Hello there! I’m a day early with the Sunday Special because my last class is tomorrow. But first, I need to share something exciting. Along with the Beard Award nomination this year, Ever-Green Vietnamese was also a finalist for an award from the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP). It was my eighth time as a IACP contender, and I appreciated all those recognitions.
I couldn’t attend this year’s ceremony in NYC, but two friends, America’s Test Kitchen food editor Lan Lam and cookbook author Nancie McDermott did. (They both also subscribe to PTFS!) When EGV won, they both texted me.
messaged me on IG too. It was like I was there with them!
From Lan Lam and Nancie McDermott
WOW. I’d been an IACP bridesmaid so many times. Finally I was the 2024 bride!
Moreover, this 2024 photography award recognizes my entire Ever-Green Vietnamese visual team, in particular photographer Aubrie Pick and stylist Karen Shinto. I’ve worked with Karen on all my books and EGV was my second collaboration with Aubrie, who’s photographed folks like Dolly Parton.
So many others from publisher Ten Speed Press and elsewhere pitched in. They are usually invisible to the book-buying public, but this award spotlights some of their efforts. Neither Aubrie nor Karen have ever been formally recognized in their fields.
Aubrie passed away last year. Hours after IACP announced the award, Aubrie’s husband sent an email blast out about her one year death anniversary. He had no idea about the award. The timely tribute brought me to tears.
Aubrie cooked healthily, loved bold flavors, and appreciated doable dishes. She would have enjoyed the recipe I’m sharing today.
This recipe came to me at bedtime, while I was reading an essay by R. W. “Johnny” Apple J.R., the legendary New York Times journalist, editor, and a well-traveled eater. His food essays were published in a collection titled, Far Flung and Well Fed. During his career, Apple reported from 100 countries, including wartime Vietnam. He also visited my motherland in peacetime to write about her food. He passed away in 2006. (Apple’s food and travel writing for NYT is archived here.)
But to be honest, Apple’s command of Viet cuisine wasn’t as strong as that of western Europe, where he traveled extensively. And so it was in one of his edutaining essays on Italy that I came across mention of a pasta made with sun ripened cherry tomatoes, which in a hot skillet, bursted to release their essences.
I laid in bed thinking about the Sun Golds and Super Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes growing outside, literally about 10 feet away. As Rory snoozed, I contemplated how the juicy fruits literally bust through their delicate skins if left on the vine for for too long, or if I harshly harvested them, pulling on them too hard. Similarly, if I left them too long on the counter to keep ripening, their skin would crack, forming a fissure that was likely to attract a hungry fruit fly or me, whoever got to the tomato first (it was usually me!).
Once a cherry tomato bursts, it exposes its flesh, the flavorful tangy sweet epitome of the season.
I don’t eat a lot of pasta so I wasn’t about to recreate Apple’s dish. However I did (and still do) have cherry tomatoes. How could I experience the distilled, simple pleasures Apple described, but on Asian terms?
Borrowing the notion that the tomatoes burst in the skillet to produce a sauce, I plotted a delectable Viet-ish sauce to envelope crispy-chewy morsels of tofu. It would be my take on Đậu Hũ Sốt Cà Chua. This recipe traditionally involves deep-fried tofu but I prefer my low-fat, easy pan-frying technique, which is detailed in this post.
That’s how I came up with Spicy Tomato Tofu for you to play around with. Here’s the initial runthrough of the recipe:
On additional rounds of testing, I changed a few things. Below you’ll find the finished recipe text, downloadable PDF, plus bonus recipe development notes for your tweaking pleasure.
Per our conversations about recipe measurements, I’m trying a new style for ingredient lines. What do you think of the change?
10/2/2024 Update: Check out the recipe endnotes for bonus ways to get extra creative with the easy recipe. Spicy tomato Thai basil tofu? Spicy tomato tofu with shiitake? Spicy tomato basil tofu and greens? So many possibilities!
