Cooking with Dr. Monkey

Tonight's episode: Or spicy stir fry vegetable tofu over jasmine rice.
We were due for a meatless meal here at Monkey Central so I decided to make veggie stir fry with rice but for some reason I decided to add tofu to the meal. My history with tofu is mixed at best. I've never been able to cook it where it didn't end up mushy, but not being one to shrink from a culinary challenge I decided to give it one more try. I started out by slicing off five thin pieces of tofu and I patted them dry between two paper towels. Next I sliced them into thin strips.Then I put them all in a bowl and I seasoned them with some Thai Spice Rub mix that we've got. I made sure all the pieces were covered evenly and then I let them sit while I sliced up my vegetables. I cut up one half a small zucchini, one small onion, one third of a red bell pepper, four large baby portabella mushrooms, three small celery stalks, and three large cloves of garlic.

I then put my rice on and I began heating up the wok. Into the wok I put about a quarter of a cup of canola oil and I let it get good and hot. After the oil got hot I gingerly put my spicy tofu pieces in. I let them cook for a good four minutes on each side before I put the peppers, onions, and garlic in. Then I added about a tablespoon of low sodium soy sauce.
After letting my tofu and aromatic veggies cook for a moment of two I tossed in the mushrooms and zucchini and I stirred it all around and let it simmer for a bit. Then while I toasted some Birdseed bread we got from Scratch Bakery, I also tossed in the celery and I let it cook in with everything else for about two minutes. I hate over cooked celery in my Asian dishes so I always put it in at the last minute and I serve everything while the celery is still crunchy.I served the vegetable tofu over some jasmine rice. Along with the bread I put out a couple small dishes of spicy peanut with the main dish. I'm happy to report that I finally got my tofu right. It was crispy and not at all mushy. The secret must be in pressing out as much water as possible and then cooking it in the oil for a good long time, three or four minutes anyway, on each side. The whole meal was quite tasty and I'm looking forward to cooking the rest of that package of tofu soon.

The moral of this episode is don't be afraid to keep trying something in kitchen, after all if millions of Asian people cook and love tofu I knew sooner or later I figure out how to cook it properly.