Tofu & Veggies with Miso

Tonight's dinner plan went ever so slightly awry, but still managed to be quite tasty. We planned for some fried rice with red cabbage, onion, and carrots served with some of the squash & eggplant from the garden and tofu.

I cut up all the veggies, dicing those that were going to go with the rice. I cut nice slices of super-firm tofu, planed the eggplant in half ("Hansel" heirloom variety, very small fruit) as well as a "cue ball" squash from the garden, and the last patty-pan that was brought over with the CSA box from AJ. All of these were put on the cast iron grill pan and seared until they all had some nice, blackened stripes. Then these were transferred to a foil-covered pan and each item glazed with a mixture of mostly red miso, peanut oil, ginger vinaigrette, and maple syrup.

Once the Zojirushi beeped at us Andy fried up the onions with some ginger & garlic paste then added the carrots and cabbage. Once everything fried a little in peanut oil he tossed in the brown rice. At this time the broiler went on for the grilled veggies with miso glaze.

Here's the bit that went wrong. The veggies were broiling, the miso glaze was starting to bubble very nicely, and then we looked away. The rice was finished so we got out bowls, etc.

We should have pulled the pan out of the oven before getting bowls. In that very short time we went from bubbling miso glaze to blackened! I was pleased to find it was not truly burnt tasting, but it did not taste at all like the miso and maple combination that went on. It was more like a salty, slightly sweet, kind of barbecue char. More Korean than Japanese, although not really sweet enough to be truly Korean style.

Ever since having tofu with a miso paste broiled on the top at Medicine in San Francisco I've been experimenting with this combination. It was just so tasty, in fact it was the tastiest thing about the whole meal which was under whelming considering the built up. We'd far rather go to Cha Ya any time!