THS CWT SATAYMOODLESALAD 2017 12 07

Hey everybody, Chef Trevor Littlejohn here, Chef de Partie of Benchmark Restaurant at

Canadian Food and Wine Institute, and today we're here at Winekeller Restaurant and I'm

going to make you a vegan orange tofu satay noodle salad. So let's get started cooking with Trevor

In front of us today, we've got a wide variety of ingredients

We've got some Asian influence, we've got a little bit of Japanese influence, and we're

using rice noodles today. Now rice noodles are a gluten-free alternative that you can use in any noodle or pasta salad

Today I'm using a vermicelli version, so very thin, almost linguine-like. And all I've done to prepare those and get them ready for our noodle salad is I've literally

submerged them in boiling water for two minutes and then rinsed them under cold water and

let them sit. And unlike our lessons with regular pasta, rice does not give a lot of starch off of

it, so we don't really need to preserve the starch in these noodles because we're going

to bind it with a really nice peanut dressing afterwards. So to start with, we're going to use our tofu

And today we're using extra firm tofu because we want to make the texture of chicken when

we're done with it. And all we need to do to get this ready for our preparation today is just a few simple techniques

Because it's already a square and a flat surface, we don't have to worry about squaring it up

But all we want to do is make one centimeter slices out of that tofu

And tofu is a soybean product. It's a really good alternative to people who want to have protein in their diet and don't

really want to eat meat. So we're just going to make each of these slices

We're going to turn them into kind of like chicken strip pieces, if you will

Now once we've got our tofu in our strips, we kind of want to drain it and press out

any of the extra moisture that's in there. Because when you buy tofu from the grocery store, it comes in a little bit of a liquid

to help preserve it while it's sitting on the shelf. So all we want to do is on a plate lined with a little bit of paper towel, we just want

to place all those strips on there. This is where it's very important to keep them even

Because what we're going to do is we're going to put another piece of brown paper towel

on top. Don't worry if you're at home and you don't have brown paper towel, your regular bounty

will work just as good. We're going to take another plate, something heavy, and all you want to do is put that

extra object on top, give it a little bit of a press, and you're just going to set that

to the side for about 10 minutes while we work with the rest of the ingredients

While our tofu is pressing, we are going to make our dressing for our noodle salad

We're going to work with one stainless steel bowl and one frying pan for this entire recipe

So cleanup, super easy. For our dressing, we are going to be using some organic, smooth peanut butter

And when you work with organic peanut butter, don't be afraid when you open it. There's always going to be a slick of oil on the top of the jar

And all it takes to get that away is just a quick stir of the jar or a little trick

that you can use is keep it in the refrigerator. I know it sounds weird, but trust me, when you move to organic peanut butter, it makes

the texture that much better. So we're going to start with one half cup into our bowl

Next, we're just going to take some plain old Jane Old water, and that water is just

going to help us loosen up that peanut butter. Next, we've got a quarter of a cup freshly squeezed orange juice

You don't want to use concentrated orange juice here, because when they concentrate

orange juice, they actually add hidden sugars into it that are really bad for your diet

Next, we've got a little bit of tamari. Now, tamari is a soy sauce that is gluten-free, and it is processed differently so that we

extract only the natural fermented flavors from the soybean. So when you're looking for a healthy alternative to soy sauce and you don't want to use soya

sauce, which is hydrolyzed soy protein, which is very, very bad, it's actually chemically

treated, so we're just going to add two tablespoons of that in

We're going to add in one tablespoon of rice vinegar, and we're going to add just the smallest

teaspoon of sriracha. Now, sriracha is a garlic chili paste that is found lots of times in any style of Asian cooking

It's actually become quite popular as a condiment here in North America, but I'm going to use

it to add just a little bit of that subtle heat to our peanut dressing

Finally, for a little bit of sweetness, we're going to use some honey

I always look for organic honey or a local honey where you know that the beekeeper has

done his job properly and he hasn't added any sort of chemicals or extra agents into

that honey. And this honey is actually from our very own apiary at Niagara College

So once I have all our ingredients in there, it kind of looks like a weirdo mess, we're

just going to add a squeeze of fresh lime juice in there, and that's from half a lime

And then using a whisk, you're just going to whisk all of that together

And you're going to want to at this point, just take a spoon and just give it a little taste

You're looking for there to be a balance of sweetness, spice, a little bit of creaminess

from the peanut butter, and there definitely should be some citrus flavor in there from the lime

You should just get a hint of sweetness coming through from the honey. This is your chance to adjust

If you need to add some salt and pepper, this is the perfect time to do so

I think I'm good on salt because of the tamari, but I am just going to add a little bit of

pepper because I want a little bit more heat in that dressing

Okay, so just like a tofu, we're going to let that dressing sit for a couple minutes

and we're just going to let all those flavors marry together. And while that's happening, there's a couple things we need to deal with

So what I have here to finish off the garnish for our noodle salad is I have two scallions

that I've just kind of chopped on the bias. Now a scallion is a fun chef term for a green onion

Next we're going to use a form of Chinese cabbage called bok choy

I like bok choy because it holds up really well when we're doing a marinated salad

And next we have cilantro. Now cilantro is a very fresh, very citrusy flavor that will lend itself very well to

this salad, and it goes very well with peanut butter. So if you're one of those people that doesn't like cilantro, believe me, you do not have

to add it to this dish. For us today, we're just going to use three tablespoons, okay

