Competing with Madhur Jaffrey's Vegetarian India for cookbook supremacy in my household is Hetty McKinnon's excellent To Asia With Love.
One of my latest recipe attempts is her Cumin Tofu Stir-Fry, which is a riff on the Western Chinese cumin lamb that nearby Xi'An Famous Foods is famed for producing in NYC.
I am really happy I tried this recipe as I love cumin and have often wished for a vegan / vegetarian version of this western Chinese favorite. The recipe was packed full of ground cumin, and that strong flavor was nicely offset by the onions, cilantro, and sesame seed garnish.
I think the one challenge with this recipe is that the dried spices - cumin, gochugaru - are added at the end of the cooking time and are added just dry, with no water or oil to make into more of a sauce. As a result, the spices seems to get clumped in certain areas and were dry on the mouth in some bites. I will experiment with either adding the spices earlier to the cooking time, adding some water or oil to the dry spices to make it more of a paste that gets added, and/or reducing the amount of spices added moving forward.
I look forward to making this again and adapting it to my tastes!
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