Tofu cooked in a rich red wine sauce
This is a classical French dish, or it would be if tofu had ever formed part of the traditional French larder. It's really easy to cook and pretty good to eat if you can find a half good bottle of wine to use in it. Unfortunately when I came to make this last week all I could find was an exceptional bottle of wine and a rather dusty bottle of Elderberry 2001.
Anyway, don't do as I do, do as I say.
A couple of packs of firm tofu, say 500g, frozen, thawed and squeezed to remove the moisture.
100g vegan sausage - I used some Fry's polony.
3 tbs. olive oil
1 small onion (about 100g) chopped finely
1 tbs. flour
500ml water
1 bottle of drinkable red wine. If you want to call this Bourguignon, use a Burgundy!
Bouquet garni - minimum of parsley, thyme and bay but add some lovage or celery if you have it.
12 tiny onions and 12 button mushrooms for garnish if you're expecting guests
Use a heavy casserole suitable for hob and oven.
Chop the sausage into small pieces and fry gently in the olive oil for a couple of minutes. Add the onion and continue to cook, covered, until the onion is melted but not browned.
Sprinkle in the flour and stir continuously for a couple of minutes, then make a sauce by adding the water slowly, mixing in each addition until the flour absorbs it. If you do this carefully there will be no lumps. Bring to the boil, salt lightly and add the bouquet garni. Allow to simmer for 15 minutes or so.
Add the red wine, bring back to a simmer for another 15 minutes while you prep the tofu.
Chop the squeezed dry tofu into bite sized chunks, fry off quickly in a hot frying pan and a little oil until it colours up a bit. You might want to add some soy sauce at this point but I must warn you, the French wouldn't.
Put the tofu in the sauce and stick the whole casserole in the oven (180C) for about an hour.
If you want the garnish, peel the onions and wipe the mushrooms but leave both whole. Fry them quickly to colour and add to the pan 15 minutes before serving. A sprinkle of finely chopped parsley is pretty too.
I served ours with roast potatoes, mixed colours because I can but use what you have, and would have added some lightly cooked green beans but I forgot.
Bon appetit.
4 comments:
yum! i always hate wasting wine in cooking though...
Try not to think of it as a waste! I used the home made elderberry so we still had the good wine to drink with it.
The Co-op often has excellent value (and vegan!) wines which are good to cook with and aren't too extravagant if you're entertaining and if you're just cooking for two you could always put half in the pot and the other half in glasses.
Covered or uncovered in the oven? I supposing covered but that's a lot of wine!
AVCB - Ah, I see you felt the pain and did it anyway!
Covered it was, and it is a lot of wine but with the flour to thicken it and the long simmering it cooks down quite a lot, the tofu absorbs some and I love plenty of gravy.
Glad you enjoyed it :-)
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