Coconut Curry Tofu Stew

I’ve been on a bit of a rice kick recently, because it’s so cheap and it's also an easy way to bulk out a lot of flavors. Here’s a less rice-centric, rice friendly, vegan option, good for spicing up those cold winter days.

This is surely a recipe from somewhere legit, but it came to me on a lineless index card so I’m going to pass it on without compunction. I’m pretty sure my mom offered this up one time – back in my stricter veggie days – as a quaintly classic (i.e. includes both tofu and ethnic-ness) vegetarian option. My mother is generally non-veggie, but she tries for me. I just found this particular recipe among my stash of recipes-from-home, which get sent on index cards and stored in a too-small envelope among my cook books. I couldn’t actually remember how it came out, but I figured it must have been alright if I requested indexing it. It’s been cold down here, too, and curry stew sounded appropriate. Also the length of cook time was appealing (about 20 min tops). Turns out – it’s great! Nothing earth changing, but a really solid curry with the utmost ease.

Coconut Curry Tofu Stew

2 bunches scallions

1 14 oz can (light) coconut milk

3-4 tbsp soy sauce/Bragg’s

½ tsp brown sugar

1 ½ tsp curry powder

1 tsp minced fresh ginger

1-2 tsp chili paste with garlic

1 lb extra firm tofu (or one nearly lb package), cut into bite-sized cubes

4 ripe plumb tomatoes, coarsely chopped

1 yellow or red bell pepper, thinly sliced

¼ lb mushrooms, stemmed and sliced

4 cups coarsely chopped bok choy or spinach

one: Cut scallion whites and about 2 in of green diagonally into slices. Set aside.

two: Combine coconut milk with the next 5 ingredients in a large pot or pan. Bering to a boil over medium heat. Add tofu, tomatoes, peppers and mushrooms. Cover and cook 5 min. Add greens, cover and cook, stirring occasionally, another 5 min or until veggies are cooked to your liking.

three: Serve, garnished with scallions, over rice or noodles.

A few notes:

The recipe apparently calls for light coconut milk but I went right ahead and used the regular, and it is, of course, fine. Prolly tastes better – just makes you fatter.

I used the bigger amount of all of the range ingredients – and I did half soy sauce and half Bragg’s.

I couldn’t find any scallions at the grocery, so I used two medium sized leeks and put them in with the other veggies at the beginning. This was good.

Lastly, this is awesome over rice, especially because it is fairly liquid-y, and the rice soaks it up, but I’m sure it would be equally awesome over buckwheat or regular soba noodles. Let me know.