Tofu, greens, and rice

In Costa Rica, I had been exposed to a lot of coconut, passion fruit, and mosquitoes, to name a few! I remember coming up with this menu in the car, while traversing over the rough landscape of the inland of Costa Rica. The idea really started with the rice (which originally had fresh passion fruit), and then my mind took it from there.

Green tea and tamarind marinated and broiled tofu

Chinese broccoli with hoisin sauce

Coconut and scallion jasmine rice

Organic firm tofu marinated overnight in a mixture of pure tamarind puree, orange juice, apple cider vinegar, Chinese five-spice powder, maple syrup, Braggs amino acids, and green tea. A note about Chinese five-spice: the blend of spices is apparently based upon the Chinese philosophy of balancing yin and yang in food. The most common combination is star anise, cloves, cinnamon, Sichuan pepper, and fennel seed. It is quite fragrant. After marinating overnight, the tofu was broiled in a high temp oven, in this case, the pizza oven, and the marinade was reserved for a sauce to top the tofu while serving. I had the foresight to know that the tofu would be a bit dry, although flavorful, after it's encounter with high heat. The sauce was simply the marinade plus a touch of extra-virgin olive oil and sesame oil. Bite-sized Chinese broccoli was blanched and tossed with hoisin sauce and white pepper. And the jasmine rice was steamed with a blend of coconut milk, coconut water, and water (.5:.25:1.25 respective ratios for 2 cups of rice). Each component imparted a unique and subtle flavor and married along nicely.