Sweet caramelized tofu with shredded brussels sprouts and pecans

January 19, 2015 at 3:17 pm (101 cookbooks, Chinese, Cruciferous rich, East and SE Asia, Fall recipes, Tofu, unrated, Winter recipes)

I wanted to use up some brussels sprouts and cilantro, and found this recipe for a tofu, sprout stirfry on 101cookbooks. It looked interesting, and we had all the ingredients on hand, so Derek and I gave it a try for lunch yesterday.

I used a bit more tofu than the recipe called for (9 ounces instead of 7 to 8 ounces). But other than that we followed the recipe pretty closely. Derek was nervous about adding so much sugar, but decided to just do what the recipe said this first time. But when we tasted the final dish we decided that his instincts were correct, and it was too much sugar. The dish was overly sweet and under salted. (All that tofu and sprouts needs much more than a couple of pinches of salt.) We ended up adding soy sauce and eating the dish with some leftover peanut noodles, which gave the dish much more of an Aisan vibe. Originally I had thought it was going for a more Thanksgiving-y feel, except that the cilantro doesn’t really fit. For a more Thanksgiving-y dish I’d probably use sage or rosemary instead.

The combination of the tofu and shredded sprouts was nice, and the pecans added a bit of crunch, but we couldn’t taste them at all. Given how expensive they are, we thought it was a bit of a waste. Derek said maybe next time it would be better to use walnuts, as the dish reminded him a bit of a classic American-Chinese dish with shrimp and walnuts.

Overall, the dish tasted fine but was rather boring. It needed less sugar and some other stronger flavor as seasoning. I also would have liked more sprouts. Half a pound is not very much. Next time I’d use at least 12 ounces, maybe a whole pound.