Tofu Spring Rolls

My favorite restaurant in Pittsburgh, somewhat regrettably, is Pho Minh on Penn Avenue in Garfield. It is a family-run Vietnamese joint with excellent food, and it’s BYOB. While I’ve always dined there without incident, I have heard stories of many insane things happening there. Here is the building. I did not take this picture.

My friend Matt tells a story about walking by Pho Minh with a friend of his, who was saying that she thought the place was shady. Matt responded, “Come on, it isn’t that bad,” just as someone was thrown up against the window inside. I really like Pho Minh.

But none of this is the point. The point is that they have some of the best tofu spring rolls I have ever had, and I decided to try to replicate them.

For this, you will need:

About a ½ pound of extra firm tofu
Hoisin sauce
Soy sauce
Spring roll wrappers
Mai fun rice noodles, cooked according to package directions and then chopped
Cucumbers, cut into very thin planks
Carrots, grated
Cilantro, chopped
Spinach
Sesame seeds (optional)

Start by pressing the tofu and cutting it into slabs about a half inch thick, a half inch wide and two inches long. You can always cut them smaller after cooking them; you just don’t want them to fall apart in the pan. Brush them with hoisin sauce and start heating a skillet—we’re going to sear them.

Once the skillet is nice and hot (it’s important that it be dry, so make sure to use a nonstick pan), throw your tofu pieces in and let them cook. This caused a ridiculous amount of smoke in my kitchen, so I turned on the stove fan. It didn’t help much, eventually Rob came down and threw the back door open and glared at me, shivering. Whatever, the tofu was good.

Don’t move it around too much, but flip after a few minutes. There’s really no science to this, just keep your eye on it. Once it’s all cooked, put the pieces on a plate and pop them in the fridge to cool.

Now, get a large bowl of hot water—not so hot you can’t stick your hands in it, but hot nonetheless. Take one spring roll wrapper and submerge it in the water until it gets pliable and sticky. Spread it on your work surface and top with a few tofu slabs, some noodles, cucumber, carrots, lots of cilantro and a few leaves of spinach, just for crunch. Roll the bottom part over the pile of goodness and then fold the sides in and roll all the way up. You’ll have to work quickly, as the spring roll wrappers might get a little gunky. This takes a bit of practice, but you’ll get the hang of it.

MMMHMMM.

Here is the inside:

For the dipping sauce, I just mixed hoisin sauce with soy sauce to my taste, and then added some sesame seeds for garnish. This was not nearly as good as Pho Minh’s, but I have no idea what is in theirs. I know, if I were smart, I’d have put it in a light colored bowl so you could see it. I really need some new dishes.

All in all, it was a good meal, although I couldn’t eat nearly as many of them as I thought I could. Rob (who also loves Pho Minh, but he digs the beef soup thing) gave it eight hot dogs.

Last week I hosted an Italian Night at my house with some wonderful friends from college. There was a ton of food that I didn’t get pictures or recipes for, so I’m just going to document the two that I either made or watched be made. (Watched be made? That can’t be grammatically correct.)

I decided to make eggplant parmesan for this. For anyone who has ever made eggplant parmesan, you’re probably cringing right now. It’s an incredibly labor intensive process that generally sucks, and if you mess up the slightest thing, your eggplant sucks. Every time I make it I usually end up standing in front of the stove with a spatula in hand and tears in my eyes. This time was no exception.

Eggplant Parmesan

What you’ll need:
Two medium-to-large eggplants
Flour
Eggs
Dry breadcrumbs (Some people mix grated parmesan in with this, some don’t. Your call.)
Tomato sauce (I used the last of my homemade stuff, but you can definitely use the jarred kind. Interestingly, my cousin Joe came for this meal and recognized the sauce as our grandmother’s recipe, which touched me a little. I may not be as good a cook as Nana, but at least I can make her sauce!)
Grated parmesan
1 pound of fresh mozzarella, thinly sliced
Oil for frying
Basil
Patience
An appetite for punishment

Slice the eggplant into about ½-inch thick slices. Lay them in a single layer on some cookie sheets and sprinkle very generously with salt. Eggplant has lots of bitter juices, and this technique, known as “weeping,” will help to draw them out. Let them sit for an hour. Take a load off! You’ve had a hard day, and it’s only gonna get worse.

