Today I made:
Udon Noodle Salad with Broccolini and Spicy Tofu, Cooking Light May 2011
Mashed Tofu Salad (白和え), Food Network Magazine June 2010
I wasn't super enthusiastic about tonight's dinner; Japanese recipes in these American magazines usually aren't as good as you expect/hope. I'm not entirely sure if that's just the recipes themselves or the ingredients. The udon, for example, just didn't taste very good. Tofu in America is usually pretty bad too. I got this tofu at the Korean store a few blocks away. It was some Korean brand because the Japanese brand whose name I recognized (House Foods) had an ad for "The Croods" on it, which took away from its Japan cred. The tofu was fine, but nothing special. I miss my Obaachan in Kusanagi! She ran a store that sold only tofu and tofu-related things (including shira-ae like this, but with more ingredients and much better, which she would sometimes throw in my bag as a bonus) and used an abacus to calculate the total price. The tofu there was great.
The sauce was good, a little spicy though. I didn't have the patience to drain the tofu as long as I should have, and so it seemed a little wet when it came out of the oven. I couldn't find broccolini at the store, so just used normal broccoli. I used sesame oil instead of peanut oil, because sesame is the best. I also subbed pumpkin seeds for cashews, which I don't particularly like. I think this salad would be ok with a different brand of udon (don't get Kame), but I won't save it. The shira-ae was fine, but not that exciting... it seems a little lacking to just have spinach. If I were making an -ae of some sort, it would be goma-ae with sesame paste.
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