Red Tofu
Ho Fun Noodles
Scallion Pancakes
Hmmm... blocks of tofu in a pressure cooker? Sure, why not!
We caught an episode of Simply Ming where he was cooking with his parents and decided to adapt the recipe and technique and apply it to tofu.
The city of... Tofuville! </powerpuff girls>
Why yes, I do have dreams like Inception where the buildings are made of tofu.
We started by smoking the blocks of tofu with Oolong tea for 30 minutes.
Then we seared the tofu on all sides in the wok to give it a little color and splashed it with 1 tbs. of tamari at the end of cooking.
While that was going, we made a batch of Ho Fun noodles (just like this video recipe shows) using our bag of rice flour.
We started the pressure cooker out with 1 tsp. of canola oil, 1 bunch of scallions cut into 1" pieces, 3 cloves of minced garlic and 1 tbs. of minced ginger.
Next we loaded it up with the seared tofu, 1 bottle of wine, 5 oz. (wheat-free, reduced sodium) tamari, 1 cup of brown sugar, 2 cinnamon sticks, 4 star anise and 1 Thai bird chili and about 1 1/2 cups of our home made shiitake mushroom broth.
We brought the pressure cooker up to the second ring (15psi) and cooked all of it for 30 minutes.
We removed the tofu blocks, strained the liquid into a saute pan and thickened it by adding a slurry of 1 tbs. of cornstarch and 1 tbs. of cold water mixed together and whisked into the sauce.
We cut the chilled Ho Fun noodles into strips and added them to the wok along with about a cup of the sauce to heat through. The noodles were placed in the bottom of the bowl, topped with the tofu as well as a little additional sauce poured over both the tofu and scallion pancakes...
... which were made while the pressure cooker was going -- it was our usual recipe, cut into sixths for plating.
The flavor of the sauce was outstanding, and the smaller blocks of tofu worked better for flavor penetration -- but I can already see two or three ways to expand/refine the dish and that's always a good sign. ;)