Hot and sweet stir fry (aka The Jojo – she’s so hot and sweet)

This dish is in fact sweet and sour, with only optional hotness, but Jojo (aka the one who “forced” me into my almost-vegetarian lifestyle) can’t tell the difference between sweet and sour. The whole complexity of the flavour layering is lost on her (yet I continue to use her flawed taste buds as my point of reference for recipe usability.)

The reason why I love this dish is the way in which the tofu is prepared. It ends up with a nice meaty texture and look.

Here’s what your going to need to make The Jojo:

1 cup of quinoa

½ cup of unseasoned rice wine vinegar

2 tbsp of toasted sesame oil

2 tbsp of brown sugar

1 diced yellow onion

2 garlic cloves

1 inch piece of ginger

1 package of extra firm tofu

1 head of broccoli

1 yellow pepper

1 red pepper

Tabasco sauce

Dash of olive oil

Start off my preparing your ingredients. This dish has a rustic homemade feel to it, so roughly chop your onions and then wash and cut your broccoli. As for the peppers, cut them into ½ inch thick strips. I also like to use a filet knife to get rid of all that bitter membrane, but simply discarding the seeds and trimming them is sufficient. It’s also a good idea to start the quinoa at this point. Cook the quinoa like you would rice - using a 2:1 ration of water to quinoa.

Add a dash of olive oil to a deep frying pan. Add the onions and fry them until they start browning. Press the garlic cloves into the onions and mix with a wooden spoon. You don’t want to burn the garlic, so have the ginger, rice wine vinegar and sesame oil ready – they go in next.

I personally like to grate my ginger, with a handheld grater, right into the frying pan. It really brings out the flavor of the ginger if you do this. But, if standing over a hot frying pan grating ginger is not your thing, you can finely dice it before hand.

Once you’ve added the ginger, pour in the rice wine vinegar and sesame oil. Mix it all together. Throw in the brown sugar, and let that melt. I like to taste everything at this point, and add either more sugar or vinegar as needed. You are trying to achieve a sour taste that becomes sweet.

Once satisfied with the taste, add about 3 splashes of Tabasco sauce just to give it a little kick. Now take your tofu and rip off one inch chunks. I use a third of the tofu at a time, and try to make the chunks more or less even sized. The idea behind ripping instead of cutting is that the ripped pieces have a meatier, rougher texture about them. When tofu is sliced it looks too clean.

Lower the heat to medium-low, and cover. Let the tofu absorb the flavours for about 15 minutes. Add the broccoli and peppers, mix everything together, then re-cover and cook another 5-7 minutes. There’s nothing worse than overcooked vegetables, so keep your eye on them.

Once the vegetables are cooked the stir-fry is done! Serve by ladling quinoa on a plate and then adding the stir-fry on top. I also spoon out a little of the sauce onto each plate. Eat and enjoy!

Serves 4.