Well, a few weeks ago I was finally able to dive into this cookbook and I was ready to make a Southern style dinner. I quickly learned that the common theme for most of these dishes are saucy and spicy. There is also a lot of chatter on how important the flavouring for each dish is by using many specific spices. There are no substitutes.
I finally decided to try making my own BBQ sauce, a type of 'rub' for tofu, buttermilk biscuits and bacun.
Here is a quick shot of all the spices and other ingredients I needed for the rub and BBQ sauce only.
I started with the BBQ sauce since it would take the longest. One ingredient that is not a favourite amongst our household (actually, M. hates the texture) is that we needed a medium sized onion. I know how important the flavouring that onions bring to a traditional BBQ recipe so instead of dicing them as the recipe called for I grated the onion with my cheese grater. Worked wonderfully!
Here is the grated onion, butter and minced garlic.
Here is the first set of spices I needed to add to the mixture: thyme, garlic powder and black pepper.
After all the spices were added, I then added whiskey, light brown sugar, apple cider vinegar, water, 24oz bottle of ketchup, tamari, mustard, liquid smoke, chipotle powder and worcestershire sauce. Now, we need to let it simmer for an hour!
Time to make the Memphis Style dry rub for the tofu.
Here are the spices I used: chipotle powder, sweet and smoked paprika, garlic powder, sea salt, cumin, cinnamon, ground ginger, black pepper, brown sugar and dried oregano. Phew!
I had to cut two blocks of organic tofu in thicker pieces.
Here are shots of the dry rub on the tofu. What is great about this recipe is that you can make it last minute because the rub is rich in flavour not like when you need to marinate tofu for hours to absorb the flavouring.
Now that the tofu is prepared and the BBQ sauce is simmering, I now need to make the bacun.
This cookbook had a recipe for smoked coconut bacun. I needed unsweetened coconut flakes, maple syrup, tamari, worcestershire sauce, canola oil and liquid smoke mixed in and ready for the oven. They also offered a way to smoke the coconut (instead of using liquid smoke) if you had a smoker. I wish I had a smoker!!! My friend in Calgary who is also a vegetarian owns a smoker and she uses it frequently. This cookbook provides alternate ways to use a grill vs smoker vs oven which is quite handy and gives me a bit of envy for all those who have a smoker. Ha!
While the bacun is baking in the oven, it's time to fry up the tofu! With no grill or smoker, this was my only option.
After the tofu has been 'grilling' for 5-8 minutes, I added some of the BBQ sauce.
While the tofu is marinating in the BBQ sauce, I started on the 3-2-1 buttermilk drop biscuits. It was probably the simplest of all the recipes. I only needed flour, vegetable shortening, salt, baking powder and buttermilk.
VOILA! The results!
The tofu was spicy and saucy, I also made some roasted potatoes and topped it with the bacun and I also roasted some asparagus.
Everything tasted phenomenal. The BBQ sauce is amazing. I had some left over and sanitized a jam jar to keep the rest of the BBQ sauce. The only downer from this dinner was the biscuit. It was tasteless and I am not sure why. It had a very good texture and I love the rustic look of them but next time, I will add some marble cheese.
The BBQ sauce made another appearance the next night on some naked tofu and it was just as good without the rub just less spicy.
It's really too bad that I can't share the recipes specifically with you but, I highly recommend this cookbook. It's clear, concise, achievable and houses a very good variety of recipes including famous southern drinks like Horchata. As long as you love spice, this is the cookbook for you!
Note: I actually made a couple more recipes from this book over the past week: a curried cauliflower soup and some fried 'chicken' that were both winner recipes in this household. I am already planning to try a dessert, the no-bake chipotle chocolate tart next week! This cookbook is definitely one of my favourites.
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