Braised Baby Bok Choy and Tofu with Madeira Mirin Glaze

We have a really fun cookbook called The Elements of Taste (which I like because it reminds me of The Elements of Style). The chapters are called things like "Salty," "Sweet," "Bulby," "Garden," "Oceanic," and "Funky." We made scallops from it a while ago, and had leftovers of the madeira mirin glaze:

Madeira Mirin Glaze

1/2 cup Madeira
1/2 cup soy sauce
1 cup unseasoned rice wine vinegar
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup finely diced peeled ginger

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Combine all of the ingredients except 1 tbsp of the ginger in a saucepan. Bring the mixture to a simmer over medium heat then reduce, stirring occasionally, to a syrup, about five minutes. Refrigerate until needed and add the remaining teaspoon of ginger before serving.

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Notes we scribbled in the margin:
We used red wine instead of Madeira because we didn't have any and didn't want to go get any. Even with that, it still seemed too sweet; I think we'd use less sugar or more vinegar next time.

I hadn't really made any plans for cooking anything but have recently noticed I don't get enough protein, so just bok choy and rice wasn't going to be enough food, so I got a block of tofu and cut it into cubes and put it in a ziploc bag to marinate with probably 1/4 cup of the mirin glaze, 1/2 cup of soy sauce, and 1/4 cup of rice vinegar, with a couple glugs of sesame oil because I love it. It marinated for probably a couple of hours while I watched the Simpsons and Buffy and we started brown rice risotto:

Brown Rice Risotto
We just made this up. I forgot that it was going to take more liquid and more time because of being brown rice, but it still turned out pretty good.
2 large cloves of garlic, diced finely
1 smallish shallot, also diced finely
enough butter/olive oil to saute those things in
3/4 cup brown rice
1 carton of broth + some water after you remember that brown rice takes more liquid.
Some wine, just for fun.

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It took a long time for the rice to start softening, but once it did, it finished cooking pretty quickly.
The whole carton of broth resulted in the risotto being very rich and flavorful - it was very delicious, but combined with a bunch of other salty foods it was a little much. Next time, half water and half broth.
Also we didn't put any cheese, like one does with traditional risotto. That was OK.

So while that cooked (which took forever), I trimmed and washed (I love it when my vegetables come with dirt on them!) the baby bok choy for a recipe Robin sent me:

Braised Baby Bok Choy (serves 2)
1 cup broth
2 tbsp unsalted butter (there's never really a reason to buy salted butter, as far as I can tell)
3/4 lb baby bok choy, trimmed and cleaned, etc.
1/2 tsp sesame oil (yay!)

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Bring broth and butter to a boil (alliteratively) in a large deep skillet. "Arrange bok choy evenly in skillet"* and simmer, covered, until tender, about 5 minutes. Transfer bok choy to dish and cover to keep warm.
Boil broth until reduced to about 1/4 cup, then stir in sesame oil and pepper to taste. Pour mixture over bok choy.

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* "arrange bok choy evenly in skillet" = dump it in.
We used the wider of the two stockpots because the big big skillet was full of risotto.
This was delicious. We made 1 pound (because that's how much there was in the baggie of baby bok choy we got in the International District that morning) and I still wanted more.
from http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/103970

As soon as all the risotto and the bok choy were done and the broth was reducing, I heated up a nonstick skillet with a few shakes of sesame oil (did I mention I love this stuff?) and when it was hot, took the tofu cubes out of their bag with a slotted spoon and put them in the pan. They fried a little, though there were so many of them that it was impossible to get them all cooked on all sides. Still, every cube had at least one side of good yummy sear. Then risotto in a bowl, tofu on top, yum yum, and when the bowl was empty, bok choy with juice, delicious.
And I have leftover tofu for lunch. Life is good.