the evo­lu­tion of a tru­ly great recipe

I’ve got recipe shar­ing on the brain.  For one thing, I’ve been hard at work on Vol­ume Two of the cook­book, which means not only con­vert­ing met­ric mea­sure­ments into Impe­r­i­al and vice ver­sa, recon­struct­ing what I did six months ago to a batch of short­bread, but also con­coct­ing all the sto­ries that go with each recipe.  What made a par­tic­u­lar dish rise to the sta­tus of being includ­ed in Vol­ume Two, to be cooked over and over and tweaked to result in some­thing tru­ly mem­o­rable?  Each recipe has its own rich his­to­ry, by the time it’s on the list.

Added to this gen­er­al mood, last week saw us all at the Nation­al The­atre, clutch­ing long-await­ed tick­ets to a pan­el dis­cus­sion with Nigel­la Law­son and Yotam Ottolenghi, on the sub­ject of ‘Iden­ti­ty and Food,’ or some such umbrel­la that basi­cal­ly gave these two charis­mat­ic stars of the food world con­stel­la­tion a chance to chat.

I had booked the tick­ets with the vague plan of approach­ing Nigel­la after­ward to ask per­mis­sion to “nick” (British for bor­row) her recipe for saf­fron spaghet­ti, which Martha and Avery make to uni­ver­sal aplomb, and don’t vary from her meth­ods, so per­mis­sion was nec­es­sary, I thought.  I had already got per­mis­sion to include Yotam’s fab­u­lous aubergine and saf­fron sal­ad (direct­ly from him, at a book sign­ing — he actu­al­ly said, “Nick away!”).  But then, serendip­i­tous­ly, the talk turned to the very notion of “own­ing” a recipe, and both Nigel­la and Yotam were adamant that “no one owns food.”  More specif­i­cal­ly, they said, no one owns a recipe, even though intel­lec­tu­al­ly we cooks feel pro­pri­etary over a dish we’ve slaved long and hard to per­fect, or a par­tic­u­lar­ly cre­ative slant we’ve tak­en on some­thing com­mon.  Attribute, by all means, they agreed, but don’t feel any hes­i­ta­tion to grab up some­one’s ideas and run with them, chang­ing as you go to suit your ideas.  I felt they were speak­ing direct­ly to me, and to Vol­ume Two, which owes so much of its con­tent to oth­er bril­liant cooks who’ve gone before me, and cooked along­side me.

With anoth­er cos­mic nod to the food zeit­geist, up popped Smit­ten Kitchen (the effer­ves­cent Deb Perel­man) on Face­book with an absolute­ly scrump­tious-sound­ing recipe (nicked from Ottolenghi!) for “black pep­per tofu and egg­plant.”  For some unknown rea­son, though I’ve nev­er cooked tofu and only eat­en it once (did­n’t float my boat), and have often been a bit deri­sive about it as an ingre­di­ent, this recipe appealed to me.  Deb’s fan­tas­tic com­ments before the recipe zeroed straight in on chang­ing oth­er peo­ple’s recipes.  Her straight­for­ward approach — go right ahead — was inter­laced with what my atti­tude has always been to peo­ple’s chang­ing my recipes: it’s absolute­ly up to you, but then don’t com­plain if you don’t like it, or it does­n’t work, because by then it’s no longer mine!

That being said, and with Nigel­la’s and Yotam’s (and now Deb’s) per­mis­sion ring­ing in my ears, I brave­ly went out and acquired my first block of tofu.  Armed with sup­ple­men­tal chick­en thighs in case I did­n’t like the tofu, and a hand­ful of spring onions for gar­nish, as well as lots more gar­lic and gin­ger than the orig­i­nal sug­ges­tions, I went in all guns blaz­ing.  The result: tru­ly the best Chinese‑y dish I’ve pro­duced in sim­ply years.  This time around I could­n’t find “extra-firm” tofu and the result was a bit timid and del­i­cate, so next time I’ll pur­sue the firm vari­ety.  But it was­n’t a deal breaker.

Black Pep­per Tofu, Egg­plant and Chick­en Thighs

(serves 4)

3 + 3 +1 tbsps veg­etable oil

1 medi­um white onion, sliced thin

1 large egg­plant, trimmed and cut into 1‑inch cubes

pinch sea salt

1 block extra-firm tofu

1 tbsp cornflour/cornstarch

pinch sea salt

4 tbsps butter

6 bone­less, skin­less chick­en thighs, trimmed of fat and each cut into quarters

6 cloves gar­lic, grated

1 3‑inch piece gin­ger, grated

4 tbsps dark soy sauce

1 tbsp brown sug­ar (light or dark, as you like)

2 tbsps fresh black pep­per (or more)

hand­ful spring onions, green part only, sliced very thin

Heat your oven to 220C/425F.  Driz­zle 3 table­spoons of the oil on a large bak­ing sheet and place it in the oven to get real­ly hot.

In a large heavy fry­ing pan, place anoth­er 3 tbsps of the oil and get very hot.  Add the sliced onion, reduce the heat to medi­um, and cook, stir­ring occa­sion­al­ly, for at least 25 min­utes, or until the onions are prop­er­ly browned and quite sticky.  Lift out of the oil with a slot­ted spoon and drain on paper towels.

Mean­while, in a large bowl, toss the cubed egg­plant with the salt and fur­ther 1 table­spoon of oil.  Set aside and place the tofu between two lay­ers of two sheets of paper tow­el.  Place a heavy plate on top and set aside for about 5 min­utes, then cut the tofu into 1‑inch cubes.

When the bak­ing sheet is real­ly hot, take it out of the oven, scat­ter the egg­plant across the sheet in a sin­gle lay­er over about 2/3 of the sheet.  Toss the tofu very gen­tly with the corn­flour in the emp­ty egg­plant bowl, then scat­ter them in a sin­gle lay­er over the rest of the sheet.  Roast for about 30 min­utes, or until the egg­plant and tofu are gold­en brown.

While this is hap­pen­ing, melt the but­ter in the fry­ing pan you used for the onions, and add the chick­en.  Fry until you judge the chick­en to be near­ly cooked through, then add the gar­lic and gin­ger.  Fry until the chick­en is thor­ough­ly but not over­cooked, per­haps 12 min­utes total from when you start­ed the chick­en.  Take care not to burn the gar­lic.  Mix the soy sauce and sug­ar and pour it over, then add the ground pep­per, egg­plant and tofu, and toss gen­tly.  Scat­ter over the browned onions and the spring onions.

Serve with steamed rice, if you like (we did).