verbatim: An Amended Recipe, a New Recipe, and a Link to a Recipe

Look at me posting twice in one week! I have more recipes to share.

First, remember that awesome tofu stir-fry recipe I shared a while back? Guess what, it just got better! As instructed, I had been dusting the pressed tofu with cornstarch, then frying it in oil until crispy on all sides. That worked great, but it made kind of a powdery, splattery mess. Then I read this article by Joe Yonan, where he gives this great tip for frying tofu: “Rather than tossing the tofu in a lot of cornstarch or potato starch and then letting it sizzle and sputter in a half-inch or more of oil, you first whisk together only a couple of tablespoons of starch with an equal amount of oil. That creates a smooth, sticky batter that coats exactly a pound of tofu cubes—and stays put when you pan-fry those cubes in a mere teaspoon of oil in a nonstick skillet, getting them golden brown on each of their six sides.” And he’s right! So I’ve amended the recipe. Yonan also recommends wrapping the block of tofu in paper towels and nuking it instead of pressing it, but I haven’t tried that yet. (I’ve also seen a bunch of recommendations to freeze tofu right in its packaging and then thaw it in the fridge. This will allegedly change the color of the tofu and also improve its texture, but I haven’t tried that yet either. Have you?)

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Here's a recipe I discovered last winter and have made a couple of times since. It's a thick, hearty vegetarian soup from Serious Eats—yummy and simple to make. Note that if you refrigerate the leftovers, the next day you will have to add a few splashes of water or broth when you heat it up because the chickpeas and adorable ditalini will have soaked up every bit of liquid. As usual, I forgot to take a photo, but there’s a nice one at the link. Also at the link are instructions if you want to start with dried chickpeas rather than canned.

Pasta e Ceci (Pasta and Chickpea Soup)

¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
4 medium garlic cloves, peeled and lightly smashed
1 sprig fresh rosemary
¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 tablespoons tomato paste*
½ cup dry white wine
2 (15-ounce) cans low-sodium chickpeas, drained and rinsed
4 cups low-sodium vegetable or chicken or broth, divided
Kosher salt
¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
8 ounces ditalini
2 ounces Pecorino Romano cheese, finely grated, plus extra for serving

In a large Dutch oven, heat the oil over medium heat until shimmering. Add the garlic and rosemary and cook, stirring frequently, until the garlic softens and turns golden, about 5 minutes. Add the red pepper flakes and cook, stirring constantly, until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the tomato paste and cook until fragrant and dark brick-red, about 1 minute. Stir in the wine, scraping up the browned bits. Bring to a simmer and cook until the mixture is slightly reduced, about 2 minutes.

Remove the pot from the heat; remove and discard the rosemary sprig. Add 1 cup of the chickpeas and 1 cup of the broth and, using an immersion blender, blend until smooth, 1 to 2 minutes. (Or transfer the mixture to a blender and blend until smooth, then return it to the pot.) Stir in the remaining 2 cups chickpeas, remaining 3 cups broth, and black pepper. Season with salt to taste. Bring the mixture to a boil over medium-high heat. Stir in the ditalini and cook, stirring frequently, until the pasta is just shy of al dente (1 to 2 minutes less than the package directs) and the liquid is reduced to a consistency that falls between soupy and saucy.

Remove the pot from the heat, add the cheese, and stir rapidly to incorporate. Season with salt to taste (I found the cheese plenty salty enough). Ladle into bowls and drizzle each serving with olive oil and sprinkle with extra grated cheese.

*By the way, did you know that you can freeze tomato paste? When I open a can, I spoon out 1-tablespoon blobs onto a sheet of waxed paper, fold it up so each blob is in its own compartment, and put the whole thing in a plastic bag in the freezer. When I need tomato paste, I just tear off a section with one blob for each tablespoon I need. It thaws quickly in whatever I'm cooking. I don't buy tomato paste in a tube because I don't use it up fast enough for it to stay fresh.

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And finally, for Thanksgiving this year, instead of making one or more pies, I made these adorable two-bite “tassies”:

(Also shown, of course, are the Greatest Chocolate Chip Cookies Ever, which have become Julie's signature.) I made a dozen each of apple crumb, pecan, chocolate, and buttermilk chess tassies. The chess were the surprising favorite. I made them all on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, then panicked because the online recipe suddenly had deleted the make-ahead instructions! But thanks to a shout-out on Twitter, I found out that they can indeed be frozen! I thawed them overnight in the fridge and then reheated them (back in their mini muffin tins) in the oven just in time for dessert on Turkey Day. They weren’t difficult to make, but it took a little bit of work to form each little pie. Mine also did not come out as nicely browned as the ones in the WaPo photo (at the link above) but were still gobbled up. I won't bother sharing the recipe here because there are so many filling options (in addition to the ones I made, there were also recipes for pumpkin, cranberry, and lemon fillings), but you can find it at the link above. It is a fun baking project.

Comments

I just made the pasta and chickpea soup for the third time since you posted the recipe, and it occurred to me that I really should say thank you! (The ditalini really are adorable, and I've still got some tomato paste blobs in the freezer.)

Posted by: Bonnie Nestor | September 17, 2022 at 10:24 PM