I haven't been making as much tofu as I have in years past, but in an effort to get more protein into my diet, I've been looking into new ways to this vegetarian protein staple besides sauteing tofu cubes in a simple soy-chile sauce.
In the course of those searches, I found a NY Times online series about weeknight stir-frys and saved a copy of the version that included green beans, chiles and scallions. I finally made the ripe when I was able to purchase Shaoxing rice wine, the one ingredient that wasn't in my pantry and that I couldn't find at local grocery stores. My husband was able to pick up a bottle in Chinatown, and so away I went with preparing the recipe!
The dish itself was very easy to construct, and definitely is the perfect amount of prep/cooking time for a weeknight meal, but there are a few tips I have for making it again. First, I would use a nonstick pan or wok to cook the dish because when I used a cast-iron skillet, some of the tofu sides touching the pan stuck to the pan and weren't easily removable. Second, I skipped the pre-cooking of the drained tofu slices, and I think next time, it would make sense to add that step in (perhaps while chopping the vegetables) because otherwise, even the drained and squeezed tofu slices added a lot of water to the sauce so the dish was more broth-y than I would like.
Finally, I added some extra soy sauce and chile-garlic sauce to the final dish because it otherwise was slightly bland (think the ratio of ginger/garlic/herbs/sauce may be slightly low for the amount of main ingredients – also the water from the tofu probably also diluted the flavors).
Welcome back to my diet, tofu!
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