Scrambled tofu with cooking left-overs
Where left-overs from your past days recipes suddenly become first class ingredients for an ad-hoc small dish, side, or a companion for rice, pasta, or other cereal.
Serves: 2 as a light dish, 3-4 as a small side or mixed with cereals (pasta, rice, …)
Preparation: 10 minutes
Cooking: 15 minutes
Although there’s a recipe below, the main message of this article is not the recipe itself. It’s about not sending cooking left-overs to the waste. I was raised with the idea that what’s left in the plate of the end of the meal shall not go to the waste (and I’m not alone to write so). As an adult who cooks, I extended the idea to left-overs of preparing meals, too. When I see someone trashes parts of vegetables which could make great sides, I’m worried. When I see someone trashes left-overs of a dish I prepared, I’m boiling with anger — and they no longer deserve what I cook.
Cooking with left-overs reminds me of the book Instructions to the Cook (Tenzo Kyōkun / 典座教訓) written by Japanese philosopher Dōgen. In this short text, the author invites the cooker to make use of whatever ingredients are available, and to cook them with an equal respect — be they fine ingredients or low-quality ones. Add to this reading my appetite for experiments, and you obtain unexpected dishes, like sauté rice with eggplant and lupin skins. Yes, lupin skins, often discarded, can be turned into great ingredients, or even baked as chips.
Should you eat vegetables and fruits skin?
Until all fruits and vegetables come from organic crops, the question will persist: is it safe to eat their skin? There are fruits and vegetables whose skin or peel is not edible, and they’re out of the equation. Apple, pear, cucumber, zucchini, eggplant, kiwi, peach, … — you can eat the skin of all of these. While the skin often contains valuable nutrients, sometimes in greater concentration than the rest of the fruit or vegetable, it also contains pesticides, also in greater concentration. If possible (regarding their availability and your budget), buy organic food when you will eat the skin. You’ve likely eaten non-organic food for years, and don’t have symptoms of intoxication. Still, there are growing concerns regarding the bioaccumulation of chemicals along the food chain. Although eating vegan lowers the amount of chemicals in your plate (because animals are bioaccumulating them from plants), it doesn’t mean it’s 100% safe. Nothing is ever 100% safe anyway.
Ingredients
200 g firm tofu1
Eggplant skin ~ 87 g
Tomato ~ 87 g (yes, same as above; it’s a coincidence)
Basil plant (I saved 4 g from the plant I had)
Half an onion ~ 140 g
6 garlic cloves ~ 21 g
6 soup spoons of olive oil
1 pinch of salt
Ground black pepper as topping
Preparation
This recipe requires very little preparation from you, because most of the ingredients are expected to have been already washed and/or peeled. The main job is to grate the tofu. Start with the fork teeth edge, then smash the last pieces with the utensil. Once you’re done with this, you can start heating your cookware; the remaining steps are quick to proceed with.
Grate the tofu with a fork until it is shrunk into very thin pieces
Chop the tomato pieces
Cut stems out of the basil plant, saving what looks still edible (in my case I just obtained 4 g)
Chop the onion
Peel the garlic cloves, then chop
Chop the eggplant skin strips in their width; if ever they’re larger than 4 cm, consider cutting them in half length-wise first
Cooking
I used a non-stick deep-sided pan, as I didn’t need to heat the ingredients too strong, and the quantity wouldn’t have filled my stainless steel deep-sided pan. As mentioned in the Preparation steps, you can start heating your cookware when you’ve grated the tofu. If you’re unsure about how fast you chop, complete Preparation steps before moving to these below.
Heat the deep-sided pan to medium flame/power
Add 3 soup spoons of oil; wait for it to heat
Add onion, garlic, basil; cover for 5 minutes
Stir, add chopped eggplant skin; cover for 5 minutes
Add 3 soup spoons of oil and 1 pinch of salt; stir
Add grated tofu and chopped tomato; stir for 2 minutes
Sprinkle ground pepper before serving
You can serve this right away, or keep it for later in your fridge, or your freezer. I enjoyed one serving as is, and another one with pasta — both were great. You can add some of this 3-ingredient substitute to grated cheese. Unfortunately, the basil quantity didn’t help it shine. I didn’t smell it, nor did I taste it, also because the stems are not fragrant compared to the leaves. I could have added dried basil or oregano with the first soup spoons of olive oil. As stated in the beginning of the article, this recipe is more to give an idea of which left-overs to use, and how, rather than set a fixed recipe.
Enjoy!
If you’ve tried the recipe, and would like to comment - whether you loved it, or hated it - please do so. I’m welcoming ideas, even if these are non-vegan recipes I’ll have the challenge to “veganize”.
Here’s a tip before you go
As you read above, the few grams of basil had no tasting effect. The quantity was indeed so small that it didn’t shine among the other ingredients. It could have had more presence if I had added as a last cooking step; it was however safer to cook it longer, since the plant started to age in my fridge. Still (and this is the tip), add whatever is left to your ingredients list — provided they tag along well. Even if you have ingredients whose quantity won’t make a taste difference in the dish, like the basil in the present case, use them. You may not taste the difference, though they’ll still bring micro and macro-nutrients (hello, fibers!) your body will put to good use. Unless you can compost edible left-overs, remember they better fit into your stomach.
Be cautious: tofu is made from soy, which is a known allergen
I always make scrambled tofu with random leftovers! Such a classic :)