Tempting, Tasty Tofu

Last night I tried something different and made a vegetarian meal for supper - Thai Red Curry Risotto, Asian Broccoli Slaw, and Peanut-encrusted Tofu "Faux Gras." I knew I wanted to make a leg of lamb today, and our protein options were otherwise limited. We had steamed crabs yet again on Friday (yummy!) so I didn't want to make seafood. Then I remembered the box of tofu that was hanging around in the fridge for a while. The sell-by date said September 30th, so I knew it was still safe. But what to do with it?

In the meantime, I got this risotto idea. I wanted to make something Asian-influenced for my starch-needing husband, and went hunting through my collection of foodstuffs. I found half a box of arborio rice in the pantry, a jar of red curry paste in the fridge, and an ample stash of Kaffir lime leaves in the freezer. Since I had landed in Thailand, I decided that the thing to do with the tofu would be to marinate it and then give it a roll in crushed peanuts. The slaw, bagged broccoli slaw simply dressed with rice wine vinegar, toasted sesame oil, and sugar, would make a refreshing and crunchy side dish.

Peanut-Encrusted Tofu "Faux Gras"

Marinade
1 tablespoon peanut butter (I used Jif)
2 tablespoons lite soy sauce
1 tablespoon honey
1 teaspoon garlic powder

Coating
1/2 cup unsalted roasted peanuts, crushed
2 tablespoons unflavored dry bread crumbs

1 box extra firm fresh tofu (not the aseptically packaged stuff)
oil for frying

Slice tofu into approximately 3/4" pieces; fit in one layer in shallow pan. Mix marinade ingredients (you may need to put in the microwave for a few seconds to melt the peanut butter and make the honey liquidy) and pour over tofu. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours; more is better.

When ready to cook, mix crushed peanuts and bread crumbs on a plate. Remove tofu slices from marinade and gently coat each with crumb mixture.

Heat a large skillet and add approximately 2 tablespoons vegetable oil. When the oil is very hot, add the tofu in one layer and put a lid on the pan. Cook for 2-3 minutes until browned, then gently flip and brown the other side. Don't worry if the peanuts get black - it doesn't taste burnt.

I squeezed a bit of Hoisin sauce over the tofu once it was plated, but that wasn't even necessary. The tofu was very flavorful and had a tender, curdy, texture very much like properly cooked foie gras.

The risotto recipe was a bit complicated. I'll post it if I make it again.

Weekend Part Un - Crabby Patties

Shouldn't crabby patties be crab cakes? Where do they keep the cows - on underwater ranches? And how do they keep the buns from getting soggy?

I had my share of crustaceans this past weekend. I only get to eat steamed crabs once a summer, usually as part of my husband's birthday celebration and courtesy of my Mother-in-law. I boycotted them for a few years, since Maryland crabs are becoming scarce, but last year I was back at them. Why let all the other bastards enjoy them? Clearly my not eating them wasn't preventing mallets from smashing down all over the state.

This year's batch came from a little place in Dundalk whose name I cannot divulge (because I do not know it). It is a place that mercifully steams only in Old Bay, not rock salt or any other lip-burning overly-salinated local crab spice. There were three dozen of the succulent beauties, larges, plus corn on the cob (the usual insipid tiny-kerneled sweet white corn that Marylanders seem to like for no good raason. Whatever happened to corn that tastes like CORN?), chicken fingers, and hush puppies made by my enterprising Brother-in-law, who bought a Fry Daddy just for the occasion. And beer. Gotta have beer with crabs, hon! Something light and refreshing. No, not Bud - that's horse piss. We opted for Coronas this year.

Were it not for the filling - and addictive - hush puppies, I probably could have done better than seven crabs. They were meaty and sweet, gently kissed with cayenne and celery seed. Picking gets tiring after a while, as does the relentless barrage of protein. But it is oh so good.

Bloated and smelling like low tide, we returned home to watch the Ravens lose their second pre-season game. Thankfully this produced no nausea; crab sick can be pretty horrendous.

There were leftover crabs and Neal and I picked the meat from six of them to take home. I knew we had a restaurant reservation (more on that later) for Sunday evening, and Monday we would most likely be eating out as well, so I decided to use the extra crab meat for breakfast. Originally intending to make an omelette, when I saw that there was well over a cup of meat, I made crab cakes instead.

1 cup freshly-picked blue crab meat
6 Keebler Club crackers, bashed into bits
1/2 teaspoon Old Bay
1 healthy tablespoon mayonnaise (an oxymoron!), preferably Kewpie (a Japanese brand)
Fresh snippage of parsley and chives from the kitchen porch garden

Mix together, form into 4 small cakes.
Heat about a tablespoon of vegetable oil in a medium skillet. When hot, add the crab cakes and cover. When browned on the bottom side, gently flip them and brown the other side.

Serve with buttered toast and thick slices of home-grown tomato, plus coffee and orange juice. You'll never go back to pancakes!

Weekend Part Deux - Taste Restaurant

Sunday's dinner was at Taste, a moderately new restaurant in Belvedere Square. Housed in a former Hess shoe store, the multi-level eatery displays a chic decor that belies its fairly traditional New American menu.

Dinner starts out with a basket of cut-up bread pieces (odd, that) and little dishes of a nice sundried tomato olive oil and an assortment of olives. I'd like the bread to be heartier, and to be cut in regulation slices, rather than floppy strips. After perusing the menu, my husband and I both decided on specials, the "chicken a la Taste" for him, and the horseradish-encrusted filet for me.

