Saturday, September 19, 2009

Recipe Time!

I am a huge fan of Take A Bao in the Century City Mall and I was really craving their Sweet Chili Glazed Tofu Bowl. Now let me be clear, I'm not a HUGE fan of tofu. I think its good sometimes but this tofu bowl rocks my world. Its so delicious!

So here's the recipe. Its pretty loose because I wasn't sure how this was going to go so I didn't write anything down. So I hope it works out as well for you as it did for me!

Take A Bao Sweet Chili Glazed Tofu- Redux for 2

1 Stalk of Broccoli
1/2 c. uncooked brown rice
2oz of Shiitake Mushrooms
1/2 block of tofu
2 Carrots
1 bottle of World Flavors Thai Sweet Chili Kafir Lime Dipping Sauce ( sold at Whole foods in the international/Thai section)

Cook brown rice according to directions or in a rice cooker. Thinly slice the shiitakes and put in a non stick pan with evoo and cover with a lid. Cook on low until they caramelize. This is the only part that I wasn't happy with. I turned mine up to high and they got kind of rubbery instead of caramelizing. I looked numerous times online and can't find much info about caramelizing mushrooms. So I would do it the way they recommend onions which is too cook for 30-45 mins on extremely low heat which will slowly cook out any water from the mushrooms.

Meanwhile as the mushrooms and rice are cooking. Cut broccoli up into small-medium size pieces and set aside and Julien the carrot ( but you could probably use a large cheese grater for this). Last for prep is the tofu. Open the package and run cool water over the tofu and place on papertowel and gently press any remaining water out. Than slice the tofu in 1/4" thick slices. I'm not sure how they heat their tofu at Take a Bao so I placed mine in another sautee pan and covered the tofu in water and boiled it /heated the tofu and I lifted with a slotted spatula to drain any excess water off the tofu when i was plating it. Also, you must steam the broccoli which i do the tofu and broccoli in the last 5-10 minutes when the mushrooms/rice are almost done cooking.

Than get a bowl, place a generous helping of rice and place broccoli, carmelized shiitakes, carrot shreds in the bowl and lastly placed the hot tofu on top of the bowl. Top with the Sweet Chili Kafir Lime Dipping Sauce and enjoy! The only thing is missing that Take a Bao has are marinated cucumbers. I'm sure you could just marinate them in a rice vinegar and it would be similar but I don't really think them all that much to begin with!

You should end up with something like this :



To finish it off we paired it with a bottle of sauvignon blanc that we already had open but it was delicious with it! I hope that you give it a try because it is really delicious and pretty cheap to make if you're watching your pennies and very low in calories if you're watching your waist!

Cheers-

Raech

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