Last of the tofu: Tofu masala puris

I didn’t plan on this one. I actually wanted to make tofu ice cream but S discouraged me of the idea in such a manner that I was a bit apprehensive to try. And so? Tofu puris.

Crispy soft tofu masala puris.

Interested enough? You should be. Of all the 3 tofu dishes I’ve made over the past week, this was hands-down my favourite. It was crispy yet soft, flavorful yet subtle. The perfect dish to conclude the long weekend. So here’s what you need -

Ingredients	Quantity
1. Tofu	300 g, finely crumbled with your hands
2. Atta	400 g or 2.5 cups
3. Oil	2 cups for deep frying and 1 tablespoon for mixing into the dough
4. Water	Enough to make dough of the right consistency, approximately 1 cup
5. Dry spices	Salt to taste, 1 tsp of dhaniya-jeera powder, 1 tsp of red chilli powder, 1/2 tsp of sugar, a pinch of turmeric

Serve with any hot subji and you’ve got yourself a killer combination.

How? Just mix all the ingredients to make a consistent dough like chapathis or parathas. Let it sit for at least an hour. Use some fresh atta  to make small balls from the doiugh and roll them out into puris of the size you desire. Heat the oil for deep frying sufficiently before frying your puris. Test with a bit of dough. Do not keep the flame too high or the puri will cook only externally but not all over in addition to “drinking in the oil”. Next.. just deep fry and drain the excess oil on a paper towel before serving piping hot with the subji of choice. Bon Appétit!

Served with Mughalai Subji (Holler if you want a recipe).

One thing’s for sure though… I bet all of you are as done with tofu as I am. Whoosh! Here’s hoping for wider ingredients to feature here soon. :D

Exotic: Tofu koftas

Didn’t I say there would be more tofu recipes following? So here it is, as promised – something different yet something reasonably healthy for what it is – tofu koftas. Here’s a first look -

And if I say so myself, you’ve got to try this. So here goes -

Ingredients for the kofta	Quantity
1. Tofu	300g, finely mashed
2. Dry spices	1tsp of dhaniya-jeera powder, 1/2 tsp of turmeric, salt to taste, 1/2 tsp of red chilli powder and 1/4 tsp of sugar
3. Oil	1 teaspoon
4. Corn flour	2 tablespoons
5. Rice flour	1/2 teaspoon
Ingredients for the gravy	Quantity
1. Onions	2 medium-large, finely chopped
2. Tomatoes	1, medium, finely chopped
3. Tomato paste	1/2 tablespoon
4. Ginger garlic paste	Make fresh equal to 1 tablespoon or use store-bought.
5. Fresh cream	1 tablespoon
6. Green chilli	1, finely chopped
Other	Quantity
1. Oil	For deep frying
2. Coriander	1 sprig for garnishing
3. Jeera	1 tablespoon

The Koftas.

1. Mix all the ingredients for the kofta and knead well with your fingers. Bare in mind that the “dough” should be roughly the consistency of any chapathi dough and not wet at all. If your tofu is refrigerated, I would suggest letting it sit outside for a while to come down to room temperature.

2. Once you’re done, make balls roughly the size of a lemon and coat with corn flour and set aside. Make dumplings from all of the “dough”.

3. Deep fry in oil till golden brown.

So here’s the transformation - Dumplings of tofu set aside for deep frying

 Tofu dumplings after deep frying

I admit it was very tempting to stop here, nuke them with ketchup and just pop them in, piping hot as a snack. Maybe some other time. :)
The Gravy.

1. Heat a tablespoon of oil in a heavy-bottomed pan and allow the jeera to sputter once hot.

2. Add the green chillis and the ginger garlic paste to it after lowering the flame (so as to avoid them from sputtering and burning you), whilst stirring constantly.

3. Once the garlic has browned and ginger has cooked, add the onions and stir them in. Add sufficient salt to allow the onion to release its juices and cook well.

4. Once the onions are translucent add the tomatoes and the tomato paste and stir in well. You want the tomatoes to cook well and so let it cook for about 7 minutes while the pieces lose shape and the tomato lets the oil float up.

5. Add some water if the gravy is thickening too much. Now add the dry spices and stir well. Close the lid of the saucepan and allow it to simmer for a while.

6. After about 5 minutes of simmering, open the lid and add in the cream, give it a quick stir and turn off the gas.

Add the koftas to the gravy just before serving. This keeps their crunch intact.

 Pictured here with phulkas.

