Gross Football Lunch – Week 9, 2024 NFL Season

Recipe of the Week: Tofu and Veggie Noodles

First, it will help to know what to expect from your tofu. Tofu is typically sold in one-pound blocks, and these blocks are packed in water and sealed in plastic wrap. It is sold in a variety of textures; for the purposes of this recipe, you will want to use two blocks of either firm or extra firm tofu. Soft tofu is very much a thing, and it has its place in the culinary universe, but that place is not this recipe. Take as long as you need at grocery store to read the packaging as carefully as you need to ensure you’re getting the right kind of tofu. (I am not enough of a tofu knower to understand the exact differences between the firm and extra firm varieties, but for what it’s worth I almost always use extra firm because my local grocers usually carry more of it.)

About an hour before your intended serving time, it’s time to start preparing the tofu. You will need two standard-issue baking sheets, a clean towel or paper towels, and something heavy that will fit on top of a baking sheet, such as a cast iron skillet, small Dutch oven, set of hardcover tabletop RPG sourcebooks, etc. Once you have secured these items, open up your tofu packages. They are sealed on top without any sort of easy opening mechanism, but don’t get discouraged. You’ll notice that it is quite easy to identify the precise location of the block in the package, and that there is a gap between the block and the side of the packaging that contains nothing but tofu water. Using a paring knife, carefully poke a hole into the top of the package in this gap, then cut along this gap on three sides. Take out the tofu block, shake off any excess water, then place it on a cutting board. Repeat this process with the second package.

Next, cut your tofu blocks into planks. Turn the long side of the block towards your person, eyeball the center, and cut the block into half crosswise. Then, cut both of these two blocks (again, crosswise) into roughly equal-sized thirds, yielding a total of six more-or-less equal-sized tofu planks. Repeat this process with the second block. Now grab your two standard-issue baking sheets and place them side by side. Completely unfurl your clean towel and place it in a single layer on the first sheet, then place your 12 tofu planks on the towel. Fold the excess towel fabric over the tofu planks; if your towel isn’t big enough to achieve total tofu coverage, that’s OK. Place your second baking sheet on top of the towel and tofu, then weigh the second sheet down with your skillet/Dutch oven/Pathfinder 1E Core Rulebook and Bestiary. Doing this will squeeze out all the excess water that remains in your tofu; since we are going to be frying this tofu, moisture is the enemy. Set this makeshift contraption aside for no less than 15 minutes.

These 15ish minutes are the perfect time to prep everything else. Peel and mince a medium-sized nub of fresh ginger; I used to peel my ginger with a paring knife,until I discovered digging and ripping with a regular old, normal spoon. It’s much more efficient! Slice a couple of bell peppers into thin strips, and trim any woody ends off of the snap peas. Finally, prepare your scallions. Cut off and discard the root ends, then feel down the bunch of scallions; the woody green tubes become squishy at a certain point. Cut off and discard the woodiest tube sections, then thinly slice the remain scallions.

Time for a couple rounds of hard and fast sauteing. Grab your pan-shaped weapon of choice, put it on medium-high heat, pour in a generous but not excessive amount of vegetable oil (do not use olive oil, as olive oil has too low a smoke point), and wait a couple minutes for the pan and oil to heat up. Once the pan is ready, dump in your bell pepper strips, along with a pinch of salt. Stir frequently but not constantly, as you want your strips to develop some brown bits here and there. In a few minutes, your peppers will brown and soften; dump them out of a pan and into a medium-to-large bowl. Repeat this same process with the snap peas. Add more oil if necessary (and wait for it to get hot), dump in the snap peas and some salt, and wait for them to brown and soften, stirring occasionally. Put them in the bowl with pepper strips, when done.

