Posted by kathryn in Vegan, Salads and Spring

I had a wonderful dinner last night. It was just me at home, so I wanted something quick, easy and tasty. Plus I had some tofu, bok choy and asparagus in the fridge and wanted to use them up.

I’ve been playing around with Google Coop over the last few days – setting up some specialised search engines for finding healthy recipes and good health information. Rather than googling the whole world, you can select a group of sites you like and trust and just search them – I love this idea.

I typed “tofu + bok choy” into my new customised search engine and it led me to this little beauty from Oswego Tea. It’s an easy recipe, took me about 15 minutes and is flexible enough to be varied around, depending on what’s available (if you look at the original version on Oswego Tea, you’ll see there are several differences to mine).

Did I mention it’s really, really good? Light, crunchy, but packed full of flavour. Plus the combination of greens, seeds and tofu makes it a good, all-round healthy meal. I definitely had my daily vegetable quota and those greens are full of iron, folate, beta-carotene and lots of other antioxidants. If you want to make it more filling, stir some noodles through with the dressing.

One of the main changes I made was cooking the tofu in less oil. I used a grill plate, but you could also do this in a non-stick frying pan and just brush with a small amount of oil. I’ve also fiddled with the dressing to reduce the sodium content of the meal. I wanted my salad to be warm, so I cooked the tofu and vegetables at the same time.

Tofu salad with asparagus & bok choy

For this recipe you need a frying pan or wok that’s big enough to hold the vegetables and a seperate grill plate or non-stick frying pan to cook the tofu in. Serves 1.

• 1 tablespoon (10g) sesame seeds
• 125g firm tofu, cut into thin slices
• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 1 bunch asparagus, cut into 3cm chunks
• 3 yellow squash, thinly sliced
• 1 head of bok choy, cut the base off and wash the leaves
• 3 spring onions, thinly sliced on an angle
• 1cm fresh ginger, finely sliced

Dressing:

• 1 teaspoon shoyu (or soy sauce)
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon vegetarian fish sauce
• 1 tablespoon coriander, finely chopped

Sprinkle the sesame seeds onto a plate and press the tofu slices into the sesame seeds, to coat.

Mix together all the dressing ingredients.

Put both the frying pan and grill-plate on a medium high heat and brush with the olive oil.

Put the tofu on the grill plate and cook for about 3 minutes each side, or until golden brown. The sesame seeds may hiss and spit, but don’t worry about this.

At the same time put the asparagus and squash into the frying pan and toss to coat with the oil for about 30 seconds. Add the bok choy, spring onions and ginger and again toss in the oil for a few seconds. Add two tablespoons of water and immediately cover with a lid. Leave to cook for about 3 minutes and then take the lid off and continue to cook for another 2 – 3 minutes.

Pile the vegetables and tofu up on a plate and drizzle over the dressing.

Nutrition Information per serving (based on 4 servings):

Total kilojoules: 1,742kJ; Protein: 29.3g; Total Fat: 29.9g (mostly mono&poly-unsaturated); Saturated fat: 4.3g; Carbohydrate: 10.5g; Fibre: 11.4g; Sodium: 852mg (without adding any extra salt); Number of vegetable serves towards daily total : 5 serves; Additional nutrients: potassium, iron, folate , zinc, essential fatty acids, beta-carotene and other antioxidants.

10 November, 2006