March 10, 2008

Yummy good takeout style


Ok so I'm addicted to Heidi Swanson's cooking site, 101cookbooks.com. I think of recipes as a starting point for creative experimentation, and Heidi's recipes are always kickin'. This is a vegan variation of her Garlic Soba Noodles Recipe. It's good-for-you comfort food, perfect for rainy days when chinese delivery is going to take an hour anyway.

Let's call it:
Vegan Garlic Soba Noodles with I Can't Believe it's Kale
Ingredients
8 ounces dried soba noodles
3/4 cup bread crumbs
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
big pinch of salt
12 ounces extra firm organic tofu, cut into 6 thin rectangles
1/3 cup olive oil
1/4 soy sauce

A generous splash of olive oil
1 bunch green onions, trimmed and sliced
1 head of organic kale, destemmed and cut into bite-sized pieces

4 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 cup nutritional yeast

a 2-inch piece of daikon or a few radishes, sliced thin for garnish

1. Wash and chop kale and green onions and put aside. Mince garlic and set aside separately. Slice tofu. Bring a large pot of water to a boil.

2. While you wait for the water to boil, combine nutritional yeast, breadcrumbs and salt in a shallow bowl. In another bowl, combine olive oil and soy sauce. Dunk each piece of tofu into the oil mixture, then coat with the breadcrumbs. (For extra breaded goodness, repeat process on each slice.) In wok or large pan, heat oil and fry tofu slices on each side until golden brown. Add soba noodles to boiling water.

3. Remove browned tofu from pan and slice into strips. Strain cooked soba noodles. Slice daikon or radishes.



4. Add a bit more oil in wok, then add garlic. Cook for a few minutes until garlic just turns golden. Add kale and onions, stirring continuously until kale starts to break down and get soft. Mix in noodles. Remove from heat and mix with nutritional yeast.

5. Each bowl gets a pile of noodles, sliced tofu, and daikon garnish. Drizzle with extra olive oil and soy sauce. Serves 4.

3 comments:

Cakespy said...

Oh man, doesn't that look awesome!?!? I have to bookmark this one! Soba good! (sorry)

Anonymous said...

I have been dying to try that recipe since I saw it on Heidi's blog as well. And I'm so excited that someone else thought about nutritional yeast instead of cheese! How did the oil work instead of the eggs? How about soy milk? I have a problem with getting things to stick when I bread them (because of not using eggs)...

Michelle said...

the oil was pretty good for sticking. i think it helped to have the tofu be pat dry. Just had to be kind of careful picking it up and moving around bc some breading did fall off. Soymilk might work...? But typically I've seen oil cited as a substitute for eggs. It fried up deliciously!