I’ve been feeling — quelle horrors! — in a bit of a cooking rut lately. And whenever I feel that way, I know there is an easy fix nearby: I just pick up Gray Kunz’s masterpiece, The Elements of Taste, and start flipping through it. I always find something that catches my attention. This time it was a new idea for a crust: polenta, star anise, and cloves. Gray doesn’t (to my knowledge) cook with a lot of tofu, but I do, so I figured the crust might be a winner on a nice block of soft tofu, especially if I place it, crispy side up, in a shallow bowl of aromatic gingery chicken broth.
The preparation might look labor-intensive, but it’s actually a snap. Just heat up some butter and olive oil in a small saucepan, and saute red onion and plenty of ginger (both roughly chopped) until they soften a bit, about five minutes. Add a few cups of chicken stock (homemade is of course best, but the boxed organic stock is fine) and a tablespoon or so of apricot jam for some subtle fruity sweetness, and reduce. While it reduces, toss in a handful of green beans (or asparagus, or carrots — almost any vegetable will work) to cook in the broth.
While that simmers, toast a few star anise and cloves over low heat in a cast-iron pan, until fragrant (about three or four minutes), and whir in the spice grinder. Add a quarter-cup or so of polenta, and whir some more. Set aside.
Slice a block of soft tofu in half along its equator and pat the two halves dry with a clean kitchen towel (or paper towels, provided I can use them without Delia noticing!). Slice each half twice diagonally, to form a big X, giving four triangles per half, or eight total. Spoon or spray on some olive oil, and liberally dust on the spiced polenta, pressing it in a bit with your fingers to make sure it sticks. Heat up butter and olive oil in a nonstick pan, and gently fry the tofu triangles, crust-side down, until golden brown. Flip and turn off the heat.
Pour the broth through a sieve for a more refined presentation, or just use as is for a more rustic one. Ladle a small quantity in a shallow bowl and place the tofu in it, crispy-side up (we want to keep the crispy part out of the liquid, so it stays crispy). Top with the cooked veggies and any fresh herbs you like. I used radicchio in the photo above.
The clove/star anise/polenta mixture is a heady one, and sets the stage for the deeply savory, clean broth. This one’s a winner — thank you again Chef Kunz!
Another inspired dish. I enjoy the spirit of adventure with which each new improvisation is approached. Whether or not I choose to recreate the dishes you describe, I am always inspired to cook after reading about one of your latest exlpoits.
That’s very beautiful.
This seems like a first course/appetizer-style dish. Any thoughts on how to round it out into a meal? Maybe a side of fried rice? Or a bowl of some kind of noodles? (Garlic/toasted sesame oil/veg/soba maybe?)
wow, that looks fabulous. can you tell me a bit about the polenta. Probably not available here, I do have corn meal??? bread crumbs??? i suppose anything to make it crunchy…. I could step back to the 70′s and try a potato chip crust!!!!!!
Also, I bet some biwa would be nice since I don’t have apricot jam!!!
Thanks! It is indeed a first-course dish. You could serve just about anything after it — a big salad, green tea soba, a small bowl of all-veggie pasta. . . . .
Corn meal IS polenta! I don’t know when we started calling it polenta, no doubt in some effort to sound sophisticated. And yes, any crust will do — try cream of wheat, it’s good! And lord how I wish I had access to biwa (well, we get loquats sometimes, but still).
No, no, no, cornmeal is *not* polenta. Polenta is a meal made from corn, yes, but it’s much coarser than what Americans use to make cornbread out of. I discovered this here in Berlin when I tried to make some cornbread: the Turks use a much finer cornmeal for a kind of mush they use as a starch side-dish, and then there’s polenta. American cornmeal falls somewhere in the middle. When you try to make cornbread out of the Turkish stuff it winds up being about 3/4″ thick. When you try to make it out of polenta, it’s like cement. Which reminds me: I’ve been husbanding some cornmeal here and it’s time for some cornbread for breakfast on Sunday, I think.
OK, so we’re talking a difference of grind? Run-of-the-mill “cornmeal” purchased in the States in a place like Safeway is more finely ground than the “polenta,” also just ground corn, you see in Europe. My understanding is that polenta was originally the name of the DISH, not the cornmeal itself, but today most people outside of Italy consider it the ingredient, not the dish.
In Italy “polenta” can be made out of ANYTHING that’s ground, and it’s still called polenta. I’ve had something called buckwheat polenta in Italy, and I know they have a chestnut polenta as well (which I’m dying to try).
Which brings us back to: you can use ANY finely ground grain as a crust!
Here is a recipe from me dear Eric.Actually a famous Hollywood director visited our home in the Himalayas and this is what he cooked–MASALA TOFU–Some olive oil in a cast iron skillet and to it add cumin, after it has crackled add chopped onions,let it sweat and then put some tomatoes and green chillies and lots of green coriander. Finally in goes Tofu. Scramble the entire mix and you will get a mouth watering MASALA TOFU.ENJOY!
Eric, any plans of an India visit?
nimi khanna.
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