After an hour, take note of all the bitter juices that have wept from the eggplant. Ew! Rinse each slice thoroughly with cold water and pat it dry. You are now already beginning to regret making eggplant.

Once it’s all dry, set up an assembly line: flour in one dish, beaten eggs in another, breadcrumbs in the third. Heat an inch of vegetable oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat until it’s really, really hot. I don’t have a thermometer, so I use the water trick that I mentioned before—flick some water at the oil and if it bubbles immediately, you’re all set. Take a slice of eggplant, dredge it in the flour, then the eggs, then the breadcrumbs, then drop it in the oil. “That was easy!” you think. Then you look at the remaining slices to be fried, and inside you, something may snap. Just a warning. So, eggplant really only takes about a minute and a half on each side, and you can do a few slices at once. Just be careful not to overcrowd the pan because too many slices will drop the temperature of the oil and it won’t cook properly. So a minute and a half on each side and then drain on paper towels.

By the time you’re done, your stove will be a mess and you may have wept. But that’s okay! You’re in the home stretch! Spray a 13×9 pan with cooking spray and then pour a little sauce in the bottom (to keep the eggplant from sticking.) Layer slices of fried eggplant, topped with sauce, lots of grated parm, and the sliced mozzarella. Continue layering until all eggplant is covered. Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes. Sprinkle with fresh basil and eat the fruits of your labors. You deserve it.

This picture sucks, and the reason is that I forgot to get a picture before everyone started eating, and I was all, “Rob, get in here and take a picture of this!” and he looked at me with a mouthful of food and a belly full of booze like he didn’t even know who I was. So I took it, and yes, it sucks.

You know what didn’t suck? Didn’t suck at all? Ali’s appetizer.

Ali’s Totally Bitchin’ Pita-Veggie-Cheese Masterpiece

She started with a package of pitas, and cut them into triangles. She drizzled them with olive oil and sprinkled garlic powder, oregano and pepper, and baked them at 325 for about 15 minutes or until they started to get brown and crispy (or until she finished her glass of wine and remembered, “Ooh! I have food in the oven.”)

She took the pita chips out and topped them with the following:
One box of frozen spinach, thawed
Artichoke hearts
Sliced mushrooms
Diced zucchini
Roasted red peppers
Shredded cheese mix of mozzarella and provolone

She put them back in the oven for another 10 minutes or so, until the cheese had melted. Then she put them on my coffee table where they proceeded to be devoured. Again, I didn’t manage to get a picture until people had already jumped on and Rob’s hands were full of pita, so you’re stuck with this. Use your imagination!

So good!

Then we filled our already full bellies with Kacyn’s tiramisu and Sher’s Italian love cake, neither of which I managed to get a picture of because I was stuffing my face. I’m really inefficient.

Anyway, onto the ratings. During the meal, I looked over at Rob’s plate. He had plenty of Megan’s delicious spinach lasagna, of Ali’s pita chips, of bread…but no eggplant. I’m like, “Dude, eat the eggplant!” to which he replied, “Hell no!”
I got him to take a bite, which he admitted “wasn’t too bad,” and that he “liked it” but that was it.
I caught Joe picking at Ali’s appetizer long after everyone else had left, and he ended up taking it home in a Tupperware container.
Thus, I give everything 10 hot dogs and to Rob I say, “pfffffttttt!”

Oh and James, bless his heart, made this awesome-looking casserole of polenta, peppers and sausage. I couldn’t try it, because I don’t eat meat (just fish) but it looked really, really good. Unfortunately, this is the only picture I have of it:

It was late in the night and the wine bottles were empty. What can I say?