the wasabi was mixed throughout (as near as I could tell), I tossed in the bell pepper and sliced garlic, mixed them in and let them simmer in the oil for a solid 45 seconds or so, then dumped in the kale and mushrooms. At that point, I had to add a little more sesame oil as it was getting absorbed by various veggies. 

I kept that cooking until the kale was close to wilted, at which point I dumped in my cold rice. Had to break it up some before I could mix it in, but that's how you know it's cold enough.

After the rice was sufficiently mixed in, I added in some soy sauce around the edge of the wok, then tossed everything around to get it all nice and coated. At that point, I realized I had forgotten to add my eggs, so I cracked two into the bottom of the wok, let them fry quickly, then chopped them with my spatula and tossed everything around a little more. 

Once I finished the rice off with some sesame oil, it was time to engorge myself. I'll get a recipe written up at some point soon, but, for now, I need to sleep.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I don't understand food

Part 1 the morning after, while eating a sausage, egg, and cheese everything bagel from Bergen Bagels Last night, I had the pleasure, privilege, and audacity to eat at a Brooklyn restaurant named Aska . I know it's cliche to refer to a fancy restaurant meal as a life-changing experience, but this was straight up paradigm-shattering. I've written before about food being a medium of communication, about how I strive to reduce food waste as much as I can, about sharing our cultures and stories with each other through the meals we create, but seeing how Chef Fredrik Berselius is able to do this at such an intricate, elegant, and elevated level is both humbling and inspiring. The experience started before the first bite. I walked into the 10 table restaurant, and they knew me by name. I was shown to my table (right in the middle of the place, looking directly into the open kitchen), and they even pulled my chair out for me and pushed it up under me. I was a little uncomfortable with...
Post a Comment
Read more

Restaurant week: My new Mexican restaurant

 As I mentioned the other day, my Mexican restaurant closed down. Luckily, they opened up in a new space a couple of months later. Great new look, new name ("Lopez Grill"), they've got a bar, staff is expanded, and the place is always packed. Business seems to be going great. Now, this isn't just a rehash of my post about the 'Dolo. While the menu is largely the same, there have been a few changes, plus I'm going to share a few things I've learned eating there. On my first visit to the new location (which was opening day, right when the doors opened; yes, I was standing in line outside with the other faithful), Señor Lopez brought me a bowl of their new salsa. He called it "guacamole salsa," but it's a jalapeño-based sauce. It's got an almost creamy texture, but is dairy-free (I asked for my vegan friend). Being a jalapeño salsa, it's got some heat, but not nearly as overbearing as some capsaicin-phobes may fear. It is perfectly bala...
Post a Comment
Read more

Trying a new idea

I decided to try out a new concept: plain seasoning on my food with a bold sauce to kick it up a few notches. I was thinking that a pretty boring salmon fillet with a super flavorful sauce would be a fun way to put food on the plate. Sort of a "oh, this isn't that great, but wait! There's more!" kind of deal. I just salted the salmon and poached it in olive oil. Meanwhile, I also made some mashed potatoes with some sautéed green onion and orange bell pepper mixed in. A little butter, a little cream, yada yada. The potatoes were great. The salmon was boring. So how about that sauce? I made myself a roux (butter mixed with flour), then added in some white wine, and I let that simmer while I cooked the fish and potatoes. Unfortunately, it thickened up a bit much, so I added some more wine. With the extra wine, it was too watery, so I dropped in some creme fraiche, all while repeating my Randy Marsh impersonation of saying, "creme fraiche!" That gave it a great ...
Post a Comment
Read more