Tandoori Tofu and Vegetables

(Originally posted on Saturday, May 29, 2004 by Tim)

As Cathy already posted, we are making tandoori tofu tonight. It smells wonderful, but feels like a cheating. The tandoori marinade is yogurt and "commercial tandoori marinade". It's the sort of recipe that has me trapped in the ethnic foods aisle of the grocery store for about a half an hour. The first 15 minutes is spent trying to find the tandoori related liquids and pastes. After that there is the required agonizing over what is closest to "commercial tandoori marinade". Is it "Paul Newman's Tandoori Ranch Salad Dressing" or "Texas Bob's Fire Hot Barby-Q Tandoori Sauce". In the end I settled on "Neera's Spicy Tandoori Indian Grilling Paste" because it had "spicy" in the name, and because it was manufactured in the Indian culinary center of the universe, Prescott Arizona.

Tandoori Tofu and Vegetables
2/3 cup "Commercial Tandoori Marinade"
1 cup plain yogurt
12-16 oz. firm or firmer tofu cut into 1/2 inch squares
1 medium eggplant sliced into 1/2 inch rounds
1 green pepper cut into 2 inch squares
1 red pepper cut into 2 inch squares
1 medium red onion cut into 8 wedges
1/4 lb button mushrooms
1 pint cherry tomatoes

Mix the "Commercial Tandoori Marinade" and the plain yogurt. Add the tofu to this mixture and marinade overnight in the refrigerator or for several hours at room temperature.

Remove the tofu from the marinade and set aside. Toss the eggplant rounds in the marinade and allow them to sit for 15 minutes.

Preheat oven to 450^oF

Remove the eggplant from the marinade and set aside. Coat peppers, onion wedges, button mushrooms, and cherry tomatoes in remaining marinade (there will not be too much marinade left for this).

Place the tofu and vegetables on baking sheets that have been sprayed with PAM. Arrange all pieces so that they are not touching each other (this took me three baking sheets). Put loaded sheets in oven and bake for 10 minutes. Flip tofu and vegetables and bake for an additional 10 minutes. Serve hot with brown rice.

This meal was tasty, but the flavor was very similar to a tofu satay recipe that I have yet to post. I'll probably make the tofu satay in the future because that recipe is slightly better and doesn't require "commercial tandoori marinade". The official recipe for this meal has you grilling the tofu and vegetables on skewers. If you're a fan of grilling on skewers, it works great on them as well. I just don't feel I get enough of a difference in taste with the grill attachment on our oven to make it worth the additional cleaning time.