salt & pepper tofu
I think salt and pepper tofu, to those that don’t know the hall-of-fame Chinese dish from their local takeaway, sounds basic. But it is FAR from basic. It is the Regina George of the tofu dishes i’ve made, but this one won’t be a mean girl, to you. I don’t know.
But go make it. Serve it as part of a feast with fried rice, noodles, or whatever you fancy babes.
SERVES 2 PEOPLE
4 min prep + 10 min cooking = 14 minutes
INGREDIENTS:
block (280g) of tofu
70g cornflour
1 tsp Chinese five spice
1 tsp MSG
few cracks of pepper
1 red chilli
5 spring onions (4 for main, 1 for topping)
2 cloves of garlic
spice mix
1 tbsp flaky salt
1 tsp MSG
few cracks of pepper
1 tsp Chinese five spice
METHOD:
Get the tofu out the packet and drain the liquid. Then chop your tofu into little tiny cubes, or bigger cubes, do it however big or small you fancy.
Pop the cornflour into a tupperware with a lid, or a medium-sized bowl, then add the five spice, msg and a few cracks of pepper. Add the tofu into the cornflour and coat each piece so that it’s covered in a nice layer of flour. If you’ve got tupperware, close the lid and shake the tofu up and down to coat all the pieces quicker.
Fry the tofu in a large frying pan on a medium/high heat with a good glug of light olive oil and fry each side for a minute until the tofu is all properly crispy.
Remove the tofu from the pan and wipe the pan clean. Next, chop the 4 spring onions, red chilli and garlic into nice thin slices and fry in that frying pan you just cleaned, you lovely human, in a little glug of oil until golden.
Whilst that’s frying, mix the spice mix ingredients together and chop that last spring onion into thin slices.
When the veggies are golden, chuck the tofu back in along with three quarters of the spice mix. Once everything is covered, serve in a bowl and top with the rest of the spice mix and that spring onion nicely sliced, by you. Done.