Breaded Tofu and Kiwi Lime Salsa Spiced by Fucked Up and Penguins Kill Polar Bears

The Cuzco Alpaca Spit begin their season today hoping to improve on last year's position. If you've never heard of them, no worries, they are a fantasy baseball team. I've done fantasy baseball almost every year since I was eleven or twelve, it was something my father and I would do together. Over the years my team has gone through many name changes. Among them: the Pearl Penguins, Smashing Penguins, Charlie Manson's, Stone Temple Penguins, the Holy Hand Grenades, Trench Coat Mafia and Alpaca Spit (great expectoration's baby!). A similar fate has befallen the kiwifruit. It has, at different times and places, been called: Macaque Peach, Macaque Pear, Vine Pear, Sunny Peach, Wood Berry, Hairy Bush Fruit, Unusual Fruit or Wonder Fruit. Recently I worked with the Hairy Bush Fruit to create a salsa to top breaded tofu.

Breaded Tofu and Kiwi Lime Salsa
(printable version)

-1 package of firm tofu, frozen then thawed
-2 cups veggie broth
-1/2 cup flour
-3 Tbs. nutritional yeast
-salt and pepper (to taste)
-1/4 tsp. cayenne
-vegetable oil
-1 jalapeno
-2 kiwi, skin removed and sliced thinly
-1 1/2 Tbs. lime juice
-cilantro

1. Slice the tofu into rectangular pieces. Soak in the vegetable broth for 1 hour.

2. In a large metal bowl. Mix the flour, nutritional yeast, cayenne, salt and pepper. Towel off the tofu (by gently pressing down with a paper towel). Dredge the tofu in the flour mixture.

3. Heat enough vegetable oil to cover the bottom of a skillet over medium heat. When warm, add the tofu. Fry the tofu on each side until browned (took about 3 minutes). Remove from the oil and place on a paper towel lined plate. Repeat until all tofu has been fried.

4. In another bowl mix the jalapeno, kiwi, lime juice and cilantro.

5. Arrange the tofu on a plate. Top with kiwi salsa.

Nothing says kiwifruit salsa like the sounds of Fucked Up's new album, David Comes to Life. While the album itself, a rock opera/play that tells the story of David and his lost love and the subsequent internal conversations that take place between him and the narrator, isn't out until June 7th (on Matador Records), the band posted their first single from it last week. Previous Fucked Up installments have seen the lot of the lyrics performed by growly voiced frontman Father Damien/Pink Eyes with little bits of female backing vocals scattered here and there. "The Other Shoe," the bands first of four singles from the new album, features a much more prominent Mustard Gas (Sally Miranda) on vocals. It feels almost like a beauty and the beast combo as she sweetly mentions "dying on the inside" in the chorus/refrain before Damien inserts his signature beastly verses. Fucked Up is one of the few bands that never seem to let me down, they always seem to put out songs that I can listen to over and over. "The Other Shoe" is no different and it has officially gotten me to start counting the days until the new album hits stores.

Fucked Up-The Other Shoe

Also appropriate, especially since most of my early fantasy teams involved the moniker penguin (my father's nickname), is Scotland rocker's Penguins Kill Polar Bears. These guys released a two song EP, Vessels and Veins, in February. You can grab it for free over at their soundcloud page. "Lungs" is loud and industrialized so watch the neighbors.