Coconut-Crusted Tofu with Spicy Peach Salsa

This is the kind of dish that makes me think it wouldn't be bad to be a vegetarian. Well, not really, but it is a great vegetarian dish that non-vegetarians could enjoy. I sure did. After all, it's flavorful, colorful, and tasty.

I really do like tofu, but it sometimes seems like there isn't a lot of variation in tofu recipes. So I was excited to see something that looked different, but manageable in a recipe.

It's been a while since I cooked with tofu. For cooking, I prefer the extra firm tofu. I want some texture to my tofu. To add even more texture, I drained my tofu very well. Be sure to see my link on tofu draining if you aren't familiar with tofu! I think the terminology is a bit misleading for the process. By draining the tofu, it becomes more chewy and "meat-like". No, tofu will never be like meat, but if you drain it, it will hold it's shape, and even require a knife!

This recipe gets and additional thumbs-up for summer cooking because you won't have to heat up the house with the oven if you eat it as soon as it's cooked. If you are having company, you could prepare everything up to, and including, coating the tofu ahead of time. Then, just pan-fry it and serve. The pan-frying only takes a few minutes.

I served it with the Spicy Peach Salsa that was in the original recipe (though I adapted it to my taste) and a recipe of Coconut Rice with Ginger, Chiles, and Lime.




Coconut-Crusted Tofu
Adapted from Eating Well Magazine

1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup unsweetened flaked coconut (I get it at Trader Joe's)
2 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 14-ounce package extra-firm water-packed tofu
Egg Product (ie: Better'n Eggs)
rice vinegar
3 tablespoons vegetable oil

Spicy Peach Salsa


Mix the coconut, flour, cornstarch, and salt in a shallow dish. Remove the tofu from the package, emptying the water that surrounds it. Cut the block of tofu lengthwise into 8 thin steaks. Drain the tofu.

Get your tofu-preparation station together:

For a splash of flavor, I dabbed rice vinegar on my tofu, and then I dipped it in the egg product. From there, it went into the coconut mixture to coat evenly.

Heat the oil in a nonstick pan. When it's ready, add the tofu. Let it brown on the bottom. Use plastic-coated tongs to gently turn each piece over.






When each piece is ready, remove it from the pan and drain on a paper towel.

Be sure to impress everyone with a pretty presentation!

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Spicy Peach Salsa

This spicy peach salsa was an accompaniment to the Coconut-Crusted Tofu dish I made today. It really made the dish something special.

I was lucky in that I found a few peaches in the supermarket that weren't rock-hard. I tend to not get peaches very often because of that. I actually went into the supermarket prepared to get a ripe mango because I had little faith in finding ripe peaches. So that is my suggestion to you. Mangoes actually do have a somewhat peach-like flavor and would be a good replacement in this salsa.

If you do end up with mangoes instead of peaches, one is probably enough, depending on which type you get. See my post on how to chop a mango if you are unfamiliar with working with mangoes.


Spicy Peach Salsa
Adapted from Eating Well

3 medium peaches (or one large mango)
1-2 jalapeños, seeded and minced
2 tablespoons minced sweet red pepper
1 2-inch piece fresh lemongrass, minced, or 1 teaspoon dried
1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil, or one frozen cube
tablespoon rice-wine vinegar
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

Peel the peaches, remove the pits and dice the fruit. When peeling peaches (and apples), I cut off the top and bottom so I can stand them up and then slice off the skin in a downward direction.

Add the peaches and minced peppers to a bowl.

Add the lemongrass.

Note on dried lemongrass: Being unfamiliar with dried lemongrass, the jar I bought had 3-inch stalks of lemongrass instead of being totally shredded. I found out that once dried, lemongrass doesn't chop. So I ended up making a tea with the rice vinegar in the recipe and my lemongrass. I microwaved it for about 30 seconds and let it sit for several minutes, covered with plastic wrap. I'm guessing that my method worked well. It was very fragrant, and I poured in the tea and through away the remaining hard stalks of lemongrass.

This was my dried lemongrass just before I poured in the heated vinegar:

As for the basil: I didn't have any fresh. But in my freezer I had one of these packages of tiny little frozen basil cubes that I got from Trader Joe's. I used one cube. After all, the package says that one cube is equal to one teaspoon fresh basil. It's so well minced that it looks like pepper - but it's basil!

Add the rest of the ingredients and toss to combine.

Serve with Coconut-Crusted Tofu.

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How to Drain Tofu

When I cook with tofu, I drain it. You would think that draining it means that you put it in a strainer, or simply remove the liquid from the package. But that is not what recipes mean when they instruct you to drain your tofu.

Once you remove the tofu from the package and the liquid that it's packed in, cut the tofu into the pieces that you will need for the recipe. For my photos in this post, I have cut tofu steaks. I divided my brick of tofu into seven steaks.

Step 1: Lay the tofu pieces on either a towel, or a bunch of paper towels.

Step 2: Cover the tofu pieces with another towel, or a bunch of paper towels.

Step 3: Place a board on top of the covered tofu.

Step 4: Put a heavy object on top of that board. Because you used the board first, the weight of the heavy object will be more evenly distributed.

When I don't have a lot of time, I may only drain the tofu for 15-30 minutes. an hour is plenty of time, but if you accidently drain it longer, that's fine. On this particular day I planned ahead and I wasn't thinking and it drained for 3 hours. My tofu good and dry! This was my final product:

Make sure that if your towells are completely soggy, that you change them. They can only soak up so much liquid.

