Soft Tofu with Broad Beans and Chili Bean Paste: A Taste of New Brooklyn Cuisine

We fell in love with Brooklyn after visiting friends that lived in Park Slope.  The various neighborhoods are filled with wonderful places to eat. Foodies have even dubbed this type of food in a sub-genre of their own-- New Brooklyn Cuisine or NBC.  This recipe came from The New Brooklyn Cookbook, a collection of recipes from restaurants from the various Brooklyn neighborhoods that spawned NBC.  This recipe is a modified version of a dish served at The General Greene, a diner in Brooklyn.

Soft Tofu with Broad Beans and Chili Bean Paste

• 12 to 14 ounces soft tofu
• 2 pounds fresh broad beans or 1 1/2 cups frozen broad beans*
• 1/4 cup canola oil**
• 2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
• 1/2 cup chile bean paste***
• 1 celery stalk, sliced thin and the leaves reserved
• 1/2 cup fresh cilantro leaves
• 1/2 cup fried broad beans

*We couldn't find broad beans and used edamame instead
**We used olive oil instead of canola
***We used a roasted chili paste instead of the bean paste
We skipped the fried broad beans.

Directions

1. In a large sauce pan, heat the oil over medium heat.  
2. Add the garlic and cook until soft and translucent (2-3 minutes).  
3. Add the chili paste (in our case the entire jar) and cook until aromatic, about 2 minutes.  
4. Add 1/2 cup water and bring to a boil. Cook until the sauce thickens.  
5. Increase the heat to high and add the edamame until heated through.
6. Combine the celery, celery leaves, cilantro in a bowl.  
7. Top the cold tofu with the broad bean mix and top that with the celery/cilantro mix and your ready to go.

While I was a bit hesitant about cold tofu, the result was actually pretty good.  The celery/cilantro mixture provided a good crunch.  The one drawback was the smell.  James observed that there was a dog food smell coming from outside.  It turns out that was us (the chili paste). Luckily, it tastes much better than it smells.