For starters, he had their version of shrimp and grits, and I went with the goat cheese salad. The shrimp and grits was rather Italianate in flavors - tons of parmesan cheese in the grits made them rather risotto-like in texture, and bits of proscuitto lent their salty bite to the large shrimp. It was nothing like my favorite version of this classic, that of Louisiana restaurant in Fells Point, but it was a tasty change. My goat cheese salad comprised a generous portion of baby greens, lightly cooked red onion, and "sweet spiced pecans" - pecans that seem to have been dipped in a seasoned egg white mixture and baked. They had a meringue-like quality about them, softly crunchy, but not too sweet. This combo was tossed with a balsamic vinaigrette and topped by two breaded rounds of fried goat cheese that oozed onto the greens when cut with a fork.

The "Chicken a la Taste" was one of the oddball Tex-Mex dishes sometimes featured at the restaurant - a chicken breast topped with a black bean and corn mixture, served on saffron rice. The chicken was nicely tender but still juicy, the beans and corn mildly spiced, and the somewhat medicinal quality of saffron made the dish like a deconstructed Mexican paella. My husband ate every drop. My 5oz filet was medium-rare and fork tender, and served on an unctuous mound of garlicky Yukon gold potatoes, with some zucchini and broccolini on the side. The horseradish did not so much encrust the filet as top it. It had a grated texture so I assume it was from a fresh root, but surprisingly it did not offer any of the expected nose-clearing qualities as the raw version. It was good nonetheless. With our meal we drank a 2002 Iron Horse Pinot Noir that had a nice cherry nose.

My husband ordered the dessert that intrigued me most - apple fritters with vanilla bean ice cream and homemade caramel sauce. Two tempura-battered and fried rings of apple flanked a large scoop of ice cream and luxuriated in a drizzle of the very excellent caramel. My German chocolate mousse was so-so - a wine glass layered parfait-style with chocolate "mousse," coconut-flavored whipped cream, and topped with toasted pecans and coconut. The "mousse" is in quotes, as I believe it to have been stiffly whipped cream with melted chocolate added, rather a light ganache than the classic egg-enriched and smoother-textured mousse. The flavor was nicely chocolatey, but a bit monotonous, despite the other ingredients which merely added a bit of crunch.

Taste isn't perfect, but the food is reasonably priced and pretty darn good. It's a nice upscale neighborhood restaurant, and we do plan to eat there again in the future. There's an open kitchen on the bottom level, and I'll probably request to be seated there next time.

Something else I recommend - use Open Table for your restaurant reservations! It's a nationwide service, many top restaurants use it to handle all of their reservations, and using the Web interface is a snap. Plus, the more reservations you make and keep, the more points you earn towards a gift certificate to use in a participating restaurant. Mmmm...free food!

Peachy Keen

The slices of peach cascaded over the top of the miniature angel food cake crowned with a cloud of whipped cream. The fruits were crisp-tender, sweet, tasting of summer.

I stared at the dessert in front of me. I haven't eaten a fresh peach in 23 years. That was about when I developed an allergy to peaches and other members of the Rosaceae family that includes plums, apricots, and cherries. My Dad often got bushels of farm fresh peaches in the summers, and my brother and I feasted on bowls brimming with the juicy fruits. It must have led to an overdose on my part and a sudden intolerance for the family of fruit I loved most.

I have found that peaches that have received some sort of heat treatment are safe for me to eat; this includes canned peaches and peach pie, peach cobbler, peach ice cream. But nothing matches the sheer pleasure of biting into a ripe fruit and having the juice drip down your chin, of eating so many fresh cherries your lips and gums are stained a red-purple, of savoring the clean fresh taste of a black plum eaten out of hand. Fear of anaphylaxis has prevented me from partaking in these joys of summer. My brother has a severe allergy to peanuts and I've seen him swell to Frankensteinian proportions after accidental ingestion. I am not sure how severe my allergy is, and I don't want to find out.

I discovered fresh mango is a decent substitute for peaches, at least visually and texturally, but it's not quite the same.

But last night, with those peaches in front of me, I decided to take the plunge. Our host for the evening was driving me to the brink of insanity with his usual routine of funny voices, inappropriate comments, and general manic nonsense, while his always-calm wife blithely chattered through dinner as if her husband weren't a tad on the loony side. Maybe I wanted to end it all right there. I first announced to the table that I was allergic to peaches, then took a forkful.

I chewed, I swallowed. Nothing happened. Our hostess looked at me in horror as I continued to eat. "I have an Epi-Pen in the house, if you need it," she offered helpfully. But I didn't get that familiar skin-tightening feeling until I finished the last morsel. My mouth didn't itch, and my eyes didn't feel tight, just the skin around my temples and around my eyes. I took two Benadryl, just in case. After all the hyper-manic chatter, I would probably need a sleep aide to calm myself before bed anyway. We left an hour or so later, with me nodding off in the car during the 40-minute ride home (Neal, of course, was driving).

I rose today, exhausted but still quite alive. I survived peaches. Will I try them again anytime soon? Maybe. But I'm not a risk-taker. I lived without them for two decades, and I can probably live without them for two more, but it's nice to know that fresh summertime fruit doesn't have to be merely a happy memory for me.