I was pretty excited going in to this week’s Food Matters Project recipe. See, I’m typically not a fan of rice. It needs to have a lot of flavor for me to deem it worthy of my consumable calories, so the addition of toasted sesame oil & the crisp outsides of these rice cakes sounded promising.
The rice was good! Although, our cakes could have benefitted from a couple extra minutes in the pan to get even more crispy around the edges, it was an interesting new way to enjoy the staple, & sometimes kind of boring, grain. The stir fried vegetables & tofu, which we tossed in a little flour before throwing in the pan, was good, too. Just overall, there wasn’t enough sauce to support the entire dish, so making this again I would at least double, maybe even triple, those amounts.
Consider this one a work in progress.
For the full original recipe head on over to Small Kitchen College & say hello! For other takes on this recipe, take a look at these posts from other Food Matters Project members.
your dish looks lovely and i am amazed at how your rice cakes stuck together! i did not even try!
A colleague and I were talking at lunchtime today about tofu and she recommended breading it in flour and cornmeal before stir frying, and I had never thought of that. Does that help it stay a bit firmer when you use flour? I have an issue with my tofu falling apart in the pan, although it may be that I’m just a vigorous stirrer.
I don’t know that it necessarily held the tofu together better, but it definitely helped to soak up any moisture that was left & the pieces browned MUCH easier than usual.
Meg, are you using good firm or extra firm tofu? Also, are you draining it? I typically buy China Rose or White Wave tofu but will buy Nasoya if I am not able to make it to the health food store. The only time I have had issues with tofu falling apart is if it is not firm or extra firm. Thanks to the lushers for the breading idea–I’m going to try it!