Spiced Tofu Stir-Fry with Celery and Bean Sprouts
Featuring a powerhouse ingredient for faster, more flavorful stir-fries
Today’s recipe is brought to you by the almost-empty bottles of Shaoxing wine and Chinese light soy sauce lurking in my slowly-emptying pantry. I mentioned last week that we’re getting ready to move to a new apartment, and in an effort to reduce the number of heavy things I’m lugging from the old cupboard to the new, I’ve been pulling out almost-empty bottles of sauces and vinegars and oils and using them as inspiration for what to cook for dinner (an exercise I recommend regardless of whether or not you’re moving).
Recently, I’ve been making a lot of stir-fries in the style of Chinese home cooking. These streamlined stir-fries usually comprise a protein, one or two vegetables, and some aromatics, and are simply seasoned with a sprinkling of soy sauce, cooking wine, and maybe a touch of toasted sesame oil. Rather than coating everything with a heavy, sticky sauce, the light touch with seasoning allows the flavors of the ingredients themselves to shine, which brings me to this dish’s flavor-packed star protein: five-spice tofu.