With three hours of draining, the tofu steaks were significantly smaller and very dry indeed. It makes them have a chewier texture, which was exactly what I wanted for today's recipe: Coconut-Crusted Tofu.

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The Mortar and Pestle

My marble rolling pin need not be lonely any more.

I bought this 4" mortar and pestle from Amazon. It cost about $10.00 and I had free shipping because I also bought something else, so I qualified.

I used it for the first time yesterday when I revisited the Coconut Rice with Ginger, Chiles, and Lime that I posted in April. I can now see why some chefs say they can't do without.

The recipe calls for minced garlic and ginger. I thought it would be nice if those ingredients were in the form of a paste instead of of mince, especially the ginger.

I roughly chopped the ingredients and added them to the mortar.

To begin to break them down, I started smashing them with the pestle. Then I used more of a grinding motion to get them to the desired consistency.

Okay, I could have continued past this point. I didn't quite reach the paste, but I felt that what I had was good enough.

The consistency of the garlic and ginger helped them to spread throughout my rice evenly. I liked how they visually disappeared when they sauteed with the chunks of onion and the bits of jalapeño. It made for a pleasant rice experience because I didn't have to worry about biting into big chunks of either ingredient.

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VegetableSpotting: Vegetable Recipes from Food Blogs

Year round, I am inspired by food bloggers from across the world who publish their best vegetable recipes, spring, summer, fall and even winter. This is a collection of their most enticing seasonal vegetable recipes, for your enjoyment, your inspiration. The list is updated nearly every day, so visit often for new and seasonal vegetable recipes from some of my favorite food bloggers.

My Running List of Inspiring Vegetable Recipes

(updated nearly every day)

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© Copyright 2008

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My Little World Of Food becomes Inspired Bites!

Hi People! My Little World of Food is now Inspired Bites! Like the new name? I do, very much. It took weeks of brain power to come up with a two-word name that isn't already taken. By the way, I also took inspiredbites.com for future use. But I have some HTML programming to learn before I can use it.

So, why change over now to Inspired Bites? I was saving my new name and domain until I learned some online programming, but a few days ago my world was shattered.

An awful lot of the people who visit my site come here through a site called TasteSpotting, which shut down over the weekend without warning. I freaked out, wondering how I would get people to know that I'm out here in the World Wide Web.

I am now submitting my posts to a number of new sites that cropped up in the absence of TasteSpotting. It just makes sense for people to get to know me on these new sites under my new name.

I'm in the process of moving all my posts (or at least copying them) from My Little World of Food, so please be patient while I check my links and continue to move the 75 posts I have made since beginning my blog in March.

Welcome to Inspired Bites everyone! I hope you like it here!

Meryl

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I'm a liar!

I lied to you all. Well, not really. At the time, I thought I was telling the truth.

I've continued watching The Next Food Network Star. I'm sorry! I just can't help myself! I hate it, but I can't turn away. I told Joe to remove it from the "to record" list on the DVR. He told me he would. After all, he just couldn't give up control of the clicker at that moment. But he didn't remove it from the list. Does that make him a liar too?

Watching The Next Food Network Star is like driving by a wreck on the highway. You don't want to be one of those people who has to look at those who might be injured or embarrassed to be there, but you just can't help yourself.

So, now it's too late. I have to see this series through. Damn you Food Network! I have to say that it was a smart move to put this show on just when television choice drops to close to nothing for the summer.

So here's my current thoughts on these contestants:

Lisa has really grown on me. She's not the combative contestant that she started out to be. I'm sort of rooting for her now. Of the bunch, she's one of the few who care to make something more special than meatloaf.

Shane has earned my respect. In his own words, he isn't a used car salesman. He's about the food. Perhaps he should try to get a cooking show on public television instead. Stick to your integrity, Shane.

The hospital cafeteria dude, Aaron, is a good guy and has taste. That potato dish he did made my mouth totally water!

And the rest of them? Not so hot.

Jeniffer is listed as a "self-taught chef." Isn't that an oxymoron? Don't chefs have to go through some serious culinary training? All she seems to care about is kid-friendly food. She should make a Betty Crocker cupcake and go home.

Nipa should never have been allowed to continue after her hissy fit.

Adam is mostly show. I think there is some cooking talent in there, but he's an on camera freak. Tuschie and the scary woman love it!

Ta ta, Jeffrey. You didn't impress me much, but you seemed like a very nice man.

Kelsey is a wind-up doll with major mood swings, from overly happy and excited to crying her eyes out. I think she needs Klonopin. I suppose she's fun to laugh at, but I seriously don't want to see her win, or come anywhere close to winning.

On the topic of the show itself, other bloggers have enlightened me as to the difficulty of their challenge. The cooks are given very little time to plan and prepare their dishes. Culinary greatness just doesn't happen in a half hour most of the time. And someone mentioned, I think on Serious Eats, that it is odd that they bring the contestants to the store when the Food Network has an abundance of ingredients right there on site. What's up with that? And then they have to deal with the stores not carrying their ingredients. That must have totally stunk for poor Aaron who couldn't come up with any cayenne pepper. Just think, it was probably in storage in the very building where he was competing!

I will now await the next episode with my fingers crossed for either Lisa, Aaron, or Shane to win.

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