Now, a note on noodles. I don’t give one cuss as to what type of noodles you use for this recipe. Any noodles are better than no noodles. That said, the picture above features frozen udon noodles; I have also made this recipe with ramen noodles (the nice ones), and that worked well too. Both of these varieties of noodle are, in my parts, typically packaged in three discreet bundles, and I make this recipe with two of them. Regardless of what kind of noodles you use, find a point during the rest of your prep to set a pot of water on to boil, then prepare the noodles according to the specified directions.

All of this accomplishment most certainly took more than 15 minutes, so disassemble your makeshift tofu squeezing device and set the top baking sheet – the one whose business end isn’t completely soaked in tofu water – off to the side. Now take your 12 tofu planks and slice each one up into 8 tiny cubes. Once again, place your frying pan on medium-high heat, but this time, add enough vegetable oil to completely coat the bottom of the pan and some more on top of that, so that your pan contains a shallow puddle of the stuff.

Once the oil is hot and shimmering, add as many tofu cubes as you can fit in the pan while also leaving a bit of space between each cube! We are frying this tofu on high heat so that it browns and crisps, and neither of those transformations will occur your cubes are packed in cheek to cheek. This means that you will have to cook your tofu in batches. I can cook this many cubes in two batches, but that’s because I’m using a gigantic 12-inch cast iron skillet. This is probably a bummer, but I have good news to ameliorate your batch-cooking induced suffering. The first is that you don’t have to be too precious about cube spacing. If some of your cubes are touching a bit, that’s fine.

The second is that frying tofu is unspeakably easy. Once your cubes are in the pan, don’t even think about touching them for 5 entire minutes. Check your phone, scratch your privates (although you are cooking so consider washing your hands afterward if you go this route), set your noodle water on to boil if you haven’t done that yet, it’s all good. After those five minutes, do your best to flip these tiny-ass tofu cubes onto a side other than the one they spent those five minutes on. If you enjoy driving yourself nuts, you may opt to individually turn each and every cube with a pair of tongs, but I usually just give every cube a nice shove. The cubes may stick to the bottom of the pan somewhat; be forceful if you must, and don’t worry if some of it gets completely stuck to the pan. Let them cook for another 3-4 minutes on their new side, then remove the cubes to your second, non-wet baking sheet and sprinkle all of them with some salt. Repeat this process as many times as proves necessary.

Once all of your tofu is fried, extracted, and salted, it’s time to bring everything together. Bring out your soy sauce – if you’re cooking with soy sauce, use low sodium soy sauce whenever possible – as well as bottles of black vinegar, fish sauce, and mirin, all of which should be available in the international aisle at your local big box supermarket. For one last time, set your frying pan over medium-high heat. Once it is hot, add your chopped scallions and ginger. Stir frequently until they become fragrant; this will take a matter of seconds.

Next, add everything else back into the pot – tofu, peppers, snap peas, and noodles – into the pot, along with a generous few glugs of soy sauce, and a less generous singular glug of the black vinegar, fish sauce, and mirin. These liquids will come to a simmer with the quickness; stir constantly as they do so, to ensure that the ingredients distribute thoroughly and everything in the pan takes on a glossy sheen. Once the sauces have reduced somewhat, you are done. Turn the heat off, sprinkle the whole mess with a few drops of sesame oil if you wish, and serve immediately.

Congratulations! You have transformed these dumb, boring blocks of bean curd into tiny little flavor bombs; they are crunchy, salty, and soaked in the umami goodness and alluringly mild sweetness of your sauce combination, further complimented with crunchy veggies and comforting, delicious noodles. Not bad, huh? Not difficult either, was it? There may have been a lot of steps, but none of them required any technique more sophisticated than stirring, and the rewards of your efforts are outsized. Dig in!

Week 9 NFL Confidence Pool

There’s precious little time for bloviating this week, but I will say that even though week 8 was a slight step back from the two previous weeks, I am drawing ever closer to dragging both my point and pick averages above 0.600, thus salvaging my season. Can I complete the comeback? To the picks!

Enjoy the games, everybody!