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Sunday 6 October 2013

Coca-Cola Tofu



Mihir: So for the next few paragraphs, Mallini is going to try and sell just how EASY and QUICK it is to make Coca-Cola Tofu. DO NOT BE FOOLED. This was easily the most complicated thing I've made since coming to DC. Prep time was over 1.5 hours!

Mallini: Ummm...allow me to point out that it is REALLY REALLY EASY if and I'm sure this will apply to all, you have more than a SINGLE pot in your kitchen. It's cheat-Chinese cooking at it's finest.

Mihir: I told you she'd try to sell it. Step 1 was to take the tofu out of its packaging, and dry it before frying it. Here's where my misfortune begins... my tofu had frozen to adopt the structural integrity of a diamond, but the value of coal

Mallini: Oh good grief...you're such a drama queen. First off, I'm sure anyone who'd want to attempt this recipe would know that they needed to DEFROST the tofu first before doing anything else. Now, he says just 'dry it'. Which isn't entirely true (explains why he failed soo badly in the first place).

Mihir: YOU NEVER TOLD ME ABOUT DEFROSTING IT!! Eitherway, so while I struggled with iced tofu and attempted to cut it into pieces, Ms. Perfect here was far ahead of me, making sizzling noises and looking happy with herself

Mallini: It's common sense you half-baked walnut!!! Nevermind, you looked very cute cursing and swearing at the poor block of tofu. Now, before you try to pan fry anything, make sure you wrap the tofu up in lots of kitchen towels and get someone to sit on it. Or just weigh it down with plates. This makes it firmer and easier to fry later. :)


 Mihir: There are fully-baked walnuts out there? So instead of frying it, I decided to boil my tofu. This didn't reduce the taste (which I must say was worth the work).

Mallini: You're supposed to toast walnuts. Brings out their flavour and makes them crispier. Anyways, he took the cheat route. My way makes for more texture.

Mihir: If you say so. Moving on, we started to chop up vegetables. Red peppers, onion, garlic, mushroom, cauliflowers and the such all went in, in my case... and i wound with with too many vegetables to fit in my pot...

Mallini: You always had a problem with portion estimation.


Mihir: Hmph. So once again, Mallini was off making sizzling noises and stir frying her veggies in, and I quote "3 slugs of soy sauce", whilst I was stuck trying to move my tightly packed vegetables around in my very small pot

Mallini: Hahahaha!! Oh if only we had made a recording. I haven't heard you swear soo much before! But yes, you chop up button mushroms, red peppers, an onion, and some ginger. Mince some garlic really finely and throw that into your screaming hot oil. Add the mushrooms and let them brown a bit before adding the rest of the veggies and stir-frying. FUN FACT. Did you know that if you overcrowd a pan with mushrooms they won’t brown?

Mihir:... I found that out from personal experience. By this point, I had somewhat managed to move my veggies around, after removing some of them. As the sauce got a bit thicker, I took a sip out from my coke (sponsored by Roti), and poured the rest in. That did well to quieten the sizzling, which by this point was alarming my roommate

Mallini: I forgot to ask, what did you do with the veggies that were removed from the pot?

Mihir:... that's fine, it's ok if you don't know that...

Mallini: ...OK! So, when the onions go translucent put in 3 good slugs of soy sauce (that's official, proper, totally-not-made-up cooking terminology, just FYI) and let that sizzle. Finally, add about 1/2 a cup of cola and simmer it down to a nice thick sauce.

Mihir: And for the slower ones of us, you should be done with that around................................Now.

Mallini: Oh come on, be honest. It wasn’t that bad. We even finished at about the same time!

Mihir: Yea, and hour and a half after we started!!! At that rate of cooking, I'd never get any work done. I'll admit, this sauce tasted GREAT though. Pour over the tofu, and eat as fast as you can (i managed to spill some on my t-shirt, and it stains!)


Mallini: It DOES NOT take an hour an half. Mind you dear reader, I sent most of my time waiting for the drama king to stop screeching at his lone pot. But yes, Serve up over a pile of steaming hot rice and enjoy. A dish for vegetarians all around. And I've never had a carnivore say no to it either! And it takes an hour. TOPS.


Happy eating!!

Aloo!


Mallini: Hi. My name's Mallini.

Mihir: And I'm Mihir

Mallini: And we've been together for about...3 years now?

Mihir: It worries me that you hesitate a bit about that. Yep, 3 years in February. I'm studying in the US, in Washington DC, and she's in the glens of Scotland

Mallini: What? You know how horrible I am at dates and things. But yes, I'm studying at St. Andrews, while Mihir's in George Washington University. Both of us are in our second year...and cooking for ourselves for the first time.

Mihir: We took a cooking class for Mallini's birthday over the summer, and the idea of this blog came from that and our common love for food. Just, this time, instead of "she cooks, I eat", we both cook.... and eat the consequences

Mallini: Now... I'm not too bad in the kitchen. Mihir is...well...

Mihir: HEY! I'm getting really good!!!

Mallini: You are you are... I *almost* trust you to cook for our next picnic date back home.

Mihir: Let's say I’m gathering some valuable experience. Really though, it's just for the love of food

Mallini: A love we both feel deeply. Anyways, we're going to be challenging ourselves to cook together over Skype, and post the results here. We hope you enjoy whatever you're about to read over the coming months. The yummy, the yucky, and the ugly (on Mihir's part that is :P)

Mihir: HEY!


Mallini: I love you!!