Day 23 - Arroz con Tofu

How simple is this? Very!

All Mexican styled dishes along the lines of Rice with Whatever make use of the extremely simple and versatile Mexican rice with the addition of whatever it is you'd like to eat with it.

To make Mexican rice take 150g of rice, I used brown rice, and fry it off in a little oil until it starts to go toasty. Add a crushed clove or two of garlic, a pinch of salt, a pinch of cumin seeds and about 450ml of tomato passata (or tomato juice made up with water to the required volume which is about twice the volume of the dry rice.) Enrich the tomatoeyness by adding a bit of puree or chopped tomato pulp, depending on what you have. Season with pepper to taste. Cook in a tightly closed pan, stirring every so often until the rice is cooked through and fluffy and all the liquid is absorbed. If you want you can add extra chopped onion or sweet pepper to the mix but don't overdo it, the rice should be a supporting role, not the star. Brown rice will take about 30 minutes to cook, add more water if necessary. Cover and keep warm until needed.

For the tofu I made a sofrito of onions, chopped celery stalk and red pepper along with tomatoes from the tin I opened to get the juice for the rice. I also added one dried red chilli, adjust the chilli heat to your preference. When it was all softened and delicious I added the tofu in small cubes, some tarragon, some stock powder and some garlic and allowed everything to simmer until the tofu was well flavoured.

To serve dress the rice with the additions or toss them through and serve with extra green herbs, olives and anything else you enjoy.