Tofu and Kale With Peanut Sauce

Podkayne's Note:

Simple, nutritious and tasty. You can use whatever greens are available: Swiss chard, beet greens, turnip greens, etc. Natural peanut butter (without hydrogenated oils) is better (for everything, not just this recipe). If you don't have a jalapeno, or don't like them, you can add some cayenne or some Tabasco sauce to the peanut sauce instead. Frying in peanut oil is key; because of its high smoke point, you can get it screaming hot, which is what is needed to get the tofu nice and crisp.

• Total Time: 20 mins
• Prep Time: 20 mins
• Cook Time: 0 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 4

• 12 ounces extra firm tofu
• 2 tablespoons peanut oil
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 jalapeno chile, seeded and minced
• 1 bunch kale, stemmed and chopped into large pieces
• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 2 tablespoons tamari soy sauce or 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons mirin

Directions:

1. Slice tofu an cut into triangles, sticks, or whatever shape you like.
2. Heat peanut oil until very hot.
3. Fry tofu, turning until each side is brown and crisp.
4. Reduce heat and add garlic, onion, and chile. Stir fry until onion is translucent.
5. Add kale and stir fry until it cooks down.
6. Mix peanut butter, tamari and mirin to make the peanut sauce, add to pan and heat through.
7. Serve over cooked brown rice.

Reviews

[OliveLover]

After reading the other reviews, I made this making one drastic change in procedure, leaving the ingredients pretty much as they are. However, I'm not certain that this gave us the same dish, so rating it is tough, which is why I'm not giving it any stars.

Rather than brown the tofu on high with peanut oil, stir-frying the seasonings, wilting the chard and then, adding the sauce, I added the sauce in two additions. I divided the amount of the sauce into two bowls, using only about 2.5 tbsp. peanut butter in each, cutting the amount down by almost half and dividing the soy sauce and mirin. Instead of the peanut oil alone, I used 2 tbsp. total of dark sesame oil.

I heated the wok, then turned the heat down to medium and added the first bowl of sauce contents along with half the sesame oil, stirring it into a paste. Then, put in the tofu and allowed it to get coated and browned in it. Then, removed it from the pan.

Next, with the heat still at medium, I added about a tsp of peanut oil, the onion, garlic and chili pepper and allowed the onion to turn translucent then added the second addition of sauce ingredients, including the last tbsp of sesame oil, again stirring it into a sauce. I added the chard, which I'd pretty finely chopped, to that, constantly stirring. When wilted, I added the tofu back in. I finished the dish with some chopped peanuts I'd roasted beforehand in a small amount of peanut oil.

I'd also added a small amount of Thai soy sauce, which has a thicker, molasses-y quality. Our only complaint was that the dish was a bit too sweet, and next time, would omit the Thai soy sauce and perhaps adjust the ratio of mirin to soy sauce. Maybe a shot of fish sauce? And I might up the amount of chard, as well.

Weill make this again, with this method. I also want to thank Lindsay, who posted Noodles and Spinach with Tofu (369058) which we make pretty often, for giving me this way for making a peanut sauce. But, as I finish up the leftovers while writing this, once more have to say that don't feel I can give it any stars because the cooking process I used radically changed what was to have been the end result, so I'm not comparing apples to apples.

[Circumspice]

This certainly wasn't bad, but if I were to make it again, I'd make a lot of modifications to the sauce. It was far too thick and gummy, and it really overwhelmed the other ingredients. I'd probably end up subbing the sauce for Tofu and Broccoli Stir-Fry with Peanut Sauce from one of the Moosewood cookbooks (it's on RZ, but I can't recall just now).

[VegSocialWorker]

Yum, this was quite tasty. In an attempt to reduce the fat a bit, I broiled the tofu with a light spray of oil and then added it to the kale peanut butter mixture. I agree with the previous poster and thought the sauce was a tad bit too thick, even though I added some water to it. I used greens from my garden. We served it over brown rice. Thanks for posting!