We just want to take away these woody stems. And a lot of times people make mistakes with delicate herbs, and they take their knife

and they bat it down on the table, and they go crazy over the herbs

And what they're actually doing is mushing the oils out of those herbs, and they end

up as this big green spot on your cutting board. And that big green spot has all the flavor from your herbs

So what we want to do is just lightly slice them. We don't want to bruise them

We just want to kind of chop them up without ruining their delicate structure

I just give it a quarter turn, and I do the same thing

And what also helps when you're chopping up a delicate herb like cilantro is a very, very

very sharp knife. You don't want to start going at delicate herbs with a dull knife because the dull blade

itself will then actually help with that mashing into the cutting board motion, and we absolutely

do not want that. Once you have all your cilantro chopped, you should be able to move it away from where

you were cutting it, and there should be no green spot on your board. Then all we're going to do is bring our dressing back down, and we're going to add all that

cilantro in there. Our next vegetable for our salad is a carrot. Now you might be wondering, Trevor, I never ever see a square carrot in my entire life

I've already squared off this vegetable because I'm going to teach you a new cut today, and

that is a julienne. And that is what we in the chef world use as our little perfect matchstick cut

And all we need to do to do that is with a very perfectly squared vegetable, we just

want to make thin slices out of that carrot. And we want to work a bit slow here

Remember, there's no race involved, but you want to make sure each little piece is exactly

the same size. And it's going to add a really dynamic, interesting look to our noodle salad, and it's also going

to provide us some texture. Now, a lot of people are afraid of julienne because they always say you've got to stack

it up like this and cut them all like that. Well that gets really rocky and awkward if we're going to do a big stack like this

What I like to do is actually take a couple seconds and lay them all out flat on my cutting board

And just like I'm always telling you, now, instead of that big, rocky, awkward surface

we have one flat surface to julienne. And you're just going to take your knife and rocking back and forth slowly, you're going

to start to see those matchstick pieces fall away

And just like that, you have matchsticks of perfectly julienned carrot. And those are going to provide an amazing textural note in your salad

And I'm just going to add that into our peanut dressing and let those carrots start marinating

in with that cilantro. Next, we're going to just add in our bok choy cabbage

And we're not going to kind of stir that in, we're just going to let that sit there for

the minute. Now, I've peeled a one inch piece of ginger here, okay

It's about two centimeters thick by one inch tall. Ginger's very strong, very pungent, and it almost comes across as spicy if you add too much

So just be careful as to how much ginger you add if you're not someone who likes a lot of spice

Today, we're going to use one clove of super fresh garlic. And I'm going to use my handy dandy mincing tool, my rasp, and I'm just going to grate

that garlic into a paste. And I'm going to do the same thing with my ginger

The good thing about the rasp is it catches all those fibers and gives you just the beautiful

ginger pulp. Using our knife, we're just going to pick all that ginger and garlic up off our cutting

board, making sure to get all the beautiful oils that came out of it. And we're just going to add that into our salad

Now, while all our ingredients are in there, it's time for us to finish dealing with our tofu

So we've let it sit, and we've let it press for about 10 minutes while we've dealt with all our other ingredients

We're just going to lift that plate off, and you'll see quite a bit of moisture has actually

leached out of the tofu. And that's all moisture we don't want, because when we fry them, we want to get a golden

crispy brown outside on the tofu, and having extra moisture in there won't allow us to

do that. So we're just going to take off that paper towel

Now what we're going to do is like you would do with any other type of protein

We're just going to season liberally with salt and pepper on both sides

And then we're going to take two tablespoons of olive oil and go to our frying pan

We're going to let our frying pan come to a medium-high heat. We're going to add our two tablespoons of olive oil in, and we're just going to let

that heat up, but we're not going to let it smoke, because when we let it smoke, that's

going to be burning our oil, and it's going to give us a bitter taste in our tofu

Once the oil gets nice and hot, we're just going to start searing off our tofu in stages

Just like everything else that you do when you're frying, you don't want to overcrowd

the pan. And once you see a little bit of browning start to occur on the bottom, you know it's

time to flip. And once it's browned on both sides, you're going to take a plate lined with fresh paper

towel, and you're just going to drain off any excess olive oil from that tofu

Because one thing you need to remember about tofu is it's a lot like a sponge, so it's

going to absorb a lot. So if we just were to add this tofu right to our salad, we would end up with really

soggy tofu. And we don't want that. We want crispy, dry tofu that's going to lend itself very well to our salad

So I'm just going in with my last batch now. So we're just going to let that cool for a couple minutes while we finish dealing with

the noodles for our noodle salad. And all we want to do is add our prepared noodles, just give them a mix around in that

little bit of water you left in there, just to make sure they're not sticking. And you're going to add those straight in to your bowl

Then taking your tongs, we just want to gently toss all those ingredients together

So now you've got the saltiness of the peanut butter. You've got the freshness from the ginger and the garlic and the lime

You've got the crunchy carrots, the crunchy cabbage are all coming together to make one

beautiful, delicious salad. We've got the fragrance of the cilantro in there

Once everything is all mixed and incorporated, you just want to add your drained tofu

And it's good to just add it all right in there because we want to get as much dressing on that tofu as possible

Because remember, tofu is like a sponge. So anything we add to it for flavor, it's going to soak up

So we want to make sure we get that tofu right in there. And now we just want to continue to mix

And just like that, you are ready to go to the plate

And then, just to finish, we're going to take those green onions that we worked with off

the beginning, and we're just going to sprinkle some of those on top

There you have it. Super fresh, wonderfully textured, and interestingly spiced tofu noodle salad with orange and peanut. Enjoy