Monday, April 21, 2008

Tofu with shitakke mushrooms and pork

So the New York Times had a neat sounding recipe about tofu and pork together! It reminded me of something Marilyn might make so I thought I'd try a version of it. Also I had just purchased some really great, locally farmed pork sausage at the Morningside Market from the good looking meat man with the bright blue eyes (seriously, you can ask Betsy for verification, he was really handsome). Tofu does not necessarily need to be vegetarian, especially when pork makes it so damn delicious. Although if Ariane or Jocelyn wanted to make this, just omit the pork, increase the amount of mushroom and use veggie stock instead, and you'll have yummy vegetarian stirfry with crispy tofu (albeit, one that neither Ben nor Nick will eat, but whatever). Anyway, Aviva and Ali came over for dinner and gossip and this is what we had:

Start out with a 1 pound block of firm tofu and drain it in a colander or something to get some of the water out. Cut it into chunks (new york times said "slabs" but whatever size you like is fine). Heat up 3 tablespoons olive oil in a large nonstick pan and let your tofu chunks/slabs get golden and crispy without stirring--about 4 minutes per side. You might need to do this in 2 batches. Remove the tofu once it is golden and crispy and let it rest on paper towels to drain the oil off. Go back to your now-empty pan and add in the following: a package of shittake mushrooms that you have sliced into thin strips, the white and light-green parts of 4 thinly sliced green onions (I used green garlic since they had it at Morningside), and between 4-5 ounces of pork sausage. Like I said, I had the stuff from the farmer's market and it was all ground up, not in casings or anything like that. I don't actually know how much I used--probably a little more than half of a six-ounce package. You can also slice up chorizo or any other kind of pork sausage that you like. So, I crumbled in my sausage, mushrooms and green garlic and sauteed until soft, then added 1/4 cup chicken stock, 4 teaspoons soy sauce and 2 tablespoons sherry. This is pretty much straightforward and from the New York Times recipe, but I bet there would be more delicious sauce ingredients to add if you wanted to. Stirred it all together for 2 minutes and let the sauce get a little thicker, then added the tofu back in to reheat and served over brown rice.

1 comment:

Ali said...

this sounds good. i like your blog and have favourited it for dinner time ideas! thanks!

i often see shitakke mushrooms at the vegie shop and wonder what i could do with them. now i'll try this.