Crispy tofu

My most recent pregnancy cravings have been for Asian food - namely dumplings and tofu, not necessarily together.  After a delightful visit to Li Ming's Global Mart, a local Asian food supermarket, I came home with many goodies including tofu and about four different types of frozen dumplings.

Tonight hubby was off to a basketball game with his buddies, which meant dinner on my own.  I decided that I'd prepare a tofu dish since hubby won't even get near the stuff.

The funny thing is that I searched through about five different cookbooks at our house, including a vegetarian one, and only came up with one recipe (which wasn't very appealing). I took my search to the web.

There I found "Crispy Tofu with Shiitakes and Chorizo." I'm far from a vegetarian - so forgoing meat in this dish was not my goal. Also, a friend of mine said that tofu is versatile because it takes on the flavor of whatever you cook it with. Chorizo and Shiitakes sound lovely, so there you have it.

Here's the final product - easy and quick to cook. The recipe calls for extra-firm tofu (which would have been better than the medium-firm tofu I had on hand), shiitake mushroom caps, chorizo, scallions, chicken stock/broth, soy sauce and dry sherry (of which I had none, so I substituted water).

Next time I will also cut the tofu even thinner, or press it for 30 minutes prior to cooking. I also might prepare a little more sauce. Overall, this was a winning recipe for a tofu first timer.