vegan post: chinese-style fried tofu with garlic ginger sauce

I made this “chinese-style” dinner last night wishing for something like a hot garlic sauce dish but not wanting to go out. I looked for a few recipes online to get some idea, and then I just set out on my own. In the end it was pretty tasty, but it could definitely use some tweeking.

Ingredients:

A package of tofu

Cornstarch to batter to the tofu

Some good veggies: we used half an onion, a green pepper, 3 scallions, a crown of brocolli

For the sauce:

1-2 cups vegetable stock or water (we used a cup a stock and then thought it was yucky and used water)

3-4 tbsp soy sauce

2 tbsp cornstarch for thickening

3 tbsp sugar

1 metric ton garlic

1 metric ton ginger

~ 1 tbsp sriracha hot sauce

To prepare the tofu:

Press the tofu for one hour. Don’t cut it before you press it. Place it inbetween some towels and put something heavy on top (like an iron skillet and a kettle full of water). Do one side for half an hour then split. You will have to occasionally change or wring out your towels. Now cut the tofu length-wise and then into 1/4″ slices. Cut the thin rectangles you get into triangles.

Batter the tofu in cornstarch. This will make it have a nice crispy outside when you fry it. We throw the tofu in a big tupperware with a bunch of cornstarch and shake it up. Now you fry it. Add a bunch of oil to a big pan, skillet or wok and get it nice and hot. Probably medium to medium high heat. Throw the tofu in and cook until it gets crispy (make sure you get both sides of the tofu.

Sauce:

While you are preparing the tofu, also prepare the sauce. I improvised this so there is no real order to adding ingredients and I tended to do it a bit at a time, but I’ll give a rough approximation of what I think should be done. Boil a couple cups vegetable stock/water. Add the sugar, soy sauce, sriracha, and cornstarch. You might want to dissolve the cornstarch in a little water first so it doesn’t form clumps. Let that thicken a little (probably just a minute). You may need to add cornstarch to get the right consistency. Then add you garlic and ginger. Jessica peeled a head of garlic, and I put about half of that in the sauce and half in later with the veggies. I added an equal amount of ginger to the sauce. Let that cook for a bit.

To finish up, chop up your veggies and fry them up with the tofu. We put the onion in first and let that get a little translucent. Then we added the broccoli, pepper, scallions and garlic cooking for a couple minutes. Add the sauce on top and cook it for a couple more minutes. We covered the pan for a bit while this cooked to try and steam the broccoli and peppers a bit.

And you’re done. When we made it, we thought it could’ve used a little more sauce and a little less ginger. It would probably be good to serve over rice (though we didn’t). We’ll definitely be experimenting with this again, and probably refining it into a more precise recipe.