Stir Fry Tofu, Red Pepper and Pineapple
Regular readers of this site know that tofu makes a regular appearance at our dinner table. I like tofu because it makes a good canvas for Asian flavors and because it’s a healthy protein alternative to meat. I may have mentioned once that tofu used to be a standing joke in this family. When we went out to dinner and the girls would ask where we were heading, we’d answer Tofu World because it sounded funny. They didn’t laugh nearly as much as Joe and I did.
As I started to serve it more often, tofu elicited small groans from the gang when it appeared on the plate, but it’s the kind of food that isn’t too difficult to choke down, probably because of its inert texture.
Last night I whipped up (actually it wasn’t as speedy a recipe as I’d hoped) this stir-fry tofu with peppers and pineapple that I found in Mark Bittman’s “Kitchen Express”. The interesting, albeit challenging, thing about that book is that the recipes are more like the type your grandmother would pass along than a well-defined dish. So when he says to splash on soy sauce and rice vinegar at the end of cooking, you really have to use your own instincts about how much. This is tough when you’ve never eaten the dish before – unlike with grandma’s dishes which you could conjure up in your memory years later. I think this dish turned out pretty well, and the biggest flaw, at least in the girls’ opinion, was the brown rice over which it was served. I think it could have used some chile pepper to spice it up, but Joe pulled out a hot sauce or two to adjust the spice level for himself.
I can safely declare that tofu has passed from joke food to acceptable food in this house.
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That dish looks like it could be served as a cold salad. What did the additon of heat do to the meal?
There’s no way I’d serve that cold. I prefer my tofu warm. Plus, the heat was necessary to soften the peppers. And have you ever had cooked pineapple? I prefer it to cold because the flavors become sweeter and the pineapple is less acidic. Perhaps if everything had been cooked first, maybe then it would be okay as a cold salad if you like that sort of thing.