Serve with hot rotis/parathas/phulkas or good old steamed rice. It’s positively yummy and you won't regret the brief effort you put into it. So, all I have to say is Bon Appétit!

Protein powerhouse: Tofu parathas

As vegetarians in France, we have to grab the olive branch to any decent ingredient out there, which is out of the ordinary. And tofu is definitely one of those ingredients we are going to pick up only outside of India. I mean when paneer is so vastly available, who’s going to pick tofu? Well, not me. But I chanced upon this really fresh, home-made tofu supplied to us by our cafeteria manager lady (she is Vietnamese) and I took a kilo (that means you are likely to be receiving tofu recipes for a few days).  And so, I made a dish I’ve made many times in the past but have only been lazy to blog about – Tofu parathas.

Pictured here with Aloo Matar.

The other reason I like making tofu parathas  is that I face the perpetual problem of making the really bland ingredient taste interesting. And I came up with a couple of recipes before. You can see them here. As for this recipe, because it’s so ordinary, I am not making any hue and cry of it.

Stated simply, knead in the tofu (about 300g) with your hands to about 2.5 cups of atta. Make a smooth dough, adding 1 tablespoon of oil, salt-to-taste, a pinch of turmeric powder, red chili powder and dhania-jeera powder and sufficient water to knead into a soft, non-sticky dough (similar to chapathi dough). Let it sit for about an hour and roll out like chapathis but tava-fry them like parathas (without exposing to the naked flame). And this is a particularly good dish because the blandness of the tofu is masked by the typical blandness associated with the savoury Indian bread varieties and the side-dish is what spices it up. Plus, all that protein! So, no waiting.. Bon Appétit!

PS: The Aloo Matar was truly divine. If anyone needs a recipe, holler!

Tofu burji (scrambled tofu)

Of course you knew I had some tofu lying around after making them skewers… So I wanted to try something a bit common yet different and so I ended up scrambling them, much like scrambled eggs/paneer. Turns out, it came out great!

The normally bland tofu really took on the spices and tasted refreshingly different from it’s normal rubbery self. I’m not going to give a recipe here coz it’s just too darned simple. I’ve used 1 large onion, 1 mid-sized capsicum, green chilli and tomato each, 1 whole garlic and 3/4 slab of tofu sautéed in 1 spoon of grapeseed oil for the dish, spiced with salt a hint of garam masala and coloured with turmeric. And I garnished it with a dash of spring onion greens.
We had it by itself as a simple meal, served with a glass of red Chateâu Rochebelle ‘89. Perfect. What's more it's a wholesome protein powerhouse and with the least oil going into it makes for a light, filling and healthy dinner.


Bon Appétit!

Spicy shahi tofu

Well, that’s just a fancy name really, for a put-together dish. My Vietnamese friend took me to an Asian grocery store last week and I left from there with a pack of tofu. With it sitting in the fridge and threatening to expire soon, I decided I didn’t want to use it in a Chinese-style dish but would rather do a Desi delicacy. And so I chose Shahi paneer and modified it suitably to achieve tangy and yummy results.
I am not going to publish a recipe here coz it’s nothing phenomenally different from any of the Shahi paneer recipes online and I can’t claim to have come up with anything. However here are some tips when working with tofu -
1. Drain: Make sure to have drained the tofu of the submerged “water''”. To ensure that you have eliminated all the liquid, keep the tofu out of the fridge on a bowl and keep some weight on it for at least 15 minutes (I kept an empty pressure cooker on the tofu slab).
2. Combat blandness: The big Indian requirement is for spice in anything. And tofu fails miserably on all accounts. The way one can eat fried paneer, one can NEVER eat fried tofu. So, here’s what to do… Instead of shallow frying the tofu in batches the way you would paneer, just add them all cut in flat slabs into a wide saucepan with a teaspoon of heated oil. While the tofu sits there getting “shallow-fried”, add salt, a bit of red chilly powder, turmeric and a hint of garam masala. The result? Super-tasty tofu, perfect for Desi recipes. Plus you save a lot of oil going into the dish and so it's healthier. It's win-win!

Shown below: (a) Fresh cut tofu pieces and (b) Spiced tofu

3. Just make the gravy then (the usual mustard seeds-jeera seeds- saunf- ginger-garlic-cloves- onion-tomato) first cooked and then ground. I like to add capsicum to the above for a richer body, colour and taste. Make sure to have one coarse batch so that the gravy isn’t too liquid.
4. Then? Put them together and voilà, there’s your spicy Tofu.

Serve with chapathis/parathas or steamed rice. Bon Appétit!