A Carnivore's Guide to Tofu

Special Guest Emma Court takes over This Needs Hot Sauce

Abigail’s in California, tasting wine and escaping humidity. Take it away, Emma.

Hi everyone! I’m Emma, and I’m honored to host the inaugural guest post of This Needs Hot Sauce. A little about me: I’m a Queens girl, like Abigail -- we met in the sixth grade, went to high school together, somehow turned a class debate about the Civil War into an actual fight, and the rest is history!

I’m a health care reporter for MarketWatch, where I write about business, policy and how health subjects like nutrition affect you! Sometimes, I even dabble in food writing. My favorite mainstream hot sauce is Cholula, my favorite restaurant hot sauce is at Tina’s Place in Bushwick and my favorite random hot sauce find is Melinda's Scotch Bonnet Hot Sauce (which, full disclosure, my boyfriend found but I am very tempted to take credit!). For any future thoughts on food and/or health care stocks (lol), feel free to follow me on Twitter :)

Here we go:

Something to cook: Eating fast + efficiently + on the cheap

I know Abigail promised you all the meat recipes this week, but here’s a non-vegetarian’s tofu plug: it can sit for a really long time in the fridge without going bad, it’s cheap and when handled properly, it’s delicious. Also, protein! I used to never understand how to cook it until a (now-former) coworker gave me some great directions, which I abide to to this day!

To summarize, unlike meat, tofu should be cooked a lot, with a strong sauce, because it’s porous and doesn’t retain flavor as well. Here are the key rules, pasted from my coworker’s recommendations:

Open the tofu. Drain it. Slice it about 0.8 cm thick.

Take a clean fabric kitchen towel and layer the tofu between towel layers, then press it with you hands to remove more water.

Fry, grill or bake the tofu until brown. Make sure to apply oil or other fat.

Apply flavor / sauce and mix into your dish.

My own sauce recommendations: freehand whatever combinations of soy sauce, fish sauce, lime/lemon, garlic, sesame oil or olive oil, that you like. I like this particular marinade a lot.

For fellow lunch-packers and slow cooker aficionados, this easy shredded chicken recipe is the absolute easiest and an MVP time-saver. I recommend adding to salads, tacos or really anything that could use some protein. It’s not the most flavorful, though, so definitely add some spices or a tasty dressing. I’m also a fan of this slow-cooker shakshuka recipe -- accompanied by a great crusty bread, of course -- and would note it’s excellent when having people over. You can also throw some chopped-up (cooked) sweet potato in for a fun spin on the original.

Also excellent is The New York Times’ shakshuka recipe, which is not a slow-cooker recipe and is pictured below -- we had it this past Father’s Day with a lovely Israeli salad on the side (the A is for my dad, Andy!).

Let’s talk about lentils, the ultimate kitchen cabinet staple. They’re affordable, a great source of protein and there are many kinds, so you can always switch it up. (Just don’t eat too many… beans are good for your heart, after all ;) For lunches I like these lentils with yogurt, spinach and basil, and this salad with mint and feta -- both are really hardy and last well throughout the week. These balsamic-thyme lentils are also great and very simple, but you may need to add some other ingredients to make it a meal.

I’ve been obsessed with za’atar lately and recently made Food52’s very good za’atar meatballs, subbing out the feta for parmesan because that’s what I had. I’d recommend making them in the oven, instead of a pan if possible, because the pan took forever. I always think of meatballs as being a pain to make, but they actually can be quite an easy and improvisational dinner, as long as you use the oven.

Another easy dinner, and an old favorite in my family, is steamed vegetables and rice, with shredded cheese and a soy sauce-butter mix on top (the sauce should be poured over hot, melting the cheese). It’s not quite a one-pot dinner, and does require a steamer, but it’s very intuitive, low-key to make and most importantly, yummy. I like to do steamed broccoli, carrots and cauliflower (recently tried sugar snap peas too, which were good) on top of brown rice, with whatever ratio of butter and soy sauce feels good to you (I tend to do 1 tbsp butter plus a freehanded amount of soy sauce).

The best summer dinner? Summer rolls, an all-in-one, healthy recipe that you don’t need to turn the oven on for. Get the rice paper wrappers at your local Asian grocer, and be sure to get really fresh vegetables to put inside (they carry the meal). Here’s my favorite summer roll recipe, and feel free to play with what’s inside, and be sure to make the peanut dipping sauce (we subbed cashew butter and it was just as good!). I also love a good zoodle (zucchini spiralized into noodles), trends be damned, and the peanut sauce works on those as well.

Since it’s officially CSA season, here are some thoughts on summer vegetables. CSA stands for community-supported agriculture, which translates to a share of produce from a local farm, often whatever they have leftover or too much of, and it’s an excellent way to support local businesses and do good for the environment. I’d encourage those considering a CSA to split a share, since it can be an overwhelming amount of food (and work).

But for those willing to spend a lot of time marshaling vegetables, you can discover a lot of great new vegetables and recipes, and it’s an easy way to cook your way out of a kitchen rut. If your CSA doesn’t label what’s what (mine didn’t!) this is a great guide; if you don’t have a CSA, maybe start a new summer tradition and buy a new vegetable each week. I loved discovering rainbow chard, delicata squash and sunchokes in the fall, which I respectively sauté, roast and roast. I also pickled cucumbers for the first time, using the pickling cucumbers that came in my CSA, which was super easy and fun.

