This is a new recipe I just tried out tonight. I guess it wasn’t a recipe before because I didn’t follow any. I just made it up as I went. What I used:
- 2 blocks of tofu — cut into small chunks
- 1 cup of white rice
- Sugar
- Teriyaki sauce
- Rice Vinegar
- Light Corn Syrup
- Sweet and Sour sauce
- Red Pepper Flakes
- Garlic Powder
- Flour
- Corn Starch
- Sunflower Oil
- Water
The amounts of everything I do not know as I was just adding as I saw fit. The sauce consisted of Light Corn Syrup, Sweet and Sour Sauce, Red Pepper Flakes, Garlic Powder, Rice Vinegar, Sugar, and Teriyaki Sauce. I put in the amount I thought I wanted, adding some more here and some more there. Then I set it aside for later as that was one of the last things needed.
Coating Tofu In Flour
I cut all my tofu up and put it in a large metal mixing bowl. In another smaller bowl, I mixed (approximately) 6 parts flour to 1 part corn starch. It was probably even less corn starch than that, but I am not certain. (I am not sure if the corn starch actually did much. I think I won’t use it next time.) I mixed it together and threw it on to the tofu. Then, I tossed the tofu around, making sure to not break up the chunks more than they already were.
Deep-Frying Tofu
Once the tofu chunks were all coated with flour I put about an inch of sunflower oil in the bottom of a wok and turned the heat up high. After it got up to temperature, I started putting tofu chunks in. I let them set in there for a while (3-4 minutes), turning them around occationally. Then I took them out and put in the next batch.
While cooking the tofu, I started cooking rice. Just follow the instructions on the bag (usually 2 cups water to 1 cup rice). Boil water, put rice in, lower heat and cover for 20 minutes. Remove from heat and simmer for 5 minutes.
Using The Sauce
After my tofu was done, I emptied out the oil (into a glass jar to be thrown away later). I put the tofu back into the pan and started up the heat again (to about medium). After a few minutes (to get the pan heated up, along with the tofu bits) I sturred up my sauce because it had separated. I threw the sauce in with the tofu and stirred it around, coating all the tofu pieces with the sauce. Let it sit a little, stirring occasionally so the sauce soaks into the tofu and breading you created from deep-frying.
The rice was done by now so I put some rice on a plate, put some tofu on a plate, and ate it. It turned out pretty good.
Notes
There are a few changes I would make next time though. I seem to never be able to cook rice correctly. This time I DID cook it correctly, BUT I made it too soon. The rice was done before I was even half done deep-frying my tofu. So in that time, the rice started to dry out. So, cook your rice towards the end. It takes time to deep-fry tofu.
I would also take a separate smaller pan and make another bowl of sauce. Put the sauce in the smaller pan and “cook” it. Just heat it up and stir it around until warm. Do this at the VERY end as well. Low heat! Since the sauce is mainly sugar-based (think about all the ingredients and how much sugar is in all of them), if it is a high heat you will burn the sauce. And even though I love the smell of burning sugar, I like eating food more.
Finally, I think I MIGHT deep-fry my tofu longer. It was good how I had it, but I like my tofu a little crispier than it was.
Let me know if you try this recipe out. What did you change? How did it turn out?
drew (at) pliskinake (dot) com