Recipe of the Month: General Tso's Cauliflower and Tofu

May's Recipe of the Month came about because on our last Lidl trip, Brian picked up a cauliflower without having any specific plan for it. When he asked me if there was any particular cauliflower dish I'd like, I suggested that he kill two birds with one stone by trying a new recipe that I could post on the blog. So he did a little search and came across one called General Tso's Cauliflower and Tofu on the Cinnamon Society website. As far as he could tell, we had all the ingredients for it except the chili sauce, and he figured he'd most likely want to cut way back on that anyway to accommodate my sensitive taste buds. So he decided to just omit it and see how the recipe turned out.

As he started preparing the dish, however, he discovered he'd made a mistake. The recipe called for "baked tofu," which he had assumed meant that it would involve baking some cubed tofu in the oven. But apparently, what the author had in mind was commercial baked tofu that comes in a package. She warned that you could not simply substitute pressed tofu, as it "falls apart too easily." Rather than run out to the H-Mart for some baked tofu, Brian opted to cut his pressed tofu into cubes and pan-fry it to give it a firm, golden outer skin. He also made a few minor adjustments to the seasoning: cutting the amount of canola oil tossed with the cauliflower from a quarter-cup to 2 tablespoons, increasing the teaspoon of sugar to one and a half teaspoons, and cutting the quarter-teaspoon of red pepper flakes down to a mere eighth of a teaspoon. And he disregarded the direction to separate the white and green parts of the scallion, simply slicing up the whole thing and tossing it in the wok as he always does.

Most of these alterations, as far as we could tell, worked fine. The tofu did not fall apart during cooking, and the sauce, though mild, was far from bland. The one thing we both noted was that its flavor was rather bright. Although it contained only half a tablespoon of rice vinegar, which is milder than many other types of vinegar, the combination of that and the tomato paste gave it quite a strong acidic tang. Brian suspected part of the reason was he'd left out the 2 to 3 tablespoons of chili sauce, which would otherwise have increased the volume of the sauce and diluted the other flavors. I suggested that next time he could make up the extra volume with water, but he feared that would thin the sauce too much. My other idea was to replace some or all of the sugar with molasses, adding a darker note to balance out the brightness of the other ingredients.

In any case, the extra acidity wasn't a major drawback, particularly after the first few bites. We both enjoyed the dish enough to take second helpings and happily gobbled up the leftovers for lunch. We'll definitely be adding this recipe to our stable of cauliflower dishes, which means we'll have plenty of opportunities to tinker with it further. One note I gave him for next time is that so long as he's leaving out the chili sauce, I think he can safely increase the red pepper flakes to the full quarter-teaspoon the recipe calls for. Even my wussy palate should be able to handle that much.