And finally, lets talk appetizers. When having friends over for a meal, or trying to make an ordinary dinner a little special, I like to turn a fridge of odds and ends into a fancy appetizer platter. It’s easy and requires no additional purchases. Use things you probably have lying around anyway, including but not limited to: some form of nut/nuts, cheese (sliced up a bit), bread (the regular sandwich kind will do but something slightly nicer, like a sourdough bread or dinner roll, elevates everything), olives/pickles, fruit (like a sliced apple, or grapes), and some kind of condiment, like a dab of hummus or drizzle of mustard. Suddenly, when you spread it out on a plate or platter, it’s a feast! Dig in.

Something to order:

Here are some favorite New York City restaurants in Queens and Brooklyn, because Manhattan is overrated.

Queens:

KumGangSan, a Korean barbecue restaurant in Flushing, is a family favorite, one I can’t say enough good things about. Like many Korean barbecue spots, they bring out tons of little side dishes called banchan with tastes of things like kimchi, glass noodles and pickled radishes, and they cook the barbecue in front of you, on the table.

Kabab Cafe: It pains me to share this hidden gem in Astoria, but I’ll do it for the culture. This is a tiny Egyptian spot run by the chef, Ali, who chats you up and tells you what he’s going to make for you. It’s an experience that can’t be missed. A tad on the pricey side, so recommend visiting for a special occasion. If you can’t snag a table, try Mombar next door, which is also Egyptian food but a bigger space, and is (I believe) run by Ali’s cousins.

Pahal Zan, in Forest Hills: As Abigail’s mom would say, “this is not first-date food,” but it is delicious-- grilled meats, falafel and lots of fresh salads (try the carrot and fried eggplant ones). Good for take-out or sitting at the (teensy) counter.

This one’s not a restaurant, but it is quite the foodie experience: the Queens Night Market, held most Saturdays in the summer and fall, and located in the Queens Hall of Science’s parking lot in Corona, lets you sample all the best foods Queens has to offer. The Burmese food, pictured below, is my favorite; the line is usually one of the longest there, but it’s definitely worth it-- shockingly enough, there’s very little other Burmese food in NYC. The market started up relatively recently, and is quite popular, so be sure to bring cash and come early. Stop by the Lemon Ice King of Corona afterwards for dessert, if you somehow still have room.

Brooklyn:

For special occasions or when your parents are treating, Shalom Japan in South Williamsburg and Llama Inn in Williamsburg are reliably exceptional meals. Shalom Japan is Jewish cuisine meets Japanese food, including matzah ball ramen (!!!) and okonomiyaki with pastrami and sauerkraut on top. Llama Inn is mouth-watering Peruvian food, and truly the best-decorated restaurant I’ve ever seen; I recommend the bloody Mary and a seat on their roof.

(The hilarious sign below is in Shalom Japan’s bathroom).

I also lived in Bushwick for two-plus years, and think the food there is world-class, fight me on this one. Favorite spots are Archie’s Pizza, Amaranto, Sally Roots, Bunna Cafe, L’Imprimerie (best chocolate chip cookie anywhere, hands down), Roberta’s (some claim it’s overrated but I say not so!) and Los Hermanos.

Bars worth trekking out to Bushwick for include Yours Sincerely (cocktails on tap, need I say more?), the Topaz (excellent atmosphere and A+ birthday venue), Honey’s (mead in industrial Brooklyn) and Left Hand Path (tiki bar par excellence).

Something to read:

If you care about food, you need to care about immigration. For those who haven’t been closely following the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy, which has ripped about 2,300 immigrant children from their families, this is a good explainer.

Bookmarking the crap out of this list of make-ahead lunches (though I will skip the pasta ones as otherwise I’ll require a 2 p.m. nap).

An oldie, but still very very relevant, especially considering the whacko weather we’ve been having: My Zero-Waste Week: How I Eliminated Food Packaging at Home.

People are horrible on Twitter, and being thin is not a qualification for providing nutrition advice.

“How do I say no to drinks without offering an alternate date for drinks? How do I say ‘Can we not make this plan?’ without sounding like an asshole?”

A Festival Where Refugees Cook for New York: Read about this after the fact, but what an excellent idea. Did anyone check it out?

Your (and my) fave Queer Eye cutie, Antoni, is starting a fast-casual restaurant in NYC!!!!!

And cheers to summer foods.

This week, I’d love to know: What foods are on your summer bucket list? Reply to this email and let me know.

Mine are heirloom tomatoes (just sliced, maybe with some mozz), berries, the perfect refreshing beer on a hot summer day and allll the frozen desserts, featuring sno cones, homemade popsicles and a recent discovery, icebox cakes, an excellent summer roof party food.

Pickles can of course be consumed year-round -- and should be! -- but summer is definitely the best time of year to sample new ones. (I even did a round-up of local pickles when I was an intern in Dallas one summer. Please enjoy/cringe at the barrels of puns). Buy ‘em at the farmer’s market, buy ‘em at a street stand or fair or make ‘em yourself! And then, my New Yorkers, definitely check out the fantastic Pickle Day on the LES this fall (Horman’s Best are my personal best, and they have the lines to prove it).

I hope your summer is full of sunshine, barbecue and too-strong frozen drinks!
Signing off,

-Emma