[food] salt and pepper tofu!

[kaberett]

As mentioned recently. :) It is not as good as Red Star's (who are also the reason I buy rosebuds in bulk to flavour hot water with), but it is a hell of a lot more convenient, especially over the past few years.

Ingredients
one block v. firm tofu
glutinous rice flour or cornstarch or similar
chilli -- dried flaked is fine but fresh, if straightforward, is better (adjust quantity to taste)
spring onion (also to taste)
garlic (we usually do about half a bulb)
fairly neutral oil for frying (we use groundnut, veg oil is fine, etc)
some salt (a generous pinch? up to, like, an eighth of a teaspoon?)

Method

1. In advance, set the tofu squishing, if it is tofu that needs squishing. We normally try to set it going after lunch, but more realistically it winds up being mid-afternoon.
   
2. When you are ready to cook: slice the garlic, spring onion, and chilli (if using) finely. Set to one side.
   
3. Give the tofu a last gentle squish, then cut into cuboids. I usually reckon ~1cm x ~1cm x ~2cm.
   
4. Shake A Quantity of your chosen starch (glutinous rice flour, cornstarch, other options almost certainly also work) onto a large, deep plate or shallow bowl.
   
5. Roll the tofu cuboids around in the starch ("toss to coat", is I think the standard recipe phrasing?) until they're well covered. Leave them here for a moment.
   
6. Heat up Some oil in a pan over high heat -- somewhere between 1tsp and 1tbsp depending on how good your non-stick is. Once it's good and hot, add the starch-coated tofu cubes (carefully!). You'll probably want to leave them for a couple of minutes on each side -- when the bottom edge starts getting visibly browned and crispy, flip them onto the next one. Keep doing this until you have done all four rectangular sides (the square sides will usually do Adequately while the rectangular sides Are Doing).
   
7. When the final rectangular side is looking Done, dump in the garlic/chilli/spring onion and stir-fry vigorously for about 30 seconds.
   
8. Remove pan from heat, sprinkle over the salt, give the whole thing another stir, and serve immediately -- the Good Textures (with the Crispy Outer Skin) will wilt fairly rapidly if left to sit.

Notes

• Red Star (and probably other places, but I know where I imprinted and what I was trying to recreate) serves the tofu onto a bed of sliced iceberg or similar not-very-Flavour-but-extremely-Cronch leafs. We normally do not bother.
  
• You will almost certainly have an irritating mess of your starch left over. I have taken to picking out the obvious crumbs of escaped tofu, then scraping the extras into a wee container and sticking it in the cupboard until I'm next making a batch.

Comments

[redsixwing]

Oh, yum. I'd like to try this. Thanks for the recipe!

[kaberett]

You're very welcome; enjoy!

[simont]

Hmmm. The title says "salt and pepper", but there's no pepper anywhere in the recipe?

[kaberett]

That is what it is routinely called! My guess, though I haven't actually looked it up, is that the pepper is implicit in "chilli (pepper)".

[kaberett]

Having said which. apparently both Sichuan pepper and white pepper appear in a bunch of the recipes I failed to find when I was constructing this one several months ago...

[simont]

I see, so it's pepper in the general sense, and you get a certain amount of latitude to decide which kind of pepper you personally prefer to put in it :-)

[rugessnome]

Chinese Cooking Demystified (on YouTube) say it's typically either Sichuan peppercorn or white peppercorn in "salt and pepper x" but they did mention that chili peppers got lumped in with the same common character that's used in the word/phrase(?) for this type of dish.

[kaberett]

Hee! MANY thanks for providing this Knowledge.

[sfred]

Thank you!

[kaberett]

You're welcome! :-)

(For your amusement: when he got the notification I'd made a new post, Adam expressed surprise that I hadn't yet posted this to DW...)

[sfred]

:-D

[vass]

Thanks for the reminder to get some tofu next time I'm shopping. It's been too long. (I haven't felt like frying anything. But now I'm thinking about it.)

[kaberett]

Hee! Enjoy <333

[lunabee34]

That sounds so delicious.

[kaberett]

It is VERY GOOD. We do also cook A Vegetable to go with it, but -- we are Very fond of it.

[judiff]

We like can’t eat tofu (soya intolerance) but one of the Smalls has been cooking with it a lot recently - so is it OK to pass this recipe on to them?

[kaberett]

Absolutely! Please do :)

I don't think I knew about your soy intolerance -- please accept this expression of horrified